Landscape & Objects, Exhibtion

LANDSCAPE AND OBJECTS

28^TH AUGUST 6.00PM – 5^TH SEPTEMBER

 EXHIBITION OF RECENT WORKS BY JOHNNY MARSH

LOWER STEPS GALLERY

HIGH STREET, MAYFIELD

EAST SUSSEX

Exhibition - recent work by Johnny Marsh

ARS HEPATICA

and

THE OPERA HOUSE

Recent work by Johnny Marsh

Friday 22 August, 6pm
till Monday 25 August
at
Lower Steps, High Street, Mayfield

Russian Magic Tales Poster

The Four Quarters presents:

Russian Magic Tales

Saturday March 22nd, 7.00pm for a 7.30 start
Scout HQ, Mayfield

Meet Baba Yaga, the fearful witch, a woman who threatens but often rewards. She sets tests that challenge a hero’s ingenuity, and is always on the side of the girl who is ill-treated by a wicked stepmother. Hear of Baba Yaga’s geese, her talking cat Yeremey, and the forest creatures who provide wisdom and support to those on a quest. Enjoy the adventures of Little Ivan, the Russian equivalent to Everyman."

"What brings you here? Is it your will?”  Answer Baba Yaga’s question with a yes. Join us for an evening of Russian Magic Tales.

Entrance is free but we will be collecting charitable donations.
Families are welcome (the tales are suitable for all ages).
Drinks and light refreshments will be served.

Collection for Heathfield Works supporting young people
into work, training or further education.

Tales from the Decameron Poster

Tales from the Decameron

This year is Giovanni Bocaccio's 700th birthday.  On Saturday 16th November at Mayfield Scout Hut we'll be celebrating it by telling tales from the Decameron to adults only.  Doors open at 7pm.  Admission will be free, though we'll collect charity donations. 

Winter Tales at the Rose & Crown, Mayfield

3 - 5pm, Sundays, 2nd - 23rd December.  Come along for festive stories, poems and plays. 

Duino Elegies, 1

Johnny Marsh: Rilke handout: December 2011

Duino Elegies, 2

Johnny Marsh: Rilke handout: December 2011

Duino Elegies - A Community Reading

Please join us for a community reading of Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Duino Elegies' at the Rose and Crown Inn, Mayfield, on Sunday 4th December 2011, from 6 o'clock. All are welcome and there is no charge for the evening, although contributions will be gratefully accepted on behalf of Sussex Oakleaf.

The Unimaginable Zero Summer Picnic

Four Quarters Exhibition Notes

The exhibition is now over. Rebecca, Johnny and I have returned to our respective homes and the little shop we called our own for two weeks is empty again. The Mayfield Fringe has also come to a close and the village is quiet once more.

We three Quarters had fun though, during our two week occupation, meeting initially on the evening of 4th May to cover the walls and find a home for our work:





Johnny read from Eliot's 'Four Quartets':


while Rebecca hunted for scanned pages from her journal:


and I relaxed:


Over the next two days the show took shape:









On Wednesday 11th we held the Red Read, an evening of stories and poems on the subject of Little Red Riding Hood:





and Sauvage the dog found her inner wolf:


On Saturday 21st, we closed the show with 'Tea and Scones with Eliot', a group reading of 'Four Quartets'. It turned out to be a truly Anglo-American affair, with seven Americans among the twenty-one strong gathering. I loved listening to the changes in voice and accent as the poem was passed around.



We were also lucky enough to have T S Eliot's dinner jacket with us:



And finally here we are in photograph taken by Rebecca's friend Cuyler just before the show ended:

Red Read

linocut by Jay Luttman-Johnson

Rather belated notice, but there will be a Red Read tonight at No 1 London House in Mayfield, East Sussex. This is part of the ongoing Four Quarters exhibition. The reading begins at 7.30pm - come one and all with your favourite retellings of the Little Red Riding Hood fairytale - your own or someone elses. All are welcome to this free event, which is part of the fabulous Mayfield Fringe Festival!

May Day Itinerary

Sunrise: 5.40 am

Sunset: 8.30 pm

Sunrise. Beat the bounds of Parson's Wood and then return to Johnny's house for a hearty breakfast.

