























Words and photographs from North Hertfordshire
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.
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.
Sprayed or daubed or scrawled, it’s in your face. But who is it for – the author or the viewer? And if it’s for the viewer, is it for every passerby or just the initiated? It’s there for all to see but is it for all to understand. It lingers until the paint fades but is the original meaning of the message eternal or fleeting? Is it open to interpretation by all? Does incompleteness or alteration strip it of meaning or create new possibilities? ‘Do not’ what?
There’s no name on the pledge of everlasting love. Does the object of the love even know the message refers to them? Does someone have a warm feeling every time they walk past or do they pass by in ignorance? Despite the vow, has the affection long dissipated?
Is War God a comment on troubled times, a theological belief or a runner in the 3.30 at Newmarket?
Do the souls feel free or are they yearning for a freedom they don’t have?