New Fools

I felt I should introduce the Fool today into the wood and see what happened - I think he is the same one in different stages maybe, gradually unravelling ( I printed to the last act of Tristan and Isolde today - I thought Tristan tearing his bandages off would help - Wagner is always good for long sessions)....these two images turned out as if he/they was a chrysalis or one of those strange super-white glowing grubs you often find in them, definitely not one of Cecil Collins Holy Fool's but maybe bursting to change into something more sensible ( in all senses of the word )...

I couldn't work out how to photograph the whole first set as it was too wide and thin unless I arranged it differently and I wasn't ready to do that yet, so I photoed the beginning of the new set just to put the fool in context of the wood...

...the shopping trolley fool is his first incarnation maybe, haven't finished it properly yet; and the wood needs to grow around them now...
the great thing about designing cards rather than fixed page books is that you can swap the images around all the time and keep things fluid....

I haven't updated the covid reading list recently but I am currently reading Jack Hartnell's Medieval Bodies, great pictures and a trove of interesting facts and juxtapositions - I heard him give a talk at the ArtWorkers Guild and he was brilliant; this morning I was reading about the Cluny unicorn tapestries and the five senses - this evening , my walk getting later and later round the graveyard, the low raking sun was lighting up all the wild flowers in the grass contre jour and strangely psychedelically 3D, very hypnotic as I kept my eyes fixed to the ground so as not to turn my ankle in the long hillocky grass or trip over a gravestone - it felt just like one of the tapestries or Chaucer's mead.... it is really interesting doing the same walk day in day out....
on the whole not much time for reading , the days whizz by printing two images a day but I feel on the home strait getting the packs done and ready for glueing - and then I can start printing the larger Fool book , I have sent away for some new paint and am really feeling the call to print it now with some definite colours and ways of doing it in mind....plus a growing pile of newpapers to print on thanks to kind neighbours.....
but still days of work ahead....