Mid-morning. Gather ivy for the maypole, pausing in the fields to read 'Spring' from Vita Sackville-West's The Land; Philip Larkin's 'The Whitsun Weddings' (because we've come over all epithalamic after the Royal Wedding) and to begin reading Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm. Back to Johnny's again for lunch and strawberry upside-down cake.

Afternoon. Prepare rags and ribbons for the maypole and continue reading Cold Comfort Farm. Return to the woods to turn the summer solstice dancing tree into a maypole.

Sunset. An early supper of roast lamb, asparagus, purple sprouting and new potatoes, followed by a final visit to the woods.

Four Quarters Exhibition

02/02/2011 - Candlemas Itinerary

Eve of St Agnes by John Everett Millais, 1857

Sunrise: 07:38 am

Sunset: 16:51 pm

Sunrise. Beat the bounds of Parson's Wood and back to Johnny's for a hearty and warming breakfast.

Mid-morning. Make a bed in the woods for our 'Little Brigid' corn dolly. Candlemas readings, including 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. Lunch followed by tea and zesty marmalade cake.

Sunset. Walk up Pennybridge and back down into the woods to visit the spring and the Clootie Tree. Then back to Johnny's for split pea and ham soup. A long evening of red wine and poetry: Keats's 'The Eve of St Agnes' and a candlelit reading of T.S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets'.

Cross-quarters 2011

While we completed our year of Quarters with the autumn equinox in September 2010, we have decided to continue with the Four Quarters collaborative for another year - this time spending each of the cross-quarters in the same dozen acres of the Sussex Weald.

The first cross-quarter day of 2011 will be February 2 - Candlemas, the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, Imbolc or St Brigid's day - take your pick. Marking the halfway point between the winter solstice and vernal equinox, this is a feast day associated with divination, fire and purification, marking the beginning of a month of ravaging wolves and cakes! It is the day snakes wake up, foxes mate, and ewes give birth and begin lactating.

We will also be in the woods on May Day (Beltane), Lammas, and Samhain (Halloween or All Soul's Day) and will be reporting back here in due course.

22/09/2010 - Autumn Equinox Itinerary

Sunrise: 6:46 am

Sunset: 6:59 pm

Sunrise. Beat the bounds of Parson's Wood. We might see the sun this time, as the forecast is for fair weather. Once the bounds have been well and truly beaten we'll return to Johnny's for a breakfast of mainly mushrooms.

Mid-morning. We'll begin the Book of the Woods, a volume which we plan to leave somewhere rain-proof once it's half-filled, so that other people can contribute to it.

Lunchtime. A stroll to the clootie tree to replenish ribbons and tags, followed by a picnic at Johnny's house and readings from Vita Sackville-West's The Land and Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.

Sunset. Create a sukkah in the woods, and watch the moonrise, which unusually tomorrow will do so as the sun sets. Then we'll return to Johnny's to a supper of stuffed marrows and apple and blackberry crumble. Finally, we'll read Keats's 'To Autumn' and have another group reading of T.S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets'.

21/06/2010 - Summer Solstice Itinerary

Sunrise: 4:43 am

Sunset: 9:21pm

Sunrise: Beat the boundaries of Parson's Wood and (maybe) actually see the sun! Forecast is for sunny intervals. Once we have visited the wood we will return to Johnny's for breakfast and Solomon's Seal tea (said to provide poets and painters with inspiration, as well as being the key to underground treasure chambers).

Mid morning: Start a new, collaborative project journal and make paper boats for later on in the day. Then take some new ribbons down to the Wish Tree and leave spirit cakes at the well.

Lunchtime: Picnic in the woods, followed by paddling and the creation of a Dancing Tree, reading aloud (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Moominsummer Madness and Milton's masque Comus), and a nap (because large swathes of iambic pentameter are known to be highly soporific).

Sunset: Illuminate the woodland path with tealights and burn paper boats on the hammer pond. Close the evening with a reading of Keat's Ode to a Nightingale.

Spring & the Clootie Tree

The tree is now in full leaf and looking plumply green.



It has proved popular with passers by, who have added their wishes to its boughs.









I love the silhouetted shadow of a leaf on this one:



There are wishes written on these spiralling ribbons:



Someone has also added this heart:



There's a beautiful wooden bird too, but it's hanging rather high and I'm not tall enough to get a decent photograph of it.





After a while, rain loosens the labels:







Each time I visit the tree, there's something new:







Heart-felt Four Quarterish thanks to everyone who's helped adorn the tree.