Guest Post: Andrew Lee on Asparagus

I was in South Cornwall recently. This little gem of a shop serves the local communities of Par, Tywardreath and St Blazey. (My friend Eve will laugh if she reads this, but I was never sure where I was in this conurbation!) I went in asking where the Post Office was and bought some sweet williams and fat asparagus. Although I never went back for any of the tempting produce advertised here, maybe next time?

 

Andrew Lee

Andrew Lee is an artist whose work has featured previously on these pages. And there's more on his website.

New Publication: Doverodde

Doverodde

Twenty short prose pieces about the harbour village of  Doverodde in Denmark, 

illustrated with photographs.

Bird Editions, Oxford, 2012.

Softcover: £12.95

Available to preview and purchase here.

* * * 

Doverodde shelters in an oxbow on the Limfjord, a glacial channel separating North Jutland from mainland Denmark. Nancy Campbell was Writer-in-Residence in Doverodde during the month leading up to the Doverodde Book Arts Festival in May 2012. The location lay behind the choice of theme for the Festival: On The Margins (or 'Udkant' in Danish).

'Despite the relative isolation of Doverodde, there was always something happening to justify walking away from my studio for a few moments – a boat launch, a flower market, a disagreement between dogs. Alongside work on poems about the region's geology and waterways, I began to collect notes about my everyday experiences in the village. These sketches developed into short prose pieces, published daily on my website for the entertainment of Doverodde’s residents and more distant friends. This selection from those writings provides a dose of life on the margins of Denmark.'

Limfjord Lines

During April and May 2012 I was writer-in-residence at the Book Arts Center at the Limfjordscentret, located in a historic merchant’s building by the Limfjord in North Jutland, Denmark. This month-long residency culminated in the Doverodde Book Arts Festival IV and Symposium.

Limfjord Lines, an exhibition of my work about the region, will run in the Doverodde Købmandsgård Gallery from 22 May until 24 June 2012. Doverodde, a new publication containing writing from the residency, is also available.

Farewell to Doverodde

 Mors seen from Doverodde at dusk

This month in Doverodde has been rich in experiences and highly productive. I intend to return to the Limfjord in years to come, both in order to continue work on themes suggested by this residency, and also to initiate new projects. 



I've found daily posting a rewarding challenge. The posts are scribbled down in the time around work on Limfjord Lines, the poetry installation I am preparing for exhibition in the Limfjordcenter. Sometimes the posts are not finished to my satisfaction, and I know that sitting on them for a day or two would improve them, but I have to click 'publish' if I'm to keep to my promise. The blog is a great platform for sifting ideas. Sometimes I start writing the day's post - on the creature in the tower for example, or the seagull and the iron age barrow, or the sick child's island - to find it grows longer and longer, and those writings have developed in other directions. (Of course, then I need to find something else to slot into the day's diary.) Some experiences  I sought out hoping they would make interesting posts, such as the trip to Mors on the ferry, but they have become poems instead.

This week my solitude was exchanged for conviviality when a congress of artists arrived in Doverodde for the Book Arts Festival. I'm sure fragments of this landscape will reappear in their work too.


Limfjord Lines will run in the Doverodde Købmandsgård Gallery from 22 May until 24 June 2012.

Doverodde Diary: Day 22 (Sunday Special) - Black Sheep

This week Doverodde Diary’s World of Exteriors Sunday Special brings you an art world exclusive. Never before have works by anonymous guerrilla artist ‘Black Sheep’ been seen in the press.

Black Sheep was nowhere to be seen

There are many sheep in the gently rolling hills around Doverodde, but one is a prodigy. ‘Black Sheep’ (whose true identity remains a mystery even to our intrepid reporter) visits the village by night, leaving intricate crocheted works on drainpipes, handrails and even around the trees.

We believe Black Sheep be a native of the Thy region, for each work responds with subtlety to the colours and textures of its surroundings. 

These works bring flowers where there were none, and cover rude metal in woolen moss and bare bark with cotton lichen. 

A fringe of ivy leaves blows from a hydrant

Some works (below) have been spotted within buildings, indicating that as well as possessing a far from sheepish stealth, Black Sheep may have leanings towards cat-burglary.

Our resident art critic suggests that this may be a self-portrait. It is certainly far from unlikely that it displays an element of the sympathy felt by one four-legged creature for another.

Let us hope that Black Sheep will be a bellweather for textile arts in Doverodde, and maybe even further afield.

Editor's Note: We are pleased to report that last week's feature on Woodpiles has inspired our colleagues in Wales to file a related feature. We look forward to further updates from our loyal readers on marginal woodpiles worldwide.

Doverodde Diary: Day 21 - For The Dogs

Doverodde Diary: Day 20 - To The End

There’s a local idiom for strolling to the end of the jetty and turning round, returning: al vende bro, literally, to turn the bridge. Over the years, as more and more boats have sought moorings here, the jetty has grown longer, and there are new bridges to turn. The timber extensions crook across the fjord, pinching vessels within their planks.

It takes four and a half minutes to walk from my desk to the very end of the jetty. I make the short journey several times a day - it is easy to spend as long looking into the water as writing about the water. And after all, the bridge has two ends at which to turn.