Western Morning News (Saturday)
Treat for the senses in a perfect trio
Frank Ruhrmund enjoys three exhibitions on show at the Jackson Foundation, St Just
There is still a chance. The last chance, in fact, to see three exhibitions: ‘Wheat from Plough to Plate’; ‘The Burn – A Scottish Mill Stream’; and ‘Echoes of a Vanished World’ now being held in the Jackson Foundation, all three of which run until today, this Saturday, August 14.
As many will know, the building that houses the Jackson Foundation was formerly part of Warrens Bakery in St Just, and it was there that the firm’s lorries and other vehicles were serviced, repaired and maintained. As it happened the St Just-based artist Kurt Jackson, recognising the importance of the firm to the town, painted and drew inside its factory almost a decade ago. A few years later, when his Foundation came about, as he says, it seemed relevant to continue on the theme of bread, the chain of events that leads from plough to plate, to the growing of wheat, from its harvesting to the grinding of the flour – its whole gamut. From such paintings as a Cornish Field of Wheat and Ploughing in the Stubble to The Old Combine and Willy’s Old Thrasher, Truthwall, plus sculptures, poems, and film, he presents us with a vivid reminder of the importance of the cultivation of wheat, which has evolved in parallel with our own development in culture and sophistication, and how along with maize and rice we have grown to depend on this crop, “this unique grass”.
A dedicated environmentalist and a true polymath, Kurt Jackson travels widely in search of inspiration. His energy, enthusiasm and enterprise are enviable, and for The Burn he travelled from St Just to the west coast of Scotland, to the banks of a mill stream on the Mull of Kintyre. A celebrated peninsula situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the Firth of Clyde, which looks across the North Channel to Co. Antrim in Northern Ireland, although it was only four or so kilometres from its source to the sea he found the burn, or millstream, to be as resonant and diverse as the Clyde or the River Thames. From falls and eddies, cataracts and rushes, to black, white, ochre and clear water, not forgetting the moorland and farmland, woodland and coastland, it was fascinating. Then, to crown it, there was the ancient mill itself, which was in perfect working, but lay silent, frozen in time, not one of its functional cogs or wheels having worked for half a century or more. While the burn, its mill and its surroundings were on a small scale, as he says, they were not insignificant. Every draining moorland bank and flower clad valley side, every stretch held its own riparian store of bio-diverse communities, colonies plants and animals clinging to banks and bathing in these waters that were a world in microcosm. One which with pencil line and paintbrush stroke, tracing every curve and meander, tree and washed rock, Kurt Jackson has captured and presented for us all to share and appreciate.
Among a great many other things, Kurt Jackson is an ambassador for Survival International, and it is not all that surprising that for several weeks he has been drawing attention to the career of Robin Hanbury-Tenison OBE, with the presentation of Echoes of a Vanished World, as the famed explorer happens to be the founder of Survival International. Comprised of photographs taken by the Cornwall-based explorer from the 1950’s to the 1970’s, they reveal how there is nothing self-conscious or patronising in all that he did. Instead there is a sense of the deep admiration, the wonder, respect and desire to share what he has seen with a world that grown increasingly out of touch with things that really matter. Not to be missed, admission is free, and all three exhibitions can be seen in the Jackson Foundation, North Row, St Just, until 5pm today, Saturday, August 14.