Picture of love blog 10 'Fabric'

Our final guest blog for pictures of love before we come to Valentines week 2013 comes from one of the Venture FX Pioneers Lou Davis. She is based in Edinburgh and you can read about what she is doing here.

There’s something about fabric that sets my heart alight. Rolls and rolls of colour and pattern, texture and drape. I have to touch them, to feel the weight of the material, to begin the process of imagining. 

My favourite places are where the rolls are piled high, and I need to rummage to find jeweled treasures buried deep beneath the strata of linen and silk.

And when my eyes see something that resonates deep within, and the touch of the fabric is just right, I’ll take down the roll from the shelf and let out a metre or so. I’ll move it gently so it catches the light, to see how the fabric drapes.

And in my mind, I’m not holding a bolt of fabric in a store, I’m on a beach in a flowing skirt, with sand in my toes and the sun in my hair, or I’m celebrating with friends as their new baby wears one of my dresses, or I’m sending a friend off for a special night out, looking fabulous in a cocktail frock, or I’m watching a glowing bride take careful steps down the aisle into a new life.

I love the possibilities that exist in those rolls of fabric.

I wonder for a minute about the love and care that has already gone into creating these beautiful threads. They are the product of growers and spinners, weavers and dyers, and I don’t know their names or which dusty factories they serve. I can only hope that in the lifetime of these fabrics there was as much hope and love and beauty as I see in them now.

Before these fabrics can fulfill any of their potential, I need to buy them, take them home and cut into them. I must do violence to their patterns, cut across their warp and weft, I need to weaken them so that they may be re-shaped, to fit.

That is always the hardest part.

Before I cut I need to be sure of my pattern. I check and double check, measure and remeasure. I close my eyes, take a deep breath and cut.

http://www.mandors.co.uk/ 

Pictures of love blog 9 'The Angel of The North'

Decembers guest blog for 'Pictures of Love' is by Rev. Elaine Lindridge, she is the District Evangelism Enabler for the Newcastle Upon Tyne Methodist District, please feel free to leave a comment on this blog or any of the other blogs in the series. We would also wish you a joyous and peaceful Christmas. 

I just love this view from my house – and as I look out on a morning I see Britain’s largest sculpture. I remember watching on the day this giant angelic work of art was hoisted up & then dropped into the ground – that was February 1998. How amazing, not just because it’s a work of art, but because it’s an angel! And for me it reminds me of where I belong. And when I’m driving up or down the A1, I see this magnificant angel, Jumbo Jet wing arms outstretched, kind of welcoming me home.

The Angel of The North has been described as a symbol of renewal or regeneration, which is really appropriate to this region as we’ve undergone massive social and economic change. It’s also significant because the Angel has changed this unused ground, this ‘no space’ into ‘significant space’…some might even dare to call it, ‘holy space’.

The artist who created this angelic sculpture, Antony Gormley, has said of the Angel

‘I want to make something we can live with and that becomes a reservoir for feelings – feelings that perhaps we hadn’t known about until this thing was there, or feelings that couldn’t arise until it was’.

Throughout time there have been reports of encounters with angels, and they’re not just confined to the times when the Bible was written. I’ve always thought it must be pretty terrifying to see an angel - not some cute kid dressed up in a nativity play, but a real one, a messenger of God. I wonder, ‘what’s the message that we need to hear today?’

I think most of us have feelings that go deaper than perhaps we admit even to ourselves, but betray our need for more than a mortal life offers. There’s something within every human spirit that always seeks to reach out for more, for something higher. To reach beyond our ordinariness to something remarkable & special. In a spiritual sense, as you lift your head to look up at the Angel, you look away from self and from earth to what some would call the heavens. Maybe this Angel of The North is indeed a messenger too. It’s message serving as a reminder to look up from what sometimes seems the trivia of our day to day living and consider what might be of eternal significance.

Pictures of Love blog 3 The Himalayas

As we continue looking at 'pictures of love' here is a guest blog by Rev Simon Sutciffe, to read about some of his work as a pionneer minister in the Methodist Church click 'here'. To read a bit more about pioneer ministry in the Methodist Church read 'here'. 


I recently went on a trip to India and spent 4 nights in a village called Leti in the Himalayas. Below is a poem I wrote about it. It’s a place that I have never been to before, but is now etched on my heart, and I pray, I will see again.

What can be said about four nights in Leti?

Some inadequate words about the place being pretty?

The snow-capped mountains or the dark roaming hills?

The haze of the sunshine or the noise of the snow?

Children singing and dancing or

The bright coloured shacks?

Griffins circling high above or

Cricket played on the plateau below?

But no word can carry the silence of this place

The ear thumping

Heart thumping

Stillness

Of beauty

And in the end the only

Response that can be made

Is to be still

And be quiet;

Say nothing

Not a word.

Just sit and admire

The craft of our God.

Pictures of love blog 2 The Sound of Silence

Welcome to the second guest blog for the pictures of love project this is written by Rob Bee, a long standing friend, sound engineer, musician, twitcher and Methodist local preacher. Rob was one of the leaders of Cafe Sundae a fresh expression in Timperley based at the Methodist Church. If you want to be involved in the Pictures of love project then check out the info on the link above and send a photo to rob.dimension@tiscali.co.uk and please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom if you so wish.

Sound is something that is very important to me. As a musician and a professional sound engineer I need my ears and make a living out of crafting, shaping and forming aural constructs. Sound is not only a medium of information exchange and communication, it can also be a thing of beauty, balance and comfort. I love the sound of an E major being struck on an electric guitar through a cranked-up valve amp. I love the sound of a robin in full song in the middle of the night because it's found a street light and it thinks dawn is about to break. I love the glugging sound made when you pour that first glass of wine out of the bottle. I love the silly noises my parents always seem to make between picking up the phone and saying, 'Hello.' But there is another sound that I think is very special. It's impossible to record or photograph because it's immovable from the places it occurs. It's the sound of silence.

Very often when I get home from a busy day at work in the recording studio I'll just sit on the sofa and very deliberately not put the TV or the stereo on. I will sit and enjoy the quiet. It's about more than just resting my ears, I enjoy the stillness of the empty house and the moments of calm. But as lovely as these times are, the Sound of Silence is greater than that. I have been to many places that are quiet and I've worked in studios where the acoustic treatment is so good that sound seems to be sucked away from you into the walls. The Sound of Silence is greater than these things. It's not like 'no noise' it's like 'negative noise'. And it's loud.

Take a walk in the countryside and you will hear a great variety of sounds – whether you're hearing the crashing of waves on the beach, the wind rustling through the leaves in the woods or the babbling brooks in the valleys there are myriad sounds to be heard that calm the soul. But at other times we hear the sound of silence. It's the sound the snow makes as you stand by yourself and listen to it fall; the world holding it's breath as awaits it's transformation. It's a powerful thing. It compels you to listen to it as it screams at you about it's depth and richness. I find it sometimes in the Morecambe Bay Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty when conditions are perfect. It is a silence so complete that the occasional cry of a curlew or oystercatcher doesn't puncture it; it enforces it and makes it stronger. It demands respect; and you obey lest you break the magic.

 The Sound of Silence is the sound of space. It’s the sound of timeout. It's like a mirror. It's a rare thing, it's valuable and it's bizarre. It's not that something's missing - like a TV on mute - it’s that something is very definitely there and choosing to be noiseless.

The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, “Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.”  I couldn't disagree more.