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| Porthmeor Beach... |
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| Godrevy Lighthouse... |
Rag and Bone Man
Driftwood gathered from weathered shores,
Vomited and churned
By stern, unforgiving, depositary tides,
Into clever, artistic crafts to sell are turned,
Its natural shape its new form to decide…
Driftwood collected from battered beaches,
Hurled and spewed
By wild, unremitting, repository seas,
Bought cheaply and resold, a profit accrued,
An incongruous similarity of industry…
Pete Ray
June 2015
Alfred Wallis was known as a rag and bone man, operating from his ‘Maritime Stores’ on the seafront at St Ives, Cornwall. He bought and sold driftwood for example, from the beaches there, rather similar to ‘artists’ today, who use their finds to create pieces of artwork to sell too…
Primitive, Really…
Another cardboard box.
Pull it open.
Utilise it.
Daub it quickly.
Ship’s paint applied.
Greys and darker for an engulfing ocean.
Dull masses, maybe,
As outcrop rocks.
Another featured lugger.
Centre it. Recall.
Maximise it.
Infill it quickly.
Dark paint supplied.
Black and angles for the enclosing jetties.
Dull slab, maybe,
For Mount’s vigour.
Another boat perhaps.
Angle it so.
Marginalise it.
Brush it quickly.
Black paint deployed.
Whites and lines for the sails and houses.
Brown symbols, maybe,
Like aerial maps…
Pete Ray
June 2015
I looked at Alfred Wallis’ paintings and I felt confused and harassed when I tried to see him working.
Interesting that some symbols looked like those on maps, despite the manner in which boats, houses and fish were depicted…
Bernard Leach’s Tiles…
Hewn stone’s rooted permanence buffeted by gales
And whipped by salted breezes
Peers cold and forbidding
Over a bay’s stark presence
And legendary maritime tales…
Tiny chapel’s stoic reverence blighted by style
And weathered by human whim
Displays, cold and ceramic
Across its floor’s worn surface,
Wallis’ nautical, memorial tiles…
Pete Ray
June 2015
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| The chapel... |
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| Above and below: Leach's memorial tiles to Alfred Wallis inside the chapel, overlooking Porthmeor Beach, St Ives... |
The Island Chapel, overlooking Porthmeor Beach, St Ives, contains tiles created by Bernard Leach, to celebrate Alfred Wallis’ achievements. Leach was also responsible for the remarkable Wallis grave, also pictured below.
I took an image of the artist’s well used Godrevy Lighthouse from Wallis’ resting place and the vision was clear…
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| The grave... |
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| Detail... |
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| More detail... |
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| Image taken from his grave... |
Fridge Magnets…
To bring Alfred Wallis’ prolific art to life,
A rectangular, bordered metal tray
Would suffice to create his maritime strife
And the sky and a troubled ocean’s hues of grey…
Magnets, assorted and sold of course, separately,
Shaped like the artist’s crude representations,
Would be placed anywhere upon the metallic canvas
To reproduce unique and Primitive simulations…
Schooners, luggers, three-masters, fish
And houses, all different colours and sizes;
Jetties, trees, headlands, Brunel’s Saltash bridge,
St Michael’s Mount in various disguises.
Godrevy lighthouse though, would be the key
To the seascape’s crowded montage:
The focal point, the irrevocable guide,
To a fridge-magnet Wallis collage…
Pete Ray
June 2015
After visiting St Ives and Porthmeor Beach, above which artist Alfred Wallis is buried, I looked at prints of his paintings and it struck me that a simple painted metal frame, the size of an opened Quaker Oats box perhaps, could be used as a canvas for fridge-magnets depicting Wallis’ primitive boats, harbour walls, bridges and fish, etc.
It seems fitting, somehow…
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| Where he lived... |
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| ...and again... |
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