Offerings

On the final day at the Cabin, we discover a small shoe box filled with a collection of household fabrics - napkins, tablecloth and finely stitched hankies.  Standing in the kitchen we remember our first visit on a sunny day in late Spring, as part of the National Trust Public Open Day.  On meeting Justin the Ranger we had talked of the fragility of the place, whilst lots of families moved in and out of the intimate space, we stood outside and enjoyed the view. I asked him what was his favourite object, and he said the Quality Street wrappers twisted, folded and stored in a cough medicine bottle discovered on the kitchen shelf.

In celebration of our autumn sojourn, I create a set of offerings on the table - including the foil wrapper filled bottle, a broken blue cup full of sea shells (and a tiny spider) wrapped in cotton wool, the pink book of everything (including maps of the world), the shoe box lid and a tape measure.  The girls gently wrap a set of small incomers and place them to rest for their final viewing.

Offerings - the bottle of sweet wrappers, cyclopedia, 
a measure of cloth, a silver sixpence and a collection of incomers.

Whilst arranging the tableaux on the wooden kitchen table the open door attracted two visitors in, a tall quietly spoken man and a tiny woman.  We say it is our leaving day, and we are sad to go.  I ask where they are from and the man tells us that they live on a narrow boat in Devizes, which is close to our homes.  I asked where they met, "in Hong Kong", said the lady with dark hair and sparkly eyes.  Does this place need painting? he offered, whilst the woman is captivated by the table arrangement. "Oh family!" she cries noticing the small people.  "What are these?" he asks pointing to the sweet wrapper bottle, wrapped in a dressmakers measuring tape... "magic charms?"  Noting the maps in the book of everything, a conversation opens out with Jan (who had travelled to Hong Kong).  They together acknowledge echoes and traces of similar woodland terrains and pathways visited and talk of huge reclining Golden Buddha's, hidden shrines discovered and contemplative places enjoyed. On leaving the small woman says "thank you so much for sharing with us", bows deeply with the sweetest smile and closes behind her the green Cabin door.

Open spaces

After a visit to the Burton Art Gallery in Bideford, we discover that the Ackland & Edward's paintings are not on show. Looking at the collection of artist's materials and diaromas displayed in a glass cabinet in the upper floor of the museum, I note in my journals working details. On chatting to the museum staff they point out a postcard on the work - Painting on the Beach, by Judith featuring Mary Stella sitting on the rocks. On return to the Cabin, I am once again drawn to engage with and move certain items, this time the collection of personal garments on the back of the kitchen door - two Burberry coats, a pair of brown wellington boots, an umbrella, bird bag and a wooden walking stick. I decide I must inhabit the outfit and give the assemble an airing.  We are advised of the lowest and highest tides and to walk far out to where the sea will part.  After two months of rain we have brought sunshine and, on the very hottest day, we three pick up the items and start to make our journey across the terrain of rocks, seaweed and pools.

Journaling- is that a verb or an adjective, was asked?

After walking for about an hour in the mid-day heat to reach the rocky outcrop, worrying about dropping things, loosing our way, pondering on the timing and the turning of the tide, carefully balancing the items, including the coat (as though it was a wedding dress) we find a place that feels right and look back up at the Cabin in the far distance. The idea is to don the garments.  The girls decide I must wear a cloche like arrangement on my head (a length of red wool from travels to Morocco) and help me dress into coat, boots and stick.  They move away a distance to capture the moment.  Suddenly, I truly feel as though I have stepped inside a story coat, its cottony damp folds wrap me protectively against the heat, whilst the walking stick gives me support and balance. With seagulls flocking overhead, the girls get their heads together to mutter about my camera settings and how to get the best angle, whilst I am concerned that the girls will get dehydrated in the name of art.

In the midst of all this a bare-footed guy with a surfboard walks past totally ignoring our antics whilst I am fretting furiously over the the well-being of the boots. I am concerned that they may crack open at their seams.  I need to treat them with utmost care and respect and decide not to walk in them too far, but become very still within their fragile rubbery interiors. I find a suitable rocky outcrop resting place, look out onto the horizon to imagine the trace of the lady artist's on the beach, start to worry about where the surfer has go too...and wrapped by sea and blue sky, feel myself become a Painting on the Beach.

Just sitting - story coat, red hat, boots & walking stick.

