Oxonmoot Reports

Iolanthe · Post by **Iolanthe** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:02 pm

The Namarie was really wonderful, Lindariel. Swann's version is hard to sing (now I have the music to look at it) and the singer, a man, did it most beautifully.

I think I was lucky to be awake all night to see that star (I romantically have to think of Venus as a 'star'). I stood by the window for a very long time just gazing at it. I will always remember it as something special. 'Earendil Star-Man Long-lighted' indeed.

marbretherese wrote: And you found the trees - hurrah - when we next go to Oxford you'll be able to take us straight to them.

You will be able to, won't you?

I think we'll have to print out the photos and go around asking everybody 'Have you seen these two trees'

.

Iolanthe · Post by **Iolanthe** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:03 pm

Tolkien Society Oxonmoot 2008

25-28th September

Christ Church, Oxford

The Tom Quad, Christ Church

Part 1:

Thursday night – or arty angst in the Art Room

Well, it’s Oxonmoot time again and I enjoyed myself so much last year that this year I persuaded Marbretherese to come along with me and join in with the fun, as two MeJ reporters are definitely better than one. And this year’s Oxonmoot promised to be a very special one – being held at Christ Church, no less (now forever wedded to Harry Potter by happening to have a Very Big Hall) and therefore warranting a whole extra day of fun by starting on Thursday night instead of Friday. Christ Church was founded by Cardinal Wolsey as Cardinal's College in 1524 and the Cardinal’s Hat is a recurring image throughout Christ Church, even being carved onto the backs of the dining chairs!

Gate detail showing cardinal’s hat

We arrived at Christ Church nice and early, carting our suitcases and a ton of framed paintings, labels and other arty stuff, ready to set up shop in the Art Room before the rush for prime exhibition space started. But first we headed to our room which turned out to be in Meadows building, so called because it backed on to Christ Church Meadow, giving us a wonderful rural view of fields and cows. I asked for a quiet room this year after last year’s night of purgatory underneath the party and you don’t get much quieter than grass, trees and the occasional passing cow. It was at this moment that, I think, Marbretherese leant out of the window and photographed her first bovine of the weekend. Amazing that you can know someone for years without knowing they have a thing for cow photography…

View of Christ Church Meadow from our window, without cows.

Once we were installed we set off for the Art Room and were early enough to get some quite good spots. Well… mine was a good spot anyway, but by Friday when more artists arrived anything off the floor was a good spot as there were a lot exhibiting, making for a really excellent range of work. Becky Carter-Hitchin was already there directing operations as she has now taken on the daunting task of organising the exhibitors and smoothing all the arty angst that goes with choosing a spot and actually sticking the pictures up (which feels like hanging your babies out to dry in the hope that a) they don’t fall down and b) everyone plays nicely with them). I had plenty of arty angst as there were no hanging thingies (note to self – bring hanging thingies next year) but an abundance of Velcro sticky pads for clinging to the fuzzy exhibition stands. Becky was very calming (‘Look, Jef Murray’s are still up!’) as I stuck as much Velcro on the backs of my framed pictures as I could get away with, while simultaneously hyperventilating. If it’s good enough for Jeff Murray and Ruth Lacon, whose work was also still stuck up despite gravity, then it was good enough for me. Marbretherese had brought her own hanging thingies and was therefore being efficient and just a tad smug while putting up her stuff in the opposite corner, while I fussed and fussed.

After all my hyperventilating and fussing we needed a nice cuppa so we headed over to the hospitality room where we caught up again with Ruth Lacon (who did remember us from the Morton in Marsh exhibition) for the first of several very enjoyable art discussions, and had a reunion with ‘Fangorn’ with whom I’d had a long conversation about Cor Blok last year. He is the lucky owner of two Cor Blok paintings of Ents, and – joy of joy – had brought them over for the exhibition. More about them later, but I was truly elated! Thank you Fangorn!

