January already! And a good two weeks into it at that, so a quick update on production and plans. Last Sunday as the sun was shining I foraged at Cardinham Woods for a certain something for one of my exhibition pieces, and came out with an item larger and heavier, and certainly not the material I'd gone in search of...more revealed at a later date.
The very same day I received a phone call from a local tree surgeon who had been scouting around locally for some large natural peels of bark. With all the rain over winter the ground bark was rotten sponge and falling apart, fortunately the lovely Richard had some astoundingly large milled pieces of pine back at base. Originally drying out in storage for inspiring coffee tables I took a massive slab away and sanded it down that night.
Wednesday I lumbered the huge slice of trunk into the white building at Truro college and started work straight away....wood is endlessly inspiring.
With two other pieces finished, I'm gradually calming the storm with steady graft and trying somehow to fit in final poem drafts for Trebah Gardens - one down, one to go..a scene of natural phenomena in blank verse compared to the finished ode to a cheeky Robin - an extra post on this next week and hopefully a live slot of my good self wheedling a soldering iron...
Hello from The Old Press Gallery, we cant wait to get your work in our gallery....check out www.theoldpress.co.uk
As promised a unique inside look at the audio recording process of the poet - but it was just too early, croaky voice drowning in coffee and not internally either. Yes straight from a seventies sitcom I'd poured half a cup of garage latte down myself, just after parking in the wrong place! In contrast Tom Scott was as calm and professional as ever, and read his poem out in dark ominous tones - then I went in and shattered all allusions of poetic atmos with a Robin Red-Breast poem spouted from the lips of a broadly based Northern Lass. The dialect was a little diluted unlike the coffee as by now I felt a little queasy as well as soggy. Bloomin professional me, never said a word beyond poetry and polite thank yous. In all seriousness it was harder than recording a song, the breathing is oddly irregular but I really, really enjoyed bringing my poems to life and thanks to Tom's patient guidance they felt good to read aloud. It all begins on the 12th February at Trebah Gardens....
The vents that will take away the smoke!
This exhibition, to me, is worth more than just the room it will stand in; I want Kim to feel as proud as I do that I've taken poetry to an artistic level that will hopefully appeal to a much broader audience. 
