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Moors with houses (Washings and Mines)
Acrylic on Canvas
61cmx91cm |
Sketchbook notes.....Sitting here all alone, it seems to me that mans labour just turns the top soil of the world, these 18C Mine and Farm buildings would have witnessed great labour by hand and steam, tram lines ran here in fact the hillsides are all crisscrossed with their roads and tracks. The grit stone that made the walls also made the local hillsides, this building material is tending more towards a fine mud stone, easier to cut with the steam driven stone cutters housed here, If I remember my geological map the gritstone beds are thickest hereabouts. The washing on the hillsides were open mines for a material that was used in the production to protect the bakerlite from the heat in the gas lights that lit the industrial towns. Forgotten things that made forgotten things work, mined by forgotten people working in a forgotten place. The history of this world is down in the valley with Lowrey's factory fodder. Up here when Lowrey was painting there was no one left to paint and the place desterted, the stones a dull deep brown colour, not as red as Loweys Salford brick Mills and its also prone to greening by lichen. No surprise that its lichen that grows faster up the wall than the grazing sheep's can chew their grass. But if there was a race the wind is the fastest thing here. Its a damp place, despite the fierce drying westerly winds which send flags of silver white cloud shredded across the darker grey sky...I wonder how long it will take before these buildings collapse and disapear and all thats left is stone and grass and lichen, Ted Hughes put it well in Elmet his poem Moors
"Moors are a stage
For the performance of heaven
Any audience is incidental."
Ps Some day soon I'll have to start painting the sheep as well.
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