As there was no Thursday meal provided, Marbretherese and I decided to head for the Eagle and Child as – aside from being the Inklings’ pub - their food is very, very good. We were lucky once again as the Inklings’ corner was free, even though the rest of the pub was heaving. The pub staff was overwhelmed by the sudden flood of people (they ought to ring Oxonmoot weekend in their diary) but we eventually had our food – battered hake and chips for me and three absolutely humungous veggie sausages with a mash mountain for Marbretherese. This was the standard portion so the large size would probably have fed Mippin. We followed it by equally enormous treacle tart with ice cream and sat there like two over-stuffed stuffed things that have eaten too much stuff. To take our minds off the food mountain we read the new visitors book we’d found on the mantelpiece above the fire. This had wonderful comments from all over the world like: ‘We love Tolkien’, ‘In a hole there lived a hobbit’, elvish script, ‘Go Tolstoy’ (beneath a particularly effusive Tolkien entry), ‘Mordor She Wrote’ and ‘We love sausages’…. (probably written by Mippen).

We just about managed to get ourselves back to our rooms despite having doubled in weight since leaving it. I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow and dreamt about Velcro while Marbretherese was probably still assessing her chance of more cow photography in the morning.

The Tom Tower, Christ Church (no cows…..)

Part 2 to come soon!

Merry · Post by **Merry** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 4:34 pm

This is wonderful! Can't wait for more . . .

You'll both tell us, won't you, which of your paintings you took?

Iolanthe · Post by **Iolanthe** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 4:54 pm

I took these:

and marbretherese took these:

They went down a treat - more on that later!

marbretherese · Post by **marbretherese** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:04 pm

Having been persuaded by Iolanthe that it would be a Good Thing to attend this year's Oxonmoot, by the time we'd struggled (slack-jawed with admiration) across the Tom Quad with our bags and paintings, through the Cathedral courtyard and up our four-flight staircase at the Meadows building, I began to think I'd bitten off more than I could chew. This impression was reinforced when we got to the Art Room and I realised we were going to hang these paintings alongside offerings from Ruth Lacon, Ted Nasmith and Jef Murray. I nearly turned and ran away right then!

While Becky was trying to persuade Iolanthe to Trust the Velcro I was simultaneously thanking my lucky stars I'd bunged some picture hooks in my bag at the last minute, and wondering whether to smuggle my pictures back to our room. But Iolanthe wouldn't let me, and dragged me off to register. I duly collected a name badge and various papers, including the timetable of talks, which I eagerly pored over while we enjoyed a cuppa. Everyone was extremely friendly and, nerves restored, I was able to take in the magnificent surroundings, despite the half-light:

The Tom Quad, Christ Church, early evening

As any of you who read about our trip to Oxford last year may recall, I love the Eagle & Child and even managed to queue patiently for around fifteen minutes to order our food, passing the time by leafing through Shippey's The Road to Middle-Earth, which I found on the pub's bookshelf alongside various other bits of Tolkien/Lewis-related writings. The food was as wonderful as on our first visit - and various other Tolkien Society members were enjoying it too.

As for the cows: I didn't actually start to photograph them until the Friday morning, which we haven't got to yet, but in true cliff-hanging style, I'll post a photo of the kind of thing we woke up to the next day

:

Cows in Christ Church Meadow
[copyright]marbretherese[/copyright]

Merry · Post by **Merry** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:28 am

You two are hysterical and merciless to make us wait for installments!

Iolanthe · Post by **Iolanthe** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 9:48 am

'Trust the Velcro'

.

Actually - it did work and all the paintings stayed up the entire weekend, even though there were signs of slippage on one of mine which started me hyperventilating again!

Iolanthe · Post by **Iolanthe** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 5:35 pm

Tolkien Society Oxonmoot 2008
25-28th September
Christ Church, Oxford

Cowless mist over Christ Church Meadow

Part 2:

Friday morning, or cows in the meadow.

