....and watching the Housemartins perform their dazzling aerial display just for me at 6am, I wonder, they must consider me so boring sometimes as I just stand and gaze, should I perhaps be performing for them. So often I find myself observing beauty, but what if it was observing me, what would it say, what would the places say about us? What if they loved us being there as much as we did?
I decided to bring a cut peony in from the garden with its so very subtle scent so that I could enjoy it all day long, everything was fresh with dew and the honeysuckle perfume as I opened the door took my breath away.......
I live nextdoor to Hayford Hall, where I discovered a couple of years ago, Peggy Guggenheim stayed for two summers in the 1930's.........It's all in this book, Hayford Hall, Hangovers, Erotics and Modernist Aesthetics.....all very headonic I'm sure!
The book has many journal entries written by Peggy Guggenheim that describe Hayford perfectly....not much has really changed....and also journal entries of the writers and artists she invited to stay here with her...... "Although situated on the edge of Dartmoor, Hayford Hall had it's own vast gardens which were half cultivated and half wild. There was one garden, a quarter mile long, with herbaceous borders. There were beautiful lawns, a well kept grass tennis court and two ponds covered with lilies where we swam, but on the whole one had the impression nature had not been tampered with, and that this place was still part of the moor. At nightfall thousands of rabbits scurried all over the grounds in all directions. We also had some woodland with a stream going through it; and another stream ran by the house.
The moor is hard to describe; it was so varied and so vast. it was hundreds of miles square and completely uninhabited except by wild ponies. The ground was strewn with bones and skeletons."
This is a photo from the book, not great quality, of Peggy Guggenheim standing in my courtyard with her two children, and below is one of my favourite quilts hanging in the exact doorway where they stood.
And some of my other quilts from my very humble collection......... Whenever I see an old quilt I get a feeling in my body somewhere between my heart and my stomach, you may know it, it's a mixture of delight, excitement and passion.
What I love about old quilts is the rawness of the stitch, I can almost see the hand working away, the dedication of hours and hours of neat little stitches, the patience...the slowness of the pace required and sweet focus of the person stitching, her presence almost saying, I'm in no hurry.
