I’m in love!

I’m in love with an image…sometimes it just gets me this way – inspiration doesn’t just glow but comes with a wallop and a hunger. When I was sailing in Canada last month I saw a complex arrangement of shapes (old steel mills) across the lake in the glow of the setting sun. Yes I know they are pushing out pollution!! But, observing them with an unpolluted eye, the pattern of related shapes in the closely harmonizing light was quite compelling. Click click into the mind’s camera. “I am a camera …” as noted by John van Druten in his played based on Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories during WWII – observing the living film noir of those times.

Then yesterday I saw a photograph of mills in this week’s news magazine…..a different light, different shapes but the same raw mix of taut square buildings against sky and water….

And finally this morning reading over breakfast (such a delightful thing to do!! I hate chirpy breakfast conversation!!) I came across a painting by Pissarro – oh yes! Mill+sky+water – even better was the foggy light he conveyed. And look at all the gorgeous atmospheric space!!

I love the effects of fog and the neutral palette and have made several quilts about that.

Architects have recognized the beauty of these old industrial buildings – for example, the Tate Modern Museum on the bank of the River Thames in London was a power plant.

Several of the beautiful old woolen mills in Yorkshire are now galleries and shops. Here’s a picture of Salt’s Mill where David Hockney has a gallery.

And so, I have a direction…….I’m off to England next month (with the friend in the green mac above!) so I’ll be looking out for more examples, and then when I come back….dyeing greys and browns and rusts and oranges….

And, if you have been, thanks for reading!!