At 7am, while I was still stumbling around in a coma (or possibly still in bed worrying about Velcro), Marbretherese had flung back the curtains and discovered something rather wonderful – the meadows were full of beautiful, ethereal floating mists, promising a lovely sunny day ahead. Before long both of us were leaning out of our windows in our nighties taking photos, despite the fact it was freezing. This excitement increased when Marbretherese spotted the cows ploughing through the mists towards their water trough. ‘I can see cows!’ she shrieked, clicking away like mad. ‘They are just PERFECT cows!’ Really, it’s amazing she didn’t fall out of the window.

Before long we were heading for the Great Hall for breakfast. This was just as exciting as the cows, as the Great Hall at Christ Church is the Hogwarts Hall they filmed for Harry Potter – although comparing pictures of the two you’d never know it as in the film it's tarted up with fake stonework and a bigger and better fireplace. The Hall is spectacular with a fan vaulted approach up a grand stone staircase, and ranks of beady-eyed portraits that watch you ravenously while you eat your morning sausages. I can’t think of a more amazing place to eat breakfast! The group we were sitting with decided that we must be on the Gryffindor table and so we ate our sausages casting a superior eye over to Slitherer.

Hogwarts…. OK, Christ Church Hall

Then it was on to our first talk which was ‘Teaching Tolkien, Tolkien Teaching: The Fire that goes to the Heart’ given by Robert Davis. I’ll give you more idea of the talk from my notes in a later post, but suffice it for now to say that it was about how and why Tolkien is excluded from the Modernist canon and the educational curriculum. And also how ironic this is given that Tolkien was himself a teacher not only to his college students but through the many lessons found in LotR, and how many LotR characters both ‘teach’ and ‘learn’ from their pupils (Gandalf: ‘all wizards should have a Hobbit of two in their care’) or refuse both (Saruman, who believed no one could teach him anything, and Denethor who also believed he knew everything). Davis was an excellent speaker and the thrust of his talk was summed up by his comment that he had delivered a talk about John Locke the precious week in Cambridge, and when he mentioned coming to talk at Oxonmoot, it had raised a big laugh.

After the talk Marbretherese and I went to the Dealers Room which was even more cramped and crowded than last year, but, alas, the weighty Mythology Encyclopaedia illustrated by Pauline Baynes, which I’d coveted so much last year, was no longer there

. I passed the time nosing through a ton of books, unable to make up my mind if I wanted to add them to the pile under my coffee table, while Marbretherese bought a wonderful book about Ruth Lacon’s art.

From the Dealers Room it was straight on to another talk – and one which I think must have been one of the best ones of the Moot – American Charles Bressler talking about ‘Tolkien’s Aphorisms: Vehicles of Grace, Healing, and Mystery’. You would have loved this talk, Merry! Bressler is a wonderful speaker and parts of his talk moved people to tears. I’ll give this talk in more detail later, too, but as a taster – he started by asking people for their favourite phrases in LotR, which all turned out to be aphorisms like ‘Not all tears are an evil…’ . He then talked about how aphorisms in LotR reflect the status of the speakers: short, pithy ones in italics (and therefore common sayings) for characters like Gaffer Gamgee, long thoughtful ones from characters like Gandalf and Aragorn. He then showed us how characters can be seen developing through the book as they choose the good and reject the bad, and how their aphorisms develop and change with them, revealing their inner thoughts and progress. He revealed LotR as a spiritual journey for many of the characters, tracked by Tolkien in their aphorisms. He said that the most satisfying days are the days when ‘we have been Sam for the day’. That everything good in LotR is done in community, that no man is an island. He also emphasised that not everything in LotR is resolved or explained, that there are still mysteries and that we need mysteries.

I think everyone left the talk (which was really well attended) uplifted and inspired. They really must have him back next year!

