We all love to be by the seaside … walking in the soft
sand, if one is lucky, or dropping to one’s knees to pick up pebbles … we’ve
all come home with them … either with pockets filled up by the kids, or just by
‘us’ enamoured with a pebble’s charm …
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii4m6oyfrH2tQfXvTYbrcG8yjhUeis94lcVSLqyDCV3zcPFErWcrvnd0n6wdcBaAQOCvgS7p3M-FnQIoouySRdGn_WwXsE6lW8sxvHZw97MjHSZTBFAo0nd3LvpyYFJVo5P_4Sm37f9YTm/s1600/18+Sculptures+and+plantings+2012.jpg) |
2012 The Garden ... sculptures and plantings on the shingle |
I’m sure you’ll see this links with my recent posts
about Eastbourne with its shingle beach, engineered groynes, which while attempting
to stop the town flooding, curtail the easterly tidal drift … here’s yet
another of this eclectic non-series …
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKR117LG2E9oDV4_iNf4uJAItavTvtI1G3lFj5GWsl1kUnpL17scnsicMQDHtAIddm1tGx6aI5-uf1osvSS91cydptVnDgNn6jINQ1UgdpoP6irN6-hyEjbiyzgqg50qF7wO2lKJRKhvi4/s200/18+Pebbles.JPG) |
Selection of pebbles |
As I’m listening to the radio more in these lock-down
times … my thoughts wander off – and this programme was about pebbles … art,
gardens, geology, museums … so cometh this post!
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidnieuZ6HQ64pSmx4WkPctnP1oja_C0vvSg4ecj4aeh8S4Pe9MQ1iZeZNsNgFdZmC2brT_O2U0qkPyGcgD7Tp7LTxVwK8xVGm9Py82XWXnE8ZuRaJbM019pdrUmX2AxG2xignZ9ZcDDyj5/s1600/18+Chicago%2527s+cuspate+foreland.jpg) |
Chicago's cuspate foreland |
The pebbles find their way eastwards to Dungeness, a
headland formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland,
created primarily by longshore drift.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinxZvCnf2xf0iTex2yTA_V6zEJ2pXOfO8SUqje9iwxAzdzryX573I0-dxaLsFbJ9w7gJDWERGyuvEtrdUYPX2VFrNUt7myco9Er4NUIkdl8blX8c2ef75QRNBVDOc-Q_5vVhjfiidoX2EG/s1600/18+Aerial+view+of+Dungness.jpg) |
Dungeness from the air |
There can be little development in that unstable coastal setting, but there is a
part- decommissioned Nuclear Power Station, an old runway, a necessary
intermittent railway terminus, subsequent limited housing, beach cottages for
the fishermen …
... and Prospect Cottage … the ecological site has protected and international
conservation status across a number of disciplines … including geomorphological … a place of natural
value to many a scientist …
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTKuh23svjKQZVHvII9r1aiIeQd_5gRdysQCXsPMoRX2CwbUmhJ34dvCd3aZkejCZ9K5q0jsC-LwzN-0556Z4zOZn__u92i1yLNR3fm3Bt6-7BWXXMiee6mK4VTBEMAukNbu5P_evR0YLJ/s1600/18+Derek+Jarman%2527s+garden+2007.JPG) |
Prospect Cottage - 2007 |
Derek Jarman (1942 – 1994), seriously ill with HIV, purchased
the cottage to escape London and set about creating a retreat, a shingle garden
…
... he was a talented film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener,
and author … this landscape offered him consolation during his latter years.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvoCxBcy5SuLR49VkF1_wIA3KDgb3U65HXEapnexsVbOBxyi7CG9pyVrxtSn0cfVGoUDKovCmpv-BjkpNs4v6JtsjGEhO_Ev3uzlFUG1J-hQ2u8-bvLEKCFR9yBLo0bTRmMeNL3GV_fmBl/s1600/18+Prospect+Cottage+Dungeness+2004.jpg) |
An earlier view in 2004 |
His home has recently been purchased by the Art Fund
so that the whole can be conserved and maintained for the future … the
building, its contents and garden …
During the ‘pebble radio programme’ a sedimentary
geologist discussed various rocks with resultant stones which find their way
into our world of today …
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBHsX7RSKZCDZGOB4kVImZH2Uj_KGxEYgNBeCa1Eds7LZfbzitkqxXdxIn2L9iSZzvLqMTE4cwY9fRKPZITTIn5aO-r_wfxMazbwjOFCFRgaVzzVb1gq59I28cEcIfyAeMoGyItM-PrznK/s1600/18+Book+-+Pebble+in+my+Pocket.JPG) |
The book the radio programme was based on |
… one was a pebble surrounded by another aggregation …
it was mentioned that this had ‘popped out’ from an iceberg almost a billion
years ago … it wasn’t found in England! – but off the Alaskan/Canadian coast …
… that pebble is held in scientific splendour in Cambridge
- then mention was made of Jim Ede’s Kettle’s Yard ...