Enjoying just sitting, drawing upon much needed rest, I reflect on the life of the creative solitary experience connected with nature. The philosophy of one of the founders of the National Trust, an artist and social reformer, Olivia Hill, was to praise wide open spaces.  Apparently she was all for folk leaving crowded urban environs and enjoying time in the natural landscape.  During our week staying in the Devon countryside, we walked all sort of woodland and clifftop pathways, and at that point I was just thankful to be able to find our way safely home again, along with our treasured collections, before time and tide changed.

Gazing in - milk jug, boots, berries 
& basket, with small look out boy

Back at the cabin, we place the boots, gathered autumnal seaside flowers, along with a tin of leg ulcer plasters that the ladies must have once found handy, popped the red wool scarf into a basket along with a little rubbery legged lad. Shutting the door, we knew that next day we would have to give back the key, and no longer be custodians of the space.

A dream

Each day after an intervention on the seashore we would climb the steep cliff path and re-visit the Cabin, once more open the windows and enjoy the story soaked space.  The women artist's had enjoyed their creative relationship - being painters of the landscape, making figurative theatrical little scenes and writing poetry.  Bucks Mill was just one of the places visited they responded to, but perhaps it was their favourite place for personal reflection and spiritual renewal? 

One evening we visit the living time capsule and for a moment enjoy candlelight, experiencing the stillness in a world within electricity, the small shrine like dwelling in the hands of the elements, seasons, cycles of nature with its time line of ecological change.  

Reflecting - of what may become!

Reflecting on our time in 'middle world', giving thanks for our nourishing week, a time away from the world of other concerns, we join Stuart to sit at his favourite viewing place. Perched on the jetty wall at high tide we humbly bear witness the power of the sea, tossing and tumbling stones against the sea wall. As the sun goes down he shares his vision for creating an art trail for the householders of Bucks Mill hamlet, whilst I worry about about the cauliflower cheese we have yet to create at No.9.

Underworld

The small china treasures temporarily removed from the Cabin needed careful unwrapping from the protection of the whicker carrying basket.  Jan goes off to brave a refreshing autumn dip in the sea, whilst I sit on the rocks and decide what to do with the crocks.  Nervously I turn the cream jug over in my hands and discover something mysterious hidden inside the dustfilled interior.  Suddenly out drops a fifty year old biscuit, which Karen reckons is a pure archaeological discovery.  We identify it as a Bath Oliver and place the golden round confection reverentially on the rocks.  I feel inspired to cleanse the pots and, finding a place to balance on the edge of a deep rock pool, lower the pieces into the pink/green watery underworld to soak in the salty brine and enjoy the sunshine.   Later, it was suggested that the Festival of Britain jug should have been in the safety of The Burton Art Gallery & Museum, but I was more worried about the biscuit.

Gazing - into an underworld with small person, cup, jug, pot and biscuit!

Back at No.9 after each journey to the seashore, Cabin or upper worlds, I would delight in drawing upon my thoughts, with watery colour paints and lines of cronky story.

Drawing - thoughts, paints, scissors and scribbles.

The hideaway place

It was said that the artist's Mary Stella and Judith liked to sit below the Cabin on their very own peace and quiet garden sea shore bench and enjoy the world from a different perspective. This hideaway place, now lost, never again to be found, was forbidden, hazardous because of the wild destructive elemental forces of nature.  

Lost and found - rocks, pools, steps & a hidden garden!

And so, in search of a quiet reflective place to sit, Miss Dolly leaves the seemingly protective overhang of the cliffside, and decides instead to go on an adventure to discover her very own place to sit. Her journey involves above and below worlds, traversing over mountainous creature shaped boulders, across stretches of greenly carpeted slippery seaweed, up huge temple like cliff steps and down to the edge of a beautiful watery reflective rockpool. 

From shelf to seashore

The Cabin stands alone on a dramatic crumbling cliff face. The rocky sea shore is reached from the Cabin via a steep path and jetty. A discussion had gone on earlier with residents, National Trust staff and visitors, about how the artist ladies years would have lived, survived, and responded to the simpleness yet diversity of the environment.  It was said villagers helped them out with a supply of water carried in large jugs.   I notice how even the most small movement makes a differences to the feel of the place, and take me time trying out jugs before deciding which to take to the seashore with the teapot and cup.

