Trumpington War Memorial

It has been too long. I have been getting very slack, or perhaps just busy. The dissertations are winding down but I have been sneaking in a few last field trips as a reluctant goodbye. When the sun appeared in the afternoon on Tuesday I cycled to Trumpington in the manic winds. In this small village is a war memorial designed by Eric Gill.

In full view of the incongruous cars I took a few photos on the dying batteries of my camera as I circled the War Memorial. It turned out to be a longer trek into the suburban backs of Cambridge than I had imagined so I made a careful and ponderous loop of the memorial to justify the trip.

It makes me wonder how many monuments and memorials designed by Eric Gill lie forgotten in the unassuming rural fringes of Britain. I wonder now if I have passed sculpture and carved stone without realising what I was seeing, and, if in the future there will be recognition.

My various pilgrimages to seek out the work of Gill have proved how deeply embedded he is within a not so distant, still influential, British culture. The mark of Gill is there on some subconscious level, a lens through which we view sculpture, inscription, typography and architecture.

Book Design

I should be finishing up my first dissertation but I keep reading and this continually opens up new angles. Over the past few days I have been following up a few ideas about the significance of fully-integrated book design in Jones' poem The Anathemata. Part of my argument is that the physical book of The Anathemata becomes a sign in itself, an object which the reader uses to perform an 'anamnesis' , like the transubstantiation of the Eucharist. It suddenly occurred to me that treating the book as a utile sign in itself has its roots in a far deeper history. Gill and Jones were involved with the private printing presses of Hilary Pepler and Robert Gibbings; The St. Dominic's press at Ditchling and The Golden Cockerel Press. Anyway this has led me down the criss-crossing history paths of further research. This further 'research' mostly involves requesting the most beautiful books from the stacks and absorbing every minute detail of its design. I have been reading about the history of these two presses, feeling the quality of its paper choices beneath my fingertips, seeing carefully selected typefaces which have been handset, and perhaps best of all admiring the specially commissioned wood cuts and engravings which revived a dying art.

Eric Gill, Four Gospels

There are two masterworks I have been studying. The first is Eric Gill's Four Gospels for the Golden Cockerel Press. Gibbings gave Gill the typeface as a framework and the engravings grew from this. As I looked through the pages I could sense the perfected unity which this process of working had produced. The letters are interwoven with the designs, so that story and illustration are an integrated and fluent whole.

I am very tempted to take this page and head my dissertation with it, at the moment I have a simple quotation 'In the beginning was the Word [...] The Word made flesh.' but perhaps this invokes so much more?

It is clear from these pages and excerpts the extent to which Gill was experimenting with typography, layout and the relationship between visual and linguistic arrangements of meaning. This is one of the side effects of my dissertation, that suddenly I have this overwhelming appreciation for typography. Typography which once seemed the most incidental of things has become this vessel of resonant meaning.

I read somewhere that copies of Gill's The Four Gospels now sell for around £5000. This moment in the University Library, touching vellum and hand-pressed paper, is the closest I will ever get to such essential perfection!

For David Jones' masterwork of Book Design I looked to the Chester Play of the Deluge which he produced woodcuts for in 1927 for the Golden Cockerel Press. The collaboration with Robert Gibbings on this project enabled him to take more of an interest in layout and to produce woodblocks of an even greater complexity. The engravings are dark, compact knots of energy. They capture the chaos and power of the biblical story of Noah. My attention was directed towards The Deluge mostly because of a scholar called Thomas Dilworth who writes that Jones's Anathemata takes its spatial structure from an artistic development that Jones made in these same woodcuts.

The Deluge, David Jones

Building the Ark, Jones

After the Deluge, Jones

While I agree with Dilworth's description of the spatial structuring in these woodcuts, the point I want to make about David Jones' and his involvement with book design is something very different. But I'm not going to give anything away in that regard...

This remains as a glimpse in to my afternoon of discovery, I hope you have a feel for something significant and exciting in this.

