ARTSPACE / STILL WATERS

Photographer Lindsay Ward is visiting Askam and the ponds and the estuary, gathering images for an exhibition....here is a selection from her latest visit ... Following our field trip to The Ponds with Kev Alexander in February I made a note to return just as the green starts to make a froth on the trees, altering the light and vistas. Cue a sunny Sunday, end of April, my family accompanying me.  A funny thing really, having been introduced to the landscape by Kev, I found myself retelling some of his stories of industrial history and local kids' den building exploits. Borrowing his lore to explain the slopes, scarps and waters to my family while they were exploring it and adding their/own own family history to the place. The wild garlic was in full leaf, softening the hard edges seen in February, and the creep of greening plants and trees created a sense of a landscape re-wilding. Looking forward to a sunset visit in coming weeks, to see what the lengthening shadows produce.

 Jim's armature greets its public yesterday afternoon at the Sir John Barrow Cottage...click to view...

  This will become one of Jim's characters in his animation piece...it looks a bit Robocop right now, but soon it will be clad in capok, clay and fabric. It was assembled limb by limb in the cottage today, and, as you see below,  had its hands cured by scalding with water, making sure the plastic that surrounds each finger is tight and pliable. Next, motion tests...we'll be back. Hoho. I was in Askam yesterday , to meet Historian Janice Cummings and get some photos of The Lots pub  AKA The Askam Hotel interior, where a scene from Jim's piece is set. More about that later. I shot some video and recorded some sound overlooking the estuary and then went to the school to meet Mrs Morgan to discuss dates for our schools project Scroll down for a photo of poet and novelist Caroline Gilfillan who visited today and brought along Anya Pearson, a descendent of Sir John Barrow, for her first visit to her ancestors' birthplace. Happily, our pal Historian Iain McNicol was with is at

Excellent day at the cottage today. Jim cut the bones for his animation figures,we built some sketches for sets and ran some lighting experiments using his nifty Wowstar LED rig, which looks like a kebab shop fly killer and offers a range of really useful lighting states, ideal for working in the cottage.  We had some visitors who left with Soft Drive and Ulverston Brewery books and the sound of pond life in their ears from my hydrophone recordings.  More pics below.... Next, we hand over the sketches and photos to Alex, who will build a more substantial version of what will be Jim's Pub int/ext, and Jim bolts his figure together and puts clay on the bones. .