Wear and tear, turf and hands

Looking close at Nature's wear and tear.2. I am tempted at a later stage to separate the bird perched on a container top right. Perhaps I will later.

Only readers of The Financial Times are deemed to deserve a review of the current Durer exhibition  in Washington (Last Saturday's edition). Delightful it would be to be able to drop in to see The water colour called The Great Piece of Turf painted in 1503.  It shows a square meter of what I suppose we would call weeds: grasses, dandelions. lungwort and the like growing out of boggy land. A simple transcendent composition revealing the beauty  that resides in what is considered ordinary and is so often overlooked. The reproduction from the article is in my scrap album, but how good to be able to pop on to a plane and see the original and the other work displayed including wonderful studies of hands, as you might expect from the draughtsman responsible for the famous drawing of praying hands.

Just recently I have noticed in myself  a need to have my hands free while out and about. The reason is simple. I want to be able quickly  to produce my camera from one pocket and, because my memory is so poor that I have to monitor what is going on round me and the thoughts which come into my head as they occur, my notebook and pen from the other.