Word made Flesh

In 1909, while his wife Mary Gill was pregnant, Eric Gill made his first stone carving. It was the incarnation of frustrated sexual desire, a body which replaced the one he could not have access to; 'Lord! How exciting! - and not merely touching and seeing her but actually making her. I was responsible for her very existence and and her every form came straight out of my heart.' In sculpting Gill became a Pygmalion, treating the stone as flesh and designing his new woman.

The sculpture is sadly lost but sketches remain; we can see a woman crippled beneath the weight of desire bearing an inscription from Aeschylus' Agamemnon 'There is the sea, and who shall drain her dry?' it is an address from Clytaemnestra to her returning husband, but in this context it captures the tumultuous sea of unquenched desires.

Gill described his new discovery of an art language in the terms of letter cutting 'And this new job was the same job, only the letters were different ones. A new alphabet- the word made flesh.' The biblical references of his workman's vocabulary should not be accepted without implication. Gill's sculptures recreate the ultimate act of religious creation, transubstantiation. They make incarnate.

'For stone carving properly speaking isn't just doing things in stone or turning things into stone, a sort of petrifying process; stone carving is conceiving things in stone and conceiving them as made by carving. They are not only born but conceived in stone; they are of stone in their inmost being as well as their outmost existence.'

Eric Gill was the figure who sparked my interest in carving and it was exactly this sense of the corporeality of stone and the sensuality of sculpture, which is more than just representation, that excited me. Gill's sculptures retain the tender touch of the workman who believes in the absolute authority of his medium to translate thought and feeling in to something intelligible.

'in the beginning was a thought not a thing, and therefore it is that intelligibility is the final cause of all things.'

Reading the Workshop

Finally! My photographs, slightly grainy and far too few, of the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop are up. Despite the quality they excite me because they are richly literary. I think I described the workshop as a palimpsest, everywhere there is material to read; alphabets, quotations, rubbings, postcards and stone languages.

This is a sculpture by David Kindersley in the style of Eric Gill, in fact it could easily be mistaken for Gill. The whole body is in a taut balance of sensuality.

Above the mantelpiece examples of Kindersley alphabets can be seen climbing the white walls.

In this photograph you can see a print of one of David Jones' inscriptions which they brought down for me to see, I love its positioning in tension with the 'word made flesh' beside it, Kindersley's sculpture.

Behind the work of inscriptions are collected treasures gathered on the shelves. There are letters in the most surprising places.

Glass bottles on the shelves collect light from the high windows, filling the space with light and concentrated peace.

The attitude to work is intense, perhaps only 2 or 3 letters are inscribed in a day so an entire inscription is a work of weeks. An apprenticeship as a letter cutter is a decision of passion and dedication, three years at stone on the minimum wage, but as Lida points out it is also an inclusion in to a family.

For one morning I flirt with the idea of my own apprenticeship, is this the passion and spirituality of working practice I have been looking for? But while I am welcomed, given tea and gifts, I recognise that I am essentially an interlocutor.

Cardozo Kindersley Workshop

Quotation from John Donne- letter-cutting is literary as well as visual

There is nothing like discovering discovering that something exciting and useful has been right under your nose all this time, unnoticed. I was making a passing comment to somebody about how perfect a location Cambridge was for my dissertation; there is Kettle's Yard, David Jones's letters to Jim Ede, a Divinity Fellow with a secret stash of relics from Ditchling and then the resources of the UL. She agreed, but didn't mention any of these things, just the Kindersley workshop.

In 1934 David Kindersley was apprenticed as a stone-cutter to Eric Gill at Pigotts. Eventually, frustrated by the religious strictures of Gill's working practices, he left to start his own workshop. Now located in Cambridge (a five minute walk from me, who knew?) the workshop is passed between generations as it takes on dedicated new apprentices who have fallen in love with letters. The Kindersley workshop produces headstones, memorial plaques, street signs and a whole range of commissioned work which at times moves towards being (although 'Art' is a dangerous word for Lida) lyrical, inscribed sculptures of immense poetry.

