Kate Phizackerley on Theban Moon

As I indicated recently, I've now opened my private blog to everybody and won't be updating this blog anymore. Hopefully having one less blog to update will mean I update more often! Something about my recent holiday in Laos will be added soon.

Going public soon

Just to say that in the next few days I'll be suspending this blog and opening out the private one instead. I'll let you know when it happens and post a link here. For a few months this one will remain open but in time I will probably eventually delete it.

Kate

The Web works

My last post was about setting up a web site about my father's paintings. I've been contacted today by the owner of one of my (and my father's) favourite paintings - he's going to send me a photo which is wonderful. It will be like being reaquainted with an old, childhood friend. That's happened too in the past 24 hours! Quite separately, I've made contact with somebody I was at school with but I haven't seen since leaving university.

It's been a good day.

Tribute to my father

After months of promising to do so, I have finally started a Web site as a tribute to my late father, Terry Phizackerley. It's a photographic archive of his paintings (mostly but not entirely signed PT Phiz). Sadly we don't have photos of much of his work. My father took them and there were slides but unfortunately they were not saved in the chaos of clearing the house after my mother's death. Hopefully over time people will get in touch and offer photos of paintings in their posession. The family is still in touch with most of the people who own several. In due course, I'll also put an advert in the Lancaster Guardian advertsing the site and asking people to get in touch.

In the meantime, there is an opportunity to display some lesser known work, particularly work that has never been exhibited. There is a large body of very early work and the breadth of styles will surprise those who have only seen works he exhibited later in his life.

I intend it to be more than a photographic archive. As a child, more than my brothers, I spent a lot of time with my father when he was sketching. I was also very much a consultant while he was painting, trusted to be honest with my view as to he quality of each work. That's not to say we always agreed. He produced some strange purple works ... which thankfully seem to have gone astray because I never cared for them at all. My father, however, felt them to be rather good. (Indicentally, I can neither paint nor draw! My brother inherited that talent.)

So the site will also capture my recollection of my father at work, supplemented by anything my brothers can add, to provide a comprehensive picture for posterity of his artistic career. For the first time, I also intend to publish many of his sketches so that readers can see the transition from sketch to finished work. In many cases, "sketch" is something of a misnomer. A watercolour sketch for an oil painting can be an important and beautiful work in it itself, even if my father specifically labelled it as a sketch. But then I remember how much commitment went into every oil painting - both in terms of time but also financially as spending on canvas might have meant we couldn't afford to eat. The life of a young artist carries a high pecuniary burden.

It is going to take months, if not years, to get even the first set up. But it is a job worth doing.

Once a significant number are in place, my sister in law and I plan a memorial exhibition. The exhibitions during his lifetime were themed, such as pictures of the river Lune (like the one shown). I want to display the full diversity of his talent. My first thought was to arrange it as a timeline. There is a difficulty with that in that the dates for some works is uncertain, although I can date most to within a couple of years; more importantly it doesn't achieve what I want as often very similar paintings, albeit of different scenes, are separated by many years. The new intention is therefore to organise pictures by medium - a group of oils, a group of landscape watercolours, some architectural studies and so on. Hopefully we will also be able to arrange a loan of works in private and public collections - or at least professional standard photographs of some of them.

But that is for the future, for now I need to concentrate on building the web site and ensuring that those who will be interested are able to find it.

(The full post is presented here.)

Zinfandel Port

I brought back a couple of half bottles of Charles Krug Lot XII zinfandel port from California.

Of the wineries I visited this was my favourite. Quiet, almost intimate. Just me and a young couple. The server was highly knowledge and loved to talk. I was on the $20 reserve wines flight: the couple were on the $10. Everytime her poured them a glass I got one too. At one time I had 3 different cabernet sauvignons in front of me - and it's easy to tell the difference.

Generally I don't like the heavy reds - or so I thought. What I discovered is that the heavy reds need to be of a high quality. The reserves where they may only produce 200 or 300 cases were rather good.

Generally I tend to go for softer reds - malbec, pinot noir or shiraz. Grapes which can successfully be used for cheap wines ie what I normally drink.

Krug are known for champagnes. There weren't any in the tasting as they are produced elsewhere. (My champagne tasting came at House Chandon. I'm now certainly I really dislike their champagnes. Insipid, tasteless with a tart after taste. Not for me at all.) What they did have was a zinfandel port. Again that wasn't supposedly on the tasting list - but hey as usual we were talking and it was a natural progression to illustrate the discussion.

