Leftovers #142

I locked myself out of the house on Tuesday. I realised as I went to put the key in the lock. A flashback to the flimsy keyring holding the house keys falling off my car keys came to the fore. I called Shannon, who calmly went through all the options. Five minutes later, Sarah called me saying I could sit in her studio - just down the road - if I got cold. Twenty minutes later, a friend of a friend turned up with a ladder she’d borrowed from her neighbour and walked over for 10 minutes. We laid it against the wall and I climbed up, this person I barely knew spotting me from below. The bathroom window was thankfully unlocked and I slid it across and climbed in like Mrs Klaus doing Santa’s dirty work (I was wearing blood red knitted trousers). I thanked her, we hugged and I ended up bumping into her that evening at a yoga class. I called Shannon to tell her I was in and we reflected on how Cornwall is a village, where geographical closeness begets community-like intimacy and I spent the rest of the day feeling pretty good.

I spent most of Thursday indoors stoking the embers of a never-quite-out fire. I needed that insular day, and equally needed to be embraced by strong winds the following. I performed the ritual: coffee and breakfast at Flora, a sandwich and a chat at Roundhouse, a walk around Leach Pottery (I limited to buying two items and nothing more), a watch of the surfers on Porthmeor, a turn about the Tate and a quick pop into Rose Lane antiques.

Two exhibitions and a book

I’ve become much better at consuming art at galleries since working with more and more artists and makers. I never knew what to do with my hands. Or where to look first. Or what I was supposed to be looking for. After many conversations with artist and maker friends, I know now that the whole point of art is to remove prescription and open up your mind to infinite possibilities. I personally am drawn to the writing on the wall; unsurprisingly I like context and understanding the story behind the work. And then I focus on the work, allowing myself to be taken in or not. (Did I just mansplain exhibitions to you?).

I’d heard from friends that the Ithell Colquhoun exhibition at the Tate St Ives was great, and shockingly I’d never been inside (it was under construction for over a year when I lived in Cornwall and rarely found myself in St Ives when coming back). Coloquhoun was an artist and writer who took a studio in Lamorna in the 1940s. She was part of the Surrealist movement but found its practice too rigid and inflexible, and her interest in occultism was at odds with their ideologies. She wrote a travelogue for Cornwall called The Living Stones, which I picked up at the Tate, and it seems to be a paean to Cornish myths, folklore and the wildness of the West Coast.

I’m also booking in a trip to the Barbican when I’m fully back in London to see the Noah Davis exhibition. I didn’t know much about him but was drawn by the scenes and colours of the Black experience in his work. Davis lived (and died) in Ojai and was heavily inspired by the work of Mark Rothko (1. my favourite place in California; 2. the first artist that made me understand what art can do to a person) – his work must have whispered that to me, which is why I felt so attracted to it. If you can’t make it to the Barbican, there’s an audio guide taking you through exhibition.

Something about this painting

---

Things to eat this week

I’m usually one to roast a pumpkin (crown prince if I can get my hands on one), but for both ease and pace I added small pieces to my rice pot and let it cook in the residual steam and it was great. I mixed white miso into the rice and serve it with grilled chicken thighs marinated in my lime miso vinaigrette and a big cabbage salad. Chef’s kiss.

PSA: this weekend’s essay is a practical guide to salads. It’s called Anatomy Of A Salad and I go deep.