A quotation from Salvador Dali, which comes with a story Lida is keeping alive. 'Making is breaking' she says, this is what their work is all about. In order to make an inscription they break the surface of a stone that has existed for thousands of years. The minutest of errors destroys the work.

I have just returned from my visit to the workshop, gifted with books and postcards and thoughts and ideas, which my head is brimming and swimming with. I have a love and respect for Lida Cardozo Kindersley (David's widow) who currently the runs the workshop with passion and precision but also with the spirituality of alphabets; of lines, forms and characters which have a relationship amongst themselves, with stone and with the environment they are eventually placed within. She takes me to see a headstone which will be laid out on the ground, with a sweeping gesture and the reflection of sunlight in her eyes she explains how the light of the day will change letter and stone surface, bring everything to life.

The surface of the rock already has the sea, the beach, the sky and its birds written on it.

The whole workshop is a visual palimpsest (photos will have to follow) of tablets, sculptures, rubbings, words which are pure poetry or those that become doctrines for work, postcards, drawings and a whole collage of materials collected to form a part of the workshop's atmosphere, its creatively focussed energy. I sit at a great wooden table in the centre of the workshop as coffe break begins, biscuits are passed around, everyone is reading newspapers or books, there is light chatter. Then the break is over and the whole workshop is filled with the chippings of chisel on stone, the hum of deep concentration. Lettering is a language, Lida asserts, each letter has its own character, and she goes on to talk about the joy of the letter 'Y'.

The Eric Gill Pilgrimage

The Eric Gill pilgrimage turned out to be providential. I had planned out my landmarks but was unaware how close they were together; Oxford Circus, Victoria and South Kensington formed a tightly bound prism on the tube map. Then there was the Itsu (www.itsu.com) opposite Portland Place which provided the perfect lunch and the unexpected Gill sculptures which greeted me as I entered the V&A. When I emerged from the underground at Oxford Circus I could already see the beacon of broadcasting house beckoning from just behind the lines of Christmas shoppers.

In 1932 Gill produced the Prospero and Ariel sculptures which still furnish the exterior of BBC broadcasting house. The BBC chose Shakespeare's The Tempest as a theme in order to make a cultural statement. Prospero was an 'airy' spirit who represented the airwaves of broadcasting. However Gill adapted the sculpture to his own beliefs about culture. And so Prospero and Ariel become God the Father and God the Son. When I arrive at broadcasting house in the flesh all I can see is Eric Gill's big joke on the BBC.

I assume that Gill's sculptures are details hardly noticed as commuters, businessmen and shoppers pass them by. However they are beautiful. I particularly like the detail of the wave that rides the building round as a trimming. I have seen so many photographs of these recently that I don't know what it means to have a set of my own, whether it will mean anything? Nevertheless I get in to the road and flutter about the steps of Langham church making a fool of myself with my camera.

‘Had not Prospero power over the immortal gods? At any rate it seemed to be only right and proper that I should see the matter in as bright a light as possible and so I took it upon me to portray God the father and God the son. For even if that were not Shakespeare’s meaning it ought to be the BBC’s’ Eric Gill

For Eric Gill the light of religion illuminates all creation.

My second stop, and what I assumed was my final, in the short pilgrimage was Westminster Cathedral. In the bitter cold as Christmas is nearing The Stations of the Cross with a little Catholic liturgy thrown in for good measure, seemed satisfyingly appropriate (probably more suited to Easter, but as a heathen I only have a gentle feel for these things). As a raging Catholic sculptor, although relatively unheard of at the time, Gill was asked to furnish the Cathedral's pillars with carvings of the Fourteen stations of the cross. This is Gill's 'Epic' just as The Anathemata is David Jones's; it communicates the whole history of a people and culture even if this history is uniquely that of Religion and the Passion. Mounted on pillars in Westminster these succeed in being epic.

Only one photo for you as the angles were awkward, although I did get some beautiful postcards so perhaps I will share those as a treat eventually. Red lettering and Gold details add subtle decoration, to a stark but beautifully conceived sculpture.

