Walsworthblog

Four New York cliches

Manhattan from Ellis Island

Tongue in cheek – the Flatiron Building pace Steiglitz, Steichen et al

MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village bars

C-list photo shoot, Brooklyn Bridge

St. Mary the Virgin – Letchworth

The oldest church in Letchworth, St. Mary’s has traces of its Saxon origins but is mostly of early Norman construction. It’s a tiny and delightful building on Letchworth Lane with some interesting 19th and 20th gravestones, including one of a Belgian soldier of the First World War, paid for by work mates from the factory where he was employed before the war. Unfortunately, like so many, the church is generally closed. There is some interesting ancient graffiti in the porch but I have been unable to locate any interpretation of it.

City at Night – Rogier, Brussels

London – Tuesday 11/4

Different views of Venice

Winter at Burymead

An autumnal run – leaves, berries and water

Something a little more experimental in this offering. The colours and the blur are an attempt to capture the experience of running cross country in the autumn.

Three local beauties

This face is from a 15th century brass memorial set in the aisle of the church at Sandon. She is elegantly beautiful and that elegance is achieved with so few lines – you can count the number of strokes. She brings to mind ancient eastern Mediterranean imagery. I would say that she reminds me of a Picasso face but it should, of course, be the other way round.

I return to my favourite Hertfordshire farm girl, a medieval Madonna surrounded by the birds of her fields and hedgerows and immortalised at the church at Clothall. She must have brought the religion preached to the villagers closer to them than a more sophisticated rendition ever could.

This image is troubling. The doll’s head is pretty. Yes, it promotes a stereotype but it is not aggressively sexualised. Prior to its decay, the torso – presumably from a generic piece of garden centre ornamentation – was intended to be mildly erotic but nothing to outrage your grandmother or over excite your grandfather. Yet the combination, seen at the recycling centre at Letchworth, is disturbing.