The ancient (Saxon origin) historic church opposite as seen through the doorway of our former-chapel studio seen from the opposite direction in this recent post.
A peaceful, contemplative and deeply appreciated environment, for sure – though it did once feel like a place of exile, a recollection which has resonance with the poem by Mahmoud Darwish referred to in my last post. We have the noble tree, the linden tree shown, and we live in and amongst these sacred built places and we have the sky, shared by all. Lincolnshire is famous for its huge skies, Peter de Wint came from here and this is also the land of Tennyson the poet. We are not far from the East coast and North Sea and the region is steeped in history but not art history – so different to Florence. The heritage that there is in the large number of ancient rural churches is remarkable. Our Chapel goes back to about 1870 or so and it is a former Methodist church. This means that it was built as a place of meeting, not consecrated in the way that churches such as the one facing us has been. This gives us a real feeling of openess within. We are able to concentrate on work very well here – and no one disturbs us even though we leave our front doors open when we are in the studio. The restoration of our building is ongoing – as and when we find some time to give to it. The potential is boundless, as with all things – it is a way of life in which frustration at what can be done has to be balanced out with focus on what is being done – we keep making new work and over that we have control.
