Hand painted on a Derby Porcelain teapot stand is a scene of Burley in Derbyshire. It shows a hill and a river with a bend.
My map confirms that the River Derwent flows past Burley Hill and has a distintive bend at that point. A good start. There’s a problem though, no public footpath where I need to go. Not easily thwarted, I go anyway.
I get to Burley and approach the area but I’m stopped in my tracks by a water treatment works with a high perimeter fence. Noticing that the nettles have been trodden down around the fence I decide to go for this narrow path alongside the railway line. I’m regretting wearing shorts straight away but after 10 minutes of struggling through the undergrowth I emerge bitten and stung right into the scene of the painting.
It’s glorious open countryside on this side of the fence. What a shame it’s not a place to roam as it was in Jockey Hill’s day.
I can’t get the photograph to look like the painting because the river bank is treelined so I climb down and photograph into the sun at river level. This makes the hill look tiny but wherever I stand, it’s obvious that he’s increased the height of the hill for dramatic effect.
I’m left wondering how I can prove I’m in the right place on the bend of the river when the answer is in front of me. Suddenly a canoe comes round the bend and I photograph it as it turns. It strikes me as funny that he’s not tresspassing so long as he stays in the canoe but I am.
I decide to get out fast.
Foremark in Derbyshire was farm land in Jockey Hill’s day. It was flooded in the 1970s becoming a reservoir supplying the people of Leicester. At first sight it appears that one beauty spot has been replaced with another. I’ve never been here before and yet it’s within 10 miles of home.
The scenery is stunning and I find an oak tree growing between rocks in the water. I’d like to think it will survive but trees are thirsty too so there’s a conflict of interest. Water snails had taken up residence on beer bottles someone had placed upright in the water. Taking the photo reminded me of a recent exhibition by fellow Socket member Tracey Kershaw. In ‘Talking about Mothers’, she had photographed plastic milk bottles full of water in a garden setting. Along the water’s edge there were lager cans, soft drink bottles, discarded clothes and a lilo near the no bathing and no inflatables sign!
The weekend’s good weather and its inevitable barbecues had left its mark on the landscape and inland beach. There’s nothing here I can replicate from the original painting of Foremark so I settle for the scene in front of me.
This is my first residency, first blog and the first time I will be working within the genre of Landscape.
The residency is a virtual one, so I expect to be spending more time photographing the scenery in Derbyshire than being in Lincoln. I have just 12 weeks and 23 locations to visit before the finished work is presented. It will be a challenge !
The work is inspired by the 18thC teasets made by Derby Porcelain in the Charles Norman Collection at the Usher Gallery in Lincoln. There are 2 teasets. Both show idylic landscape scenes. The pink one is painted by the artist Thomas ‘Jockey’ Hill and the yellow one by George Robertson. All of the locations are listed and many are in Derbyshire. My aim is to visit as many places as possible, photograph them as they are today and document what I see there. In other words, walk in the shoes of the original artists.
My first port of call was Dale Abbey in Derbyshire. A place I hadn’t visited in 20 years. The surprise was that it’s in someones garden ! On the garden side it had been renovated and on the footpath side it had been left to crumble. It’s still an impressive example of an Abbey window from the 12th or 13thC. Unfortunately it was not the right time for photographs. The setting sun was shining right at me through the Abbey window. Returning the next morning at 6am got me some satisfying shots. I’m sure this will happen a lot, going to a place to juge the best time for a photo then going back later.
On closer inspection of the stone window some faint graffitti could be seen and deep shadows were cast from the nettles and wild flowers.
