24 April 2014
Ann’s Journal …..! Thoughts and meanderings from my occasional diary pages
It’s not every day that I write something I might want to share but from time to time I do - and it is good to say hello. So I hope you enjoy my occasional
Recharging the batteries! Hello again; it is Saturday 19th April and I am sitting in our caravan alongside this beautiful river, right on the Shropshire/Welsh border. I won’t be able to post these pages however until we return home, as we have no WiFi and not even a mobile phone signal. Bliss - absolute quiet (unless you go down to the water’s edge and listen to the sound of the river rushing by). Swallows swoop, lambs bleat; it is very frosty at night but the sun has shone every day since we arrived, until today which is a misty drizzle.!
meanderings in Ann’s Journal. I hope you will add the blog in which I am posting this to your favourites. You can also find me on Facebook: https:// www.facebook.com/ ann.somersetmiles as well as Twitter: https://twitter.com/ a_somersetmiles also my various Blogs. I hope you enjoy what you discover.
Knucklas Hill, near Knighton, Powys. My collage backing incorporates a local map. Ann Somerset Miles
Ahead of us, over the river and the Knighton to Newtown country road, is a truly spectacular high ‘hillock’, in fact an ancient castle mound and bailey with a ver y long
(author & photo journalist)
1
24 April 2014
history. It is incredibly steep, but with a stepped pathway carved into the hillside. I’ve only climbed it once before, after heavy rain, when my feet went slip-sliding in all directions. Conveniently placed ropes help one to drag one’s body up the hard parts, though I wandered off, following old animal tracks, for I am still adding to my collection of bare-tree images. Somewhat inaccessible!! I’ve been able to indulge myself in creative work for the last few days, apart from photography. To be able to spend hours at a time practising photo-manipulation techniques, which are a little different on my new lap-top, has been particularly restful. (No thought of work!) Instead, I started to organise my notebooks for two summer exhibitions in which I have been invited to participate. All my jottings of the last few months are now organised into projects.!
This is one of eight pages in an earlier map zig-zag ‘Nature Trail’ which I created about three years ago - it’s a little tatty now as I use it to demonstrate what is possible, whilst reminding myself of the processes involved. The river is the same as the one at the start of this journal entry: the River Teme on the Shropshire / Welsh border a few miles outside Knighton, Powys.
In progress: this year, my booklets will be housed in their own handmade ‘bags’. This sheet uses napkin snippets waxed onto paper. Various processes will be involved to render it more like fabric, which will then be cut and stitched into pouches to fit the booklets also based on maps, words and napkins.
A trial collage of images taken at Cascob - only a half-hour’s drive away from our campsite. I’m reading an academic book based on this tiny hamlet in Radnorshire: ‘At the Bright Hem of God’ by Peter J.Conradi. I tracked down the location on the map. Such a history.
I need to create about six for each venue. I also worked my way through hundreds of my images, allocating them to the various project folders. I sorted relevant ‘wordwhispers’ - some written specially for these new paper/ textile booklets; and actually began preparing some of the pages - again based on maps, with napkins ‘waxed’ over them so they become translucent. Back home, they will be fused to muslin and stitched, and then assembled into booklets. I haven’t a clue what to charge for them! ! More news next week. Goodbye for now. Ann. x! Ann Somerset Miles
(author & photo journalist)
2