The final joy of the day was arriving at the V&A believing I had, had my warm cosy fill of Gill, only to be confronted by a preparatory carving for Prospero and Ariel in an alcove. I had unwittingly stumbled upon a new landmark in my pilgrimage.

To supplement my endless reading on lettering and typography there were framed tablets of Gill's typefaces. He donated them so that they could be studied by the V&A's legacy. You have no idea how often I have consulted black and white reproductions of these, now I am the student poring over them.

Gill's sculpture Mankind is a female cipher for the power of his sculpting. She is a luxurious decapitated monument to sexuality and the sensuality of stone. Gill admired tradition with such fervour but he commands a space in the centre of it all. I spent a long, long time absorbing buttocks, indents, curves and Gill's own deep admiration of the female form. Here she is for your enjoyment.

You can deny Eric Gill many things, but not this appreciation. In the V&A Fiona McCarthy's biographical revelations are irrelevancies, Eric Gill is a modern British sculptor whose influence stretches across the exhibition hall from Robert Gibbings to the student of lettering.

The David Jones Pilgrimage

I agonised over the scans of these images. The scanner was continually auto-correcting, filling Jones's flowers with brighter colour and making everything else black and white. I had to change it to professional mode so that it would just pick up what was there, and do justice to all of the subtle inflections of Jones's work. But this isn't the point, the scans only give you a glimmer of an idea of what the work really is. Today my David Jones Pilgrimage reminded me why seeing work in the flesh is a breathtaking, tear-inducing and necessary part of appreciating the artists that you love. For Jones, not being widely read meant that the printing costs of his books were problematic. Most of the reproductions of his paintings, drawings and prints are poor quality, in black and white and often underwhelming. In Kettles Yard, guided by the women who work there, the importance of Jones's art was brought back in to sharp focus.

Vexilla Regis, 1948, Graphite and Watercolour on paper

This might just look like a tangled and wooded work of chaos, but behind the door in Jim Ede's bedroom you can take a moment to look a little deeper in to the tangle. New dimensions and perspectives buried in the branches shift in to focus. We discover Stone Henge embedded on a hill in the distance, mythic horses charging the break and sculpted angels mounted on deteriorated plinths. There is a connection between Jones's paintings, his inscriptions and his poetry; here is all of mythology actively present in the landscape, here is the wooded quarry of Jones's imagination made manifest.

Flora and Calix light, 1950, Graphite and watercolour on paper

Jones's Chalice painting provides an alternative window out of the house. It is a celebration of the wild detritus of a fading bloom. Once again all perspectives exist in tandem so that the floral fireworks and transparent chalice give way to the frame of the window. Often mistaken for a simple vase, the chalice holds imaginative potential and symbolism as a mystical object.

Quia per incarnati, 1953, watercolour on paper

I have already used a scan from this inscription in my post about 'the field between poetry and painting', but the copy was from The Anathemata and was already a grainy black and white reproduction. When I walked downstairs to find 'Quia per incarnati' in the house of the Ede's I had the real revelatory moment of my pilgrimage. Within the pages of the book it is easy to fall in to the fiction and imagine the words carved in stone and to see the inscriptions as a separate genre of work entirely. But this is very much a David Jones painting, the letters finely carved with watercolour and brush, inflected with light touches of colour are a development of visual languages.

I have decided that I could quite happily spend the rest of my life being a super geek and working in the Kettles Yard house. First of all it is just a beautiful space to work in and secondly everybody just kept telling me stories; about Dai (David Jones) dropping sculptures when he came to stay, recalling things they had read in the books (including Jim Ede suggesting Jones was assertive and slept with Petra), and remembering the reactions of visitors to his work.

My new work station amongst the art books!

It would be a pleasure to be adopted in to the small circle of adoring Dai Greatcoat fans. Perhaps stalking Kettles Yard is the way to do it!

