monks walk

 

  

monks walk

past 

this house

in silence

 

from the churchyard

grave boned

across the muddy field

cowled

in single file

 

monks walk past this house

a millennium  march

save no-one but me sees them

processing hooded

 

monks walk past this house

and I follow

in their wake

step by step

in time

 

 

 

the passage of time

  

silence

 

 

observation/reflection/enlightenment

 

 

 

 

 

 procession for hilary

 

interment

 

 

These pictures chart a healing process undertaken through photography.

 

'The Silence' is a mixed-media image constructed over a number of years using photography, collage and photo-copying techniques.

The man split in two is me. In between is a photograph of my father and my sister, Hilary. My father died aged forty eight of a massive heart attack. Hilary died aged eight. She pedalled her bike from behind a bus to cross the road. Her God-father, our family doctor, was waving at her. She never made it to the other side.

 

The tape across my mouth symbolises the silence that followed in the wake of these deaths. No-one explained anything to me. Not family, not friends, not my school, not anyone. I was left alone, a ten year old, in deafening silence as I tried to figure out things myself.

 

'Observation/reflection/enlightenment' is about coming to terms with death and then the subsequent birth of both a learning disabled son and a physically and learning disabled grandson.

 

All things pass. Eventually.

 

The photograph was taken on a Lomo, a little plastic film camera. I took it in a lift at work surrounded by reflected light.

 

'Procession for Hilary' is the only photograph in the series rendered in colour, and deliberately so. A Mexican mariachi celebration.

 

It's part in homage to Anton Corbyn's brilliant 'Atmosphere' video, part in homage to Peter Blake's sublime Parade collage work.

 

The final piece is 'Interment'. Is this the final resting place for the ashes of Hilary or just an eye on the ever unfolding universe?

 

a church is not a building

A church is not a building, a church is a body of people who meet to worship and serve Christ. 

So here we are working together as one body in readiness for a wedding party from the village.  The congregation may be small but the team-work to get to this place has been brilliant. It's almost the end of Phase 1 of a major project to renovate the building.  There's a new kitchen, new toilet facilities and a fantastic oak-porch to welcome visitors, congregation and clergy alike.

Cob-webs are swept, pews are polished, the spiral staircase to the bell-tower is dusted down and Christmas decorations go up. 

We work alongside the specialist building and conservation team who've been carrying out the renovations over the past few months. They show us the medieval tiling hidden beneath a trapdoor close to the entrance. And as we pause to reflect we're reminded we're just part of the on-going procession of worshipers that stretches back over a thousand years or more.

One body in Christ.