It's not a real port of course. But for something so glorious that's sheer pedantry.

I bought 4 half bottles of their Lot XII. It's made in a solera system and inludes 12 diferent vintages. We drank one bottle after dinner on the Sunday when the family were round for a barbecue. And it was every bit as good as I remembered. Sweet, fruity. Just wonderful!

Zinfandel Port

I brought back a couple of half bottles of Charles Krug Lot XII zinfandel port from California.

Of the wineries I visited this was my favourite. Quiet, almost intimate. Just me and a young couple. The server was highly knowledge and loved to talk. I was on the $20 reserve wines flight: the couple were on the $10. Everytime her poured them a glass I got one too. At one time I had 3 different cabernet sauvignons in front of me - and it's easy to tell the difference.

Generally I don't like the heavy reds - or so I thought. What I discovered is that the heavy reds need to be of a high quality. The reserves where they may only produce 200 or 300 cases were rather good.

Generally I tend to go for softer reds - malbec, pinot noir or shiraz. Grapes which can successfully be used for cheap wines ie what I normally drink

Majorca

Majorca was fantastic.

I was in Porto Colom out on the east coast about 70Km from Palma, slightly less from the airport. Porto Colom is a town/resort built around a large natural harbour. Not quite as big as the Grand Harbour in Malta but still probably a couple of square miles. So nowhere is far from the sea.

If the harbour was a big U, I was at the bottom, near the town square. A cluster of restaurants of indifferent quality - the more expensive just more pretentious rather than actually serving better food. The exception was a rather decent Italian but mostly I preferred the Chinese as it was right in the square. Most evenings there would be a 'band' on. Essentially the sort of karaoke act you see on streets the world over - backing on tape and vocals sung live. Some were average; one was pretty decent. With frequent breaks they played from about 8pm through to midnight. As usual I was late shift when most of the tourists were back in their hotels so it was me and Spanish families. And I mean families. Even up to midnight there were lots of kids. Bouncy castle and trampolines for the little ones; dancing for the older ones, and food and drink for the adults. Why can't we do it like that?

Two days I dragged myself to Palma. That was a couple of hours each way on the public bus so the fact I went twice shows I liked the place. I'd say it's my favourite Mediterranean city so far. A staggeringly beautiful waterfront. Some nice squares and shops and a lovely buzz to the place. I'll be back. Now I've been to Majorca I can't understand the lure of the Canaries. There's history in the Balearics. The villages and towns have souls and hearts. Places to potter.

I did get some time to sunbathe. Mostly topless of course - don't want nasty white lines and I'm too lazy to keep moving straps around. I'm not a sun worshiper so I have colour rather than a deep tan. But that's just the way I like it.

The photos of Palma will go up on Flickr over the next few weeks but they need a bit of work (mostly cropping) first.

[This is the complete post]

Alnwick Garden Fountains

This is a photo from a year or so ago that I've just uploaded to Flickr and thought I would share. It's a photo of a fountain in the gardens of Alnwick Castle, the creation of the present Duchess of Northumberland. I'd recommend a visit to everyone. There are more photos on my Flickr stream if you are interested.

Borough Market

Sounds boring? Far from it. My friend Grace and I went up to buy lunch. Borough Market is a farmers market on steroids. OK, unfortunate phrase - a lot of the produce is organic. The idea was to grab a drink in the George; buy lunch; come back to my flat to cook it; then pop out to the Cricketers (the local local) for a quick drink. Grace hadn't been to Borough Market before. It's right by London Bridge station so very quick from here. A mass of stalls selling cheese, meat, vegetables, wines, cider, jams, bread and a whole lot of other produce. Nothing adventurous on the veg front - just new potatoes and spinach. Then a tour of the various butchers to find some nice steaks to grill, and we did choose steak. All to be washed down with a nice bottle of plum wine and followed by cheese and biscuits. There was some discussion on the cheese but as hostess I opted for a goats cheese gorgonzola. Confession - I had to resort to Margaret Patten's book (old) to find out how long the new potatoes needed to be cooked! A very nice meal with good company. All in all a good afternoon.

[full post here]

The latest craze from Palo Alto

Some of you may not know that my aunt and cousins live in Palo Alto in California. I'm going there again later in the summer ... and I'm getting ready. I'll post about that in a few weeks. Palo Alto is also the home of Stanford and Google is next door. Many of the new developments come out of Palo Alto and one of last year's is Twitter. I'm not going to bore you with what it is but if you already know and are on Twitter, then email me so we can hook up.

Full article here