On exploring the terrain of the beach, I notice set below the Cabin is a waterfall on the underside of the cliff face.  In the amazing underworld of the canopy of craggy rocks and plants which appear to cling for dear life on to each other, I place on a sheltered stone a small person called Miss Dolly.  She is there to bear witness to the domestic work at hand.  Carefully unwrapping the blue teapot from the whicker basket, I reach out and raise it's never seen the daylight for fifty years to the stream of water.   The thundering force and spray cleans and drenches both the pot and myself.  Later Stuart was a bit concerned to hear about the adventure, and shared the nature of the shifting cliff and apparently the out of bounds waterfall.  He recalled his memory of using the toilet in the house on the cliff above which had emptied directly into the waterfall below. Why, I thought, didn't the sign on the beach give this information, instead of saying the water was not for recreation!

Washing - one flowered blue teapot & a thundering waterfall.

Later back at the cabin, the places feels refreshed, different.  Other items are temporarily taken outside and carefully giving an airing, including the clothes airer, bag, boots, and Burberries, whilst inside the kitchen a small lady seems to be getting into everything.

Playing - collection of china & odd broken thingamajig 

A Sense of Place

The finding of a hidden key opens the long held shut green door of Bucks Mill Cabin.  The stone dwelling, tied as though to the edge of the sea, once a place to air fisherman's nets, became a creative retreat for artists' Judith Ackland and Mary Stella Edwards.  Each summertime the ladies would make pilgrimage to enjoy their simple home and belongings, a world filled with open spaces, endless skies, tides and ever changing nature.  It is said they would enjoy the art of just sitting, looking out from their kitchen table into the landscape, a peg on which to hang their inspiration and imagination.  A place to create and contemplate; their very own tiny storytelling enclave.

The world of the cabin changed, loss entered and time stopped still.  Fifty years later, entrusted to the National Trust, the cabin breathes a sigh of relief when new creative incomers are invited to respond to the history, stories and present time.  Now early autumn, a window is once again opened, sea breeze and warmth move through the dusty sad rooms.  I am there with friends Jan & Karen; we stand quietly and resonant with the sense of place.  I decide to respond by donning the damp closed on Thursdays coat and, for some reason only known to me, place on my head a protective food net.  On discovering a small book of words on the kitchen shelf, I sit on the wooden chair and gaze at the peaceful view and ponder on the word HOUSEHOLDER.

Found - a key, coat, net, small book with word - householder!

The small kitchen felt as though the women artist's could return at any moment. In the one downstairs room the simple shelves, cupboard and furniture held safe everyday cooking, mending and cleaning items.  The wooden table, under the newly opened window with the ever changing coastal light, became my storytelling surface. Each day we subsequently visited the tired worn grainy table seemed happy to be of service once more. 

One day, a rather large man was to visit with his wife.  Sitting down on the wooden chair, he grumbles, oh my back aches. Why don't you just sit there and paint? suggested the small smiling wife.  I am going down to the seashore to paint, and, on her way out, enquires about the lined book on the table.  Is that the visitor's book? she says brightly.  Karen, who had welcomed the couple with the history of the place, informs protectively that it was an artist's journal and a research project is underway. There is a moment to discuss the purpose of the wooden letter N and then the man decides to make himself more at home and re-arranges his body comfortably on the small wooden chair.  Leaning forwards heavily on the table, seemingly lost in his own world, he appeared not to notice me standing on the low stool photographing the arrangement of borrowed and found items. The gentleman adjusted his glasses and head to one side, hummph, he says helpfully, that table is crooked!  

Arranged - cotton wool coddled baby, a bottle, book, 

pink coastal flowers, magnifying glass & a wooden letter 'N'.

Later, a couple of women friends from childhood discover the cabin is open as they walk down the path; one is carrying a swaddled infant and comments immediately on the table arrangement, in particular the small egg coddled baby looking out to sea.  The other visitor remarks on the sounds I make when describing the discoveries in the cabin, she is apparently from Berkshire and the BBC. They appreciate the space and the baby gurgles.  I explain I am thinking about giving a few items an airing.  I invite them to suggest what I could take on a journey?  I have a thing about jugs, says one woman, upending a small china blue and white cream jug on the shelf.   Oh look, she notices, does this one have the name of Ming on it? We laugh, oh yes, perhaps it could have been made by Mrs Ming of Bideford. The other lady selects a very dusty flowered blue teapot from the top kitchen shelf, whilst Jan lifts off one of the hooks a plum tea cup.  The items are carefully wrapped in a blue scarf and placed in a whicker basket for a trail down to the sea shore.