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvvEj5OMTVKO7cY35U49Og_qnexyifI_Ca7OWwPbP6cdj8o-YwyukELYWvxkmD-LdHzUqVk-ITPXOBaGkH_3TwKZQM-t5-GKnmgHFhYBFNdUxRwX65J8hGRquvwb4dWb5sOMBkI5PD13OU/s1600/18+Kettles+Yard.jpg) |
Kettle's Yard - was four cottages ... now with an extension to hold Jim Ede's various collections
|
... described
as one of the country’s most intimate and spellbinding museums, the collection
of one man and his unerring eye; restorative, homely yet life-changing …
Jim Ede spent time in Cornwall collaborating with
artists in the studios at Newlyn and St Ives … after his work at the Tate
Gallery, London proved too tedious to carry on … ‘fighting the conservative establishment’
… he set out on his (professional) itinerant life …
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_9_a3K6RFvwl2aVc2di9yT6ccxgvslU03b2XxcavOIMumxHTtjAWG7FkezKQ64BndmToSdrvJZ4RN5p7zGRIScqm4cebXtHJElwbho4yv1T59YalJWsFQfZZA44BdYNy4kxsMGKSn8ie/s1600/18+Alfred+Wallis+naive+art.jpg) |
Alfred Wallis (1932) The Hold House Port Mear Square Island Port Mear beach |
I know that was another link-jump … to St Ives, Cornwall
and the naïve artist Alfred Wallis
(1855 – 1942), who worked all his life as a mariner, before turning fisherman-artist
… Jim Ede encouraged him, while collecting some of his works …
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcSpzUMGqTMCdEtiziGiEUrKzZTcU9wwbpJd8GTj0nnzeUpOcN0reRheQh6F3bv80SqxGT1PNxfXg0PRSYFFJP0o-UvOZN0TQEEY5wDJKYFMGTSAPJyLFoGsueZSC3JlCl-wPmRq-hnKiv/s1600/18+Alfred+Wallis+1942+Noah%2527s+Ark.jpg) |
Alfred Wallis (1942) - Noah's Ark |
I have mentioned Wallis before when I wrote about
Cornwall … and when I set up an Easter family tour of art at the Towner Art
Gallery, Eastbourne, postponed til next year …
… I spotted that the gallery holds works by Alfred
Wallis … and so he is one of the artists I specified we would be shown.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB5Eh6-7TSZFKr7wha743-DsmRPKu2O1Hh6ZHxjNe1zKr6_uHUb67XARiy1nVZGOP6MrdRstEQswGm5lEHH0pwGEjqdZaE-1B03R8-QRsf6qu1dvBsMcm68Xfj6a1NZl5zibTJgrkSMY67/s320/18+longshore+drift+showing+spit+build+up.jpg) |
Longshore drift showing spit build up |
Surprisingly this life of pebble art has come full
circle back to my home … after starting life billions of years ago, rolling
into an ocean, drifting with the tides …
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggxqSAtuK_o47FTKIuYesJIwwKFqY_acH4h1VhfQwdbE1qXX3KrzmyIKRLeXmLso_-OV6cCWo_z5uxX378xTvzM_yYykoV9oRtrOsHgL7LNmHoi37xOy_kA5k3LqicmhbhzTKoshwy7sZM/s320/18+The+Clod+and+the+Pebble.jpg) |
Blake's entry in his Songs of Innocence and Experience 1794 collection of poems |
… to perhaps be found in a garden, as an art piece, a
photograph, or recorded in words … as the lines in Blake’s The Clod and the Pebble mete out:
‘But a Pebble
of the brook
Warbled out
these metres meet: …’
I have long wanted to visit Cambridge and almost went
before lock-down … so I will add Kettle’s Yard to my list … and see the
Cornish, Sussex connections with art …
May you roll gently on as the pebbles are doing in
this time of challenge …
Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories