Self-portrait as a Fortified Town
One of the highlights of today was seeing the exhibit “Mirrors” as the last of six exhibits on Discovering Identity at the Falmouth Art Center. The Falmouth Art Center has a permanent collection as well as a rotating series of exhibits and in the permanent collection I scrutinized the paint texture and application of some of the well-known artists from Cornwall - Henry Scott Tuke and Arthur Melville- and then some of the more recent and current painters whose work was part of the self-identity series. I was most fascinated by Grayson Perry’s map of a fortified town as a representation of his self-portrait, showing streets, parks and buildings all renamed as elements of himself over time which you can see below. Some of these streets and buildings are named things like: “Don’t care”, “shopping”, “anecdotage” on the street of “tired habits” near buildings labeled “charisma”, “dark secret”, “lashing out”, “low impulse control” near the streets of “churning insecurity”, “rationalism”, the forest of bravado and the river of paranoia, among many other details. One could spend a couple of hours examining this large “map” full of layers of identity and complexity.
I met another artist here from Belgium who was sitting on the floor of the gallery with his art supplies out and sketching a skull in one of the paintings in the permanent collection. We were both leaving at the same time and I asked him about his sketching which launched a half hour conversation on the steps about sketching, art, passion for both and also his plans for more travel. We exchanged instagram handles to stay in touch. His photo is below. Such a sparkling personality!
From here I caught the ferry to St. Mawes, a small island about 20 minutes by ferry from Falmouth Docks. On the ferry I struck up a conversation with a man from Scotland with his Jack Russell and he told me that this was his dog’s first boatride and he was one years old. The dog was eager to climb up the steps to see over the top of the boat but his owner wouldn’t let him because he didn’t have his life jacket on. He gave me some advice for places to go on Mawes and I can’t remember what other chitchat we had but it was all very upbeat.
After disembarking, I wandered along the harbor street and settled on a pub with outdoor seating called the Rising Sun. While I was waiting for my food I noticed a snail stretched out of its shell drinking very slowly and gently the water in a leaf which had accumulated from the two hours of rain that had fallen during the morning. The snail seemed so vulnerable there and so innocently slowly moving in the leaf litter around the water. Apparently the last rainfall was about six weeks ago so I imagine this snail was very thirsty. I wondered how long it had taken to make its shell and I covered it with a palm frond so that any small child who might come by to sit there wouldn’t be tempted to pick it up and do something with it.
After watching the snail and then eating my soup, a couple came by with two dogs and decided to sit at the table next to mine. I was already in the middle of sketching but we struck up a conversation about their dogs and eventually the man who was very friendly told me he was fascinated by artists and leases real estate to art galleries, mainly in London. He told me that they were going to St. Ives and that he had been reading a book called The Secret Painter about a man named Joe Tucker who hid his painting practice from everyone until the year before he died when he thought he could share his work. He apparently lived in St. Ives and the book just came out last year and is a bestseller, so i ordered a copy for my kindle so that I can read it this coming week in Polzeath.
His son Freddie apparently is fascinated by plants and told me I should check out the Lamorran House Gardens up the hill before heading back to Falmouth. On my way up the hill I stopped in a little gallery called Tregony Contemporary where the husband and wife owners gave me a book showing representative works by some of the artists they exhibit and convinced me to buy a book about an artist Mark Dunford https://tregonycontemporary.com/Artists/dunford-mark/ Lamorran Gardens is a sub-tropical garden that covers 4 acres on the steep slope over the town, and when I finally made it there after the steep climb for 45 minutes, one of the two gardeners let me in for free because there wasn’t much time before the gardens closed. I marveled at the dense foliage of all these palms and bamboo and countless other plants all fitting together around stone steps and little wooden bridges and pagodas and pergolas and statuary hidden among ferns. It was like a magical spot that was also a maze. Each area was numbered so that with a map you could find your way around. Kids could have so much fun hiding and chasing one another in there but after the rain it was a bit slippery and treacherous on the stones. As I walked down the steep hill back to the ferry, I wondered how anyone could drive stick shift around here where they often had to back up on such a steep slope since the streets wouldn’t allow two cars to pass!
While waiting for the ferry I stopped into a small gallery that was about to have an opening of a show of gouache paintings by Sophie Velzian and I loved her book sho much that I purchased that one, too. It’s called My Helford Sketchbook.
My final evening in Falmouth was a relaxing soak in the pool and the hot tub outside and then a small dinner up in the hotel before going to sleep (only to be awakened at 3 am by seagulls making all sorts of disturbing noises and calls). I slept in until 9 am this morning, the 31st, and after breakfast and packing, went down to the beach and sat and sketched a few people in my sketchbook then went back up to the hotel to have a small lunch and then sit and talk with Rob the gardener out in the spa gardens about his love of plants and empathy for the gulls. He said that it is so easy to be envious of others’ lives when you are traveling but that everyone has something that gives them anxiety or pain and that animals are the same. We are all just trying to be creatures on this planet and get along. I made it to Polzeath after train and taxi and am so happy to be with family. A beautiful airbnb overlooking the ocean!