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mclees-fiona.bsky.social
Paper conservator in Wales. Manuscripts, drawings, artists’ materials, studios, sideline interests in holy wells, roodscreens, and all manner of heritage at the end of long country lanes. Colour-related Instagram posts @chromatic_dispatches
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Still Life with Books, Jan Lievens, c. 1627 - c. 1628 (Rijksmuseum)

submitted 1 hour ago • 0 comments

Spoon of the week, or more properly perhaps, scoop of the week: this scallop shell with bamboo handle, at the Bernard Leach pottery, St Ives #spoonsunday

submitted 5 hours ago • 0 comments

Lovely small beast in the Bernard Leach studio, St Ives.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Rebecca Horn, White Body Fan, 1972

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Things that will never be: uncut stones in Barbara Hepworth’s stone carving yard, Trewyn Studio, St Ives. A lapidarium of inchoate forms, patiently waiting upright, for nothing to happen.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Still life in Barbara Hepworth’s stone carving studio in St Ives, now the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Garden. Pinned up is a catalogue for sculptor’s supplier Alec Tiranti Ltd which until 2021 had a shop on Warren Street. As a conservation student I was directed there to buy the best steel spatulas.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

French Realist painter Honoré Daumier was born in Marseille today in 1808. "The Night Walkers" (1842–47)—a nocturne of urban stillness—shrouds two figures in moonlit mystery, their silent journey over the Seine steeped in shadow and solitude. 🎨 Oil on board, National Museum Cardiff #art

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Ewenny Priory 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 as painted by Turner in 1795, & my photo from 2024. In his time it was used as a farmyard (chickens!). Upon exhibition in 1797 one reviewer commented “‘In point of colour and effect this is one of the grandest drawings we have ever seen, and equal to the best pictures of Rembrandt.”

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

Just tried to respond to this survey but find it problematic - it is compulsory to fill in the “Institution” field - surely that excludes a host of self-employed artists, writers, and creatives?

submitted 5 days ago • 4 comments

Damp vision of spring in the suburbs: a tangled thicket studded with waxen Japonica blooms, each perfect flower plucked and imported direct from a Japanese screen, all suspended above rain-soaked earth on which a few hard green quinces lie

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Museum book club last week: Hilda Vaughan’s Iron & Gold, 1948 retelling of folktale ‘Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach’. The husband is a weak-willed man whose desire for his otherworldly wife becomes frustration as the community shuns her for being differen. Llyn y Fan Fach 2025 @thepickledfish.bsky.social

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

“In a county which is singularly short of columbaria, every effort should be made to preserve these ancient structures…” I will be attempting to adopt this strident call to arms to preserve dovecots at all my next month’s social engagements

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Just a note to say that when my last cheap biro finally ran dry last week I decided the time had come to buy myself a new pen with the money you so kindly gave me. Having decided exactly what I wanted, I then discovered that it had stopped being made.

submitted 6 days ago • 8 comments

Off on a detour reading about early films of Wales. There’s a lost film from 1896 of Edward VII (then prince) visiting Cardiff, which apparently “garnered some controversy from the press due to a recorded instance of the then-Prince Edward supposedly scratching his head” - presumably very uncouth…

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

A 3-minute clip of the Irish Mail Boat docking at Holyhead in 1898. Both my grandmother & then my mother were sent from Dublin to boarding school in England, travelling alone by boat and rail - my granny mentioned once the delight of seeing the welcoming lights at port at the end of a crossing

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

“In a county which is singularly short of columbaria, every effort should be made to preserve these ancient structures…” I will be attempting to adopt this strident call to arms to preserve dovecots at all my next month’s social engagements

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

These beautiful maps feature in the endpapers of “Out and about in Monmouthshire” by Fred Hando, 1958, with his own illustrations. He published numerous books & articles on the area, yet said: “Life is so short. Had I a couple of further incarnations I might do justice to this fair land of ours.”

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

Raglan Castle in the 15th c was surrounded by “orchards full of apple trees, and plums and figs and cherries and grapes and damsons and pears and hazelnuts and every fruit that is sweet and tasty.” Just imagine - no sign of those lost fertile orchards today. Quoted in Carwyn Graves, Apples of Wales

submitted 26 days ago • 4 comments

Dear Manager (Richard Serra, 1989):

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

I… bought a new (old) book… 💕

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

Richard Long, Waterfall Line, 2000 https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1133366

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

I have this book and it’s a lovely collection of handwritten documents and snapshots into the lives of the people that write them. The documents are beautifully replicated on the page

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments