BEDDING IN - NEW ROUTINES

 

Incremental progress on my Baroque church model. The "air-lock" doors don't feature in the floor plans I have seen, but it's a normal feature of church design (sound lock really) and perfectly obvious when you try to build a model from publicly available photographs. So that's one thing I've been working on. Still not quite happy with the proportions of the various components, but we are moving in the right direction.

Some effort has also gone into the column bases and the shafts, which are less tapered than my "standard" corinthian version. And finally the beginnings of infill panels between the columns which are framed up with various designs of niche and cartouche. It seems to me the niches were intended to take statues, but in the end were left blank.

I have yet to add the hollowing out of the wall for these niches, plus the pendentives currently looming above as dark voids. Day by day, we do what we can, and gain insight along the way.

 

Nibbling away at this seemingly herculean task. Accepting the less than perfect for good reasons. Making headway day by day.

This is San Carlo, a tiny church placed at a junction with four drinking fountains and dedicated to Charles Borromeo, an opponent of the modest reforms introduced by the breakaway church of England.

Distant times but familiar human nature. Also a very beautiful and greatly loved place of worship to uplift the human spirit. I have introduced preliminary versions of the side altars. Modeled in place to establish the basic size and proportions, then kept 'open' while I copied the geometry to a loadable family template. Now the two copies can be further developed as RFA files, with efficient use of time and computer memory.

 

This is a ghost gable on London Street, a short walk from my place. I decided to 'AI out' a 'for sale' sign that was distracting my eye from the subtle shadow letters. Of course the gremlin then hallucinated nonsense letters, so I proceeded to pixelate these away.

On future visits to the Reference Library I will look out for older images and text relating to this music shop that once thrived in a street that is now dominated by Turkish Barbers and exotic groceries.

Change is an ancient feature of English society and a fascinating study topic. But has it gone too far, too fast? It's a worry.

 

 

Friday late lunch. Rewarding myself for a nice long walk with fish and chips at the local Weatherspoons.

 

Still have to buy the hooks and plan picture hanging properly, but for the moment I've got a workable arrangement in place at my new home and most of the clutter tucked away.

Beautiful day.

 

 

MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY

 

9am and it’s about time I got dressed and took some exercise.  Forecast to be mostly cloudy today and about 15 degrees, but no rain. Checking the weather is a new feature in my life as I gradually develop new daily routines. Quite pleased with myself for getting a couple of hours in on San Carlo over morning coffee. And enough images now for another LinkedIn post, composed as I take my meds.

At last I have part of the floor plan shaping up into something reasonable. This is a challenging building; we knew that from the start. I always enjoy coming across the limits of the floor plans that have been copied from book to book. I have a section that seems to be based on measurement, and my own floor plan is going to be highly speculative, but it certainly is invigorating to piece together the puzzle and develop a solution that is at least plausible.

To what extent is the undulating façade a premeditated stylistic move, as opposed to a solution to the out of square street junction. A way to mask shifting angles as the bulk of the interior is orthogonal to the side street.  Of course the intersecting ellipses are deliberate and clearly baroque. Progress made, but daunting challenges remain.  Time for a walk.

 

The story of yesterday. My morning walk took me to St Mary's church. I photographed the exterior on a previous visit, but had never been inside. The services are mostly held in a modern addition, square in plan, but on the diagonal. There is an in between space that acts as a coffee shop, very welcoming. I had a small square of ginger cake and a peppermint tea. The old church was built in phases, but all in the gothic revival style.

Walked on to the mall, sorted out my Internet/mobile contracts and stopped off at Wimpy for a fish and chips lunch.

 

More photos from the interior of St Mary's Basingstoke (Eastrop). Ages ranging from Georgian to Edwardian (Let's say 1750 to 1914 or birth of John Soane to the First World War) So not medieval, but still quite a sweep of history. I think it represents the town expanding to the East along the route of the canal. The beginnings of the industrial revolution which brought a surge in population growth and eventually in prosperity.

 

 

Then another Mary from another age. Queen Mary's sixth form college is just a short walk from my place. Very modern (late 20th to early 21st centuries) with an emphasis on the arts. I went their to see my younger grandson playing football with his scouts group. The pics here show some of the later buildings which perhaps try a little too hard to be geometrically adventurous. The older work is strictly rectilinear and with a limited materials palette. I think it's good to have that sense of built history on a campus, even if few of its current users notice at a conscious level.

Quite a lot of sun around lunch time and I was feeling the effects by the time I trudged home. Just OK I think. Probably it's good to push the stamina envelope slightly, but not too far.

 

 

TECTONIC SHIFT

And just like that, my life is transformed again. Emirates flying pretty much on schedule. Half empty airport, half empty flight. Seems like most everyone I know blames Trump. Sorry to differ, but the IRGC is the greater culprit in my book.

So much for politics. The flight was fine but I took a day or so to come round, then there was the unpacking. This morning was more active. Walked around the park and into town. My sense of the seasons will need to be relearned. A bit of a surprise how many trees are still bare of leaves.

Dropped by the library and spotted this sketching group. Who knows?

 

 Nice 75th birthday present today. All my air freight came in two separate deliveries. I had to bring the little guitar amp on the flight with me. Some kind of rule 👀

It's all unpacked now and provisionally spread around my small flat. The small Lowry print belonged to my dad and the little framed etching is by him I think.

The wooden plough plane has been in my possession for about 50 years. Came with a set of blades of different sizes but I no longer have these. All the same, like many of the items I shipped it has sentimental value.

 

 

I managed to put a bit of time in on my Borromini model today. In between walking in the park with my hearing aid on. Birdsong returns to my world.

I'm working on the courtyard. Curved re-entrant corners and arches between paired columns. The Baroque feeling is very subtle and underplayed, but it's there sure enough.

The columns in my model are generic. I will customise them to the project in due course. Hopefully I can take this work far enough to set up one or two sheets that convey the essence successfully.

 

 

Watching Cranford on Netflix. BBC historical dramas were still a thing of beauty in 2007. You can see the wokery starting to creep in, but not enough to spoil the genuine artistry.

Judy Dench who I saw playing Shakespeare at Stratford when I was still a teenager. Sixty years ago near enough. When I had no inkling of wandering the world for 45 years before returning to embrace my Englishness.

The pic is Basingstoke market square with statue of Jane Austen. Seems she was very small. Nice chunky tuscan columns in the sunlight.