St Ives and all that art!

I've just returned from a five night break in St Ives. We were there for a family 50th wedding anniversary celebration, but having gone all that way I had an arty agenda too! I had long wanted to visit the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden and it didn't disappoint. In fact I was blown away!

St Ives is an artist haven and you cannot move for galleries and art and craft shops. So the day after we arrived we packed in the three on my hit list. Firstly the Barbara Hepworth was stunning. This is the studio where she worked with Ben Nicholson, and what came out of the information from the guides was Barbara's love for Ben. It came through in her art and knowing these things helped me to understand her work better.

Inside there are pieces which the public are not allowed to touch, though it was Barbara Hepworth's wish that people should touch them (but of course too many hands now might destroy the works). You can see why she wanted people to touch them because your fingers ache to do so. Whatever medium she used the smoothness cried out to be touched.

You are allowed to touch the garden sculptures, and what a setting to be in. High on the cliff looking down to the sea. The gardens themselves are beautiful and the sculptures don't look odd in their positions. What I like about these sculptures is the way they change depending on where you are standing and the light falling on them. I took tons of photos and would have been happy spending all day there in the garden.

One part of the garden is dedicated to the raw material and then there is the studio, the tools of the trade and a conservatory. It's all been nicely kept and for me it's one of the best places I've been to.

I loved the texture of this bamboo growing

Dragging ourselves away we then headed off to find the grave of Alfred Wallis in the cemetery overlooking the sea. I can't think of a better place to be buried with the sound of the sea and the view (not that you would be there to notice, but you know what I mean). It's very atmospheric.

Grave of Alfred Wallis

Atmospheric setting

From there it was a short walk to Tate St Ives where we managed to tag onto a tour/talk about modern artists. I found this fascinating and learned more about Alfred Wallis, Barbara Hepworth and others. After the tour we wandered back through the galleries and took our time over the rooms. We ended up in the cafe overlooking the town where a cream tea was consumed (well, one has to, right?)

Tate St Ives

Barbara Hepworth. These represent the triplets she gave birth to, the order they came and size

Alfred Wallis

View from the Tate cafe

Later we came across the house Alfred Wallis lived in and then headed up to the old chapel on St Ives head where the Coastguard is and were treated to a flash mob of Morris Dancers! There's something about Morris dancing.......

The house where Alfred Wallis lived

View from the hill by St Nicholas Chapel

The following day we walked to the Bernard Leach Pottery. I'd not heard of him but he is apparently famous and work from that studio is terrifically expensive. The studio was built in 1920. We saw the studio and kilns, the showroom and shop. It was interesting and different. We then wandered down to St Ives Museum and generally had a quieter day as the big family meal was that night.

Bernard Leach Pottery

The next day we took the bus to Penzance and walked through several lovely gardens and visited Penlee House Gallery and Museum where the current exhibition is Sir Alfred Munnings. He was a painter of horses in the main I really liked his work. The gallery also holds work by the Newlyn School of Painters. The house has a lovely cafe, gardens and a memorial garden with quiet places to sit. It is a beautiful setting.

Penzance

Penlee house

Memorial Garden

Penlee House

On our last day I suggested a coastal walk to Zennor, but had I known what was involved I'd never had suggested it. Though only six miles it was more like ten, and the pathways were strewn with rocks and boulders, high ascents, and drops to the rocks and sea below. We kept meeting the same people, passing, repassing us or them, all of us moaning that we should never have started this! Several people gave us horror stories of what was to come on the path, and how many times did I head 'it's just over that headland' only to find it wasn't. Oh the disappointment. Everything was screaming stop walking. At times I was on all fours to climb some parts as I was terrified of falling, My husband got a foot full of water, stones and mud at one point and fell backwards. My heart was in my mouth. There was a point when I thought Coastguards....I can't do much more of this! Finally a couple said we had another hour to go. Groans all round! And that last part was terrible, so slow going. Finally we came out to a sign that said Zennor village. Yeah! And at the end was a pub. I've never been more enthusiastic to see a pub. We found there was a bus that went hourly back to St Ives (we'd just missed it, of course), so we got our drinks and relaxed for an hour. The bus was an open top, so that was a nice ending to the day. We'd set out just after 10am and arrived in Zennor at 4.30pm. I have to say that the views and wildlife was lovely but the more desperate I became the less that interested me. This was the most challenging walk I've ever done.

The welcome pub in Zennor!

Finally a ride home.

Yesterday we had time to go down into town to pick up lunch for the train and visit a Collectors Fair, but walking back to pick up our cases the heavens opened. Cornwall had been kind to us but the weather was now changing. We got rather wet getting to the station and the winds were strong too. I thought a nice ride back home on the train. Ha! the train had a technical problem so we were stuck in Redruth while they tried to fix it, but couldn't. So we crept out and intoTruro where they hoped to fix it, but couldn't. I later found out it was the windscreen wipers. (There were calls for any train drivers on board please let yourself be known!) We all had to get off and board a different train and change at Plymouth for another back to London. We were an hour and half late getting home. How exhausting. But really we were lucky while we were there, and I was impressed with the art and artists. of Cornwall.

St Ives

Evening in St Ives