Please Click on the image below for a preview of the music and imagery in You Tube
Artwork and music produced by ~ Dr I Clegg & Dr R Okpoti
This performance and exhibition combines photography and music to explore John Ruskin’s life and work. It presents a unique perspective on traditional RGB Still Life Photography and Contemporary Classical Organ Music, emphasising the balance between decay and human input. The Pipe Organ Music adds a contemporary touch to this interdisciplinary collaboration.
We introduced the work with a live performance of the specifically composed music and projection of the images, the exhibition continued at Brantwood House. Home of Ruskin and museum and gallery celebrating his work.
Performance at St Andrews, Coniston, Cumbria, LA21 8EN
Physical exhibition at ‘The Blue Gallery’ Brantwood House, East of Lake,
Coniston, Cumbria, LA21 8AD
Here is a video showing our process and background to the project,
please click on the image below to take you there
Involvement of others
Reflections, Earth & Stone
A poem in response to The Severn Lamps of Cumbria images and Music.
By Ali Langston
Dripping, forming, droplets harden strong and sure
Reaching, stretching, a cone of stone slowly seeks one more
As the other stands true, day after day
Year after year, millennia after millennia-
Light pierces the cathedral cavern
Glistening Crystals shimmer,
resonating and echoing
The past shows itself, layer after layer
Calcite, Limestone, Dolomite, Opal and Limonite.
The hands that cleaved, the hands that chiselled
Those that held the image, they are here
They are here in the eyes, the talons, in the wings
We see them in the arches traced rib-like to a crest
A man toiled in the beating sun
A man toiled in the winter time, wind in his face
Honest are the lines around his eyes – ageless, true
Thistle-heads amongst the stones release their seeds
They float across the mossy stones, unseen.
Who has not wondered at the way a shadow falls?
Nor marvelled at the way the sun thrills through glass:
Indigo, turquoise and ruby red?
Raise your eyes, raise your head and see
Sublime, supreme, singular
Then rest in a cool shrine, tarry on a woodland path
Beneath feet, ferns unfurl their magic spirals.
From the shore across the lake, a wind whispers:
See me, dwell with me, be one with me.