Eric Gill- questioning the canon

Dissertations command so much involvement that there has to be a point when you are called back to reality and forced to question yourself. For me the moment came when my Supervisor asked me to defend Eric Gill. 'Should we be giving credit to the influence of a paedophile?' The question made me squirm because I realised that I had dismissed the incest thing long ago.

Eric Gill was a brilliant artist and a magnificent sculptor, but not everybody believes this should be acknowledged. For me it is impossible to deny his influence on David Jones; he gave him religion, lettercutting and a sense of the importance of community and Place in art. There were also many points at which the two men diverged and in later years Jones would refer dismissively to 'that Gill thing'. But the basis of my argument will be the extent of this influence; how the most astonishing aspects of Jones would be impossible without the illumination of Eric Gill. So I ask that you hold moral judgement on the man while you consider the art.

Eric Gill's Last Essays was a very, very cheap ebay purchase but it is filled with the unexpected surprise of beautiful bookplates. This might be a fairly rich post in terms of images as I am not sure I can choose between them. The 'V' shown here, became Gill's insigna marking the front page of every book.

'Beauty should be free of ethical association' claimed Gill and for a while I made this my maxim so that I could avoid the more sordid nature of Gill's work and the difficult question of religion. But I think perhaps I might have to at least confront the ethical associations in my writing. This is just a selection of Gill's work in one medium, but I hope it reveals the possibilities of the artist.

Associations- the space between words

Associations is the current exhibition at the Kettles Yard gallery. I have to walk or cycle past Kettles yard almost every day and the gallery appears to be sealed off. So instead of stealing a sneaky preview of the exhibition, I was curious enough to get round to seeing it. Associations looks at the video and projection work of six artists; Marcel Broodthaers, Pavel Buchler, Matthew Buckingham, Sharon Hayes, John Smith and Michael Snow, from the 70's and 80's and current decade.


Sharon Hayes' recreation of Patty Hearst's abduction tapes, every word is clearly fed to the speaker.


'The exhibition draws attention to the space between words, and many of the artists are concerned with gaps- in communication, in history, in the construction and reception of the projected image.'

It was this introductory sentence that really caught my attention and ignited my interest in the dialogue of the exhibition. My dissertation is beginning to get involved with linguistics and the idea of words and letters as signifiers. The question of how we deal with the 'space between words' and bridge the gap between our comprehension and our misunderstanding is a pertinent one when we attempt to bring the literary and the visual together. Using words, letters, images and recordings, all of these artists are engaged in solving this dilemma.

I really enjoy it when galleries have to build spaces specifically for an exhibition. Kettles Yard's blacked out windows are not just there to keep the light out, they are also a necessary part of the construction of Dr Johnson's top floor "dictionary workshop" with sloping floor and the projection of his window on the wall. Matthew Buckingham's installation is a reflection on one man's nine year labour. It is accompanied by a recording which discusses Johnson's work, deciding that 'Dictionaries mock authorship', so where does this leave Johnson in his creation?


The highlight was John Smiths 1975 film 'Associations' from which the exhibition took its name. A passage is read from 'Word Associations and Linguistic Theory' and images are projected on the wall. At first the words we hear seem unrelated to the quick flashing of images on the screen. Gradually we begin to read associations between the pictures and the words. Pictures rhyme with the words being spoken, or echo individual sounds and appear to spell out words. The film tests our ability to make and find connections. It becomes a game which commands our involvement. There are some associations which I just don't pick up on, but then I am sure that other people would find a stronger set of interconnections.

A clip from Michael Snow's video.

I did not stay for the full 45 minutes of Michael Snow's video, partly because I do not have the patience but also because the white words flashing on the black background were beginning to make me queasy. But 'So is this' is an exciting piece of work which communicates directly with the viewer, offering an explanation of the work, one word at a time. The video is frustrating as it promises to be two hours long and offers no variation of content other than this slow transmission of message and intention. So Snow is playing with us, our expectations and our commitment to the work.


This was a challenging and rich exhibition, if you are in Cambridge you shouldn't miss it!