pete mcgovern

Another misty day in the front garden, overlooking the river.  I peel apart the glued seams of most of the cardboard packaging in my kitchen, and then retrieve more boxes from the recyling bin. Opening them all out to reveal the un-printed interior, then take them outside. It's misty and everything is wet, and once placed on the ground the cardboard quickly becomes damp. The grass is decidely flattened from me walking on it too much the last two afternoons. There are six days until Christmas Day.  While downloading the files I've also downloaded ' Steppenwolf ' by Herman Hesse, Josh at work's favourite book. The first few pages made me think the main character is how Josh once described his own teenage years, silent, but not unhappy. I also download the complete works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the priest poet, not expecting to be able to grasp at the depth of meaning.

Several bands formed of numerous BA music students performed at one of the Uni  Wintershow gigs tonight at LPAC. It's a top venue with a high fabness sound system and a lush lighting and projection rig. Jazz, folk and funk sounds from the shy to the show-offy diverse performers. Guitars of every persuasion, cellos, drums, flutes, keyboards, harp and eventually the biggest  saxaphone imaginable from which came a satisfyingly unearthly honk that shook everyone's bones. But t'was the singer in the santa hat who stole the show, his easy grace, and proper good vocal ability.  At one point the funk groove got so good I thought about getting to my feet to dance but there wasn't enough room down at the front of the stage and so just boggled about in my seat annoying those in the immediate vicinity instead. 

Israeli conscripts who refuse to support the occupation of Palestine are imprisoned. Meet the refusers. ( Oren Feld. Photo credit: Ore Cherbelis Hod )

After work joining the heritage trail tour exploring the centre of the city in sub-zero temperatues, so that when I got to the Birdcage pub afterwards for the poetry  spoken word night I needed a latte not a lager. Unavailable . Hot chocolate. Nope . But a cup of tea was offered. Ten minutes later I was served a delicate white teapot in the form of a swan. I wrapped my fingers around it for quarter of an hour to warm them up before pouring some to drink. The poetry  spoken words turned out to be hot, too. Men longing for kisses and more kisses and always like it was the first time. As if it could be?

I had been hoping to again photograph the fiery coloured little autumn leaves of the hedges that grow alongside the perimeter at RAF Waddington - the UK surveillance/targeting drone operations centre - but found they had been stripped by the wild weather of late.  As the light dipped and faded it caught the tiny fractures in the ice of the frozen puddles on the muddy ground, etching them with cold lines.

Thank you to historian Jim Snee for confirming  this is the Sincil Bank School. It is where 25 year old painter Joan Eardley spent time in 1946 working with local children on a mural (which has since been lost to time - ' Hey, have they checked the loft?! How about the basement?!' ).  It is down a side road about 200 m from my house and Jim informed me that structurally it is exactly as it was at that time, the central section having been rebuilt between the two side towers (seperate entrances for girls and boys) in 1937, before she was there. I had hoped it was this building, as it means I can imagine her coming and going along the roads around here. It might have been -2 degrees with the wind chill today, and stood in the drizzling rain, but it still felt a.ma.zing standing there. Thanks so much to Jim for taking this detour at my request on the group heritage trail walk this afternoon. 

There were about twenty people at the photographer Mandy Barker's talk this evening at The Collection.  I was impressed by the show when it opened a month ago, but left thinking it problematic. But having read and watched her interviews over the last couple of evenings I had formed the opinion, despite that, she is in fact a  British photographer of real significance - and that's a rare thing. Does she even know that? But, after her presentation, as the room emptied and the curator's hand hovered over the light switch, I did pose my impertinent suggestion that in taking nondescript found plastic ocean detritus and making powerful images from them they  could also be read as a  celebration of plastic pollution . These words, shamed as I am in writing them, only really confirm that there is a price for being clumsy and inept.  I don't think it's broken but my nose is still bleeding  from the left hook, but worse, I left feeling like a twat. And it was raining. I dese

end of october - kitted out with big headphones, an audio box integrating synth soundscapes with ambient sounds, and walking 

' In honour of the revolution it's half off at the Gap ' - Bo Burnham Since first hearing Bo's song 'That Funny Feeling' I hum it a lot at work - and have wanted to see a 50% off sale at GAP. Today is that day. I feel part of something bigger. (Phoebe Bridgers' cover version below is the best.) Stunning 8K resolution, meditation app In honor of the revolution, it's half-off at the Gap Deadpool's self-awareness, loving parents, harmless fun The backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun There it is again That funny feeling That funny feeling There it is again That funny feeling That funny feeling The surgeon general's pop-up shop, Robert Iger's face Discount Etsy agitprop, Bugles' take on race Female Colonel Sanders, easy answers, civil war The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door The live-action Lion King, the Pepsi Halftime Show Twenty-thousand years of this, seven more to go Carpool K

The Garry Fabian Miller beech leaves piece uses a regimented grid structure I like, but for these blood-red leaves fallen from the smoke trees in the yard the last few blowy days I ended up with something more free-form. Later throwing a basketball in the sunlit park, with all the tall trees glowing with autumn colours, the movement in my heart announced  some kind of joy. To which my face responded with a wary smile.

I've always stopped to look carefully at this artwork over the years and had a poster of it at one time. I think it's a popular piece. Currently on show again at Usher Gallery, Lincoln.  A modernist work that balances a connection with nature with the clarity of the process of making. After a google search I'm glad to find he's still alive and well and as driven as ever in making pictures. When I saw in his bio that he lived on a farm in rural Lincolnshire I was excitedly thinking of getting in touch and asking if I could go meet him (with lots of questions and things photographic to talk about), then saw he'd moved many years ago to Dartmoor.  His artistic life there revealed in sound and image on his website . 72 leaves from a Beech tree growing in the grounds of the Usher Gallery and 72 leaves from 36 Beech trees across rural sites in Lincolnshire.