Having spent a good couple of hours scribbling notes it was definitely time for lunch so Marbretherese and I headed out for Christ Church Meadow with sandwiches and to check out our building from the other side:

Meadows building

Pretty cool, huh? I've put a red circle around our room. In the end we couldn’t find anywhere warm to sit in the sun and there was a distinct lack of photographable cows so we went back into the Tom Quad and sat on some steps, only to be seen off by one of the bowler-hatted porters who asked us to move so politely (as the dean doesn’t like it) that we barely felt we were being told off. This started an on-going friendship with the porter who seemed delighted every time he saw us and called us ‘mam’. I felt like the Queen. I suspect even the Queen couldn’t eat sarnies in the Tom Quad.

We then went into the Cathedral for a look around. Christ Church is the only college where its church is also a Cathedral! A visiting choir was singing Monteverdi’s Vespers while we were there and it was eerily beautiful hearing it floating around us as we walked around. Marbretherese took much more interesting Cathedral pictures than I did so I’ll leave her to post a selection. I’m sure she has the wonderful Burne Jones window in there somewhere amongst the cows.

The afternoon and evening was fairly action packed so I’m saving it for instalment 3 in which we discover Marbretherese’s fountain obsession and I become an expert in Roman History….

View across the Quad to the Great Hall

More to come soon.....

marbretherese · Post by **marbretherese** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 8:18 pm

I should start my contribution to Part 2 by pointing out that I only took sixteen photos of cows (they kept moving and the light kept changing so it's really not my fault):

how many cows can you get into one photo?

The Great Hall took my breath away with all its portraits. As well as cereal, fruit and toast we tucked into a full English breakfast (Mippin wouild have loved it), watched over by former alumni such as John Wesley, Gladstone, Anthony Eden and WH Auden, not to mention Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Cardinal Wolsey glaring down at us from above the dias. Then we made our way to the first talk of the day:

Oxonmooters assembling outside the lecture rooms

Robert Davis' talk went down very well and I learned a lot from the Q&A session afterwards, too. Iolanthe and I both scribbled loads of notes which made us look extremely scholarly

The room was packed - and so was the dealers' room; I had the feeling that I'd missed some real treasures in the crush. Charles Bressler's talk was worth the Oxonmoot trip on it's own - it was terribly moving, and when he discussed Sam carrying Frodo and the Ring towards Mount Doom I'm afraid I began to cry into my hankie . . .

The concert in the Cathedral made for a wonderful atmosphere and I managed to take photos without disturbing anyone (we didn't get thrown out, anyway!):

the altar, Christ Church Cathedral

wooden angel at the end of a pew

But my favourite part, as Iolanthe has said, was the Pre-Raphaelite Burne-Jones window of St Cecilia. I could have sat looking at it for hours . . .

St Cecilia window, Burne-Jones for William Morris Co.

Lindariel · Post by **Lindariel** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 8:29 pm

Marvelous, marvelous reports so far, ladies! Thank you SO much!

So GLAD to see the paintings you decided to display, and I repeat, Iolanthe, my pocketbook is itchy and my walls are begging for more of your prints. PM me please as soon as they are available on your website.

Iolanthe · Post by **Iolanthe** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:42 pm

I've pm'd you

. I'm getting there slowly!

Iolanthe · Post by **Iolanthe** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:55 pm

Tolkien Society Oxonmoot 2008
25-28th September
Christ Church, Oxford

Part 3:

The Rest of Friday, or Velcro gets everywhere.

Meadows Building from across the meadow, without cows

The first thing we did after lunch was attend Ted Nasmith’s painting talk. It was fascinating to watch his slideshow and see his style develop over the years as he revisited the same scenes and refined his vision each time. He said that he likes to take Tolkien’s own drawings and re-envisage them in a more professional way. His own favourite is his view of Rivendell (which is very much Tolkien’s landscape). He said that he had plenty of time to spend on this painting and I think the detail and the light on the cliffs is wonderful. He explained his choice of gouache as a ‘flat’ and intensely coloured medium that photographs well – all his art is a balance between two requirements: his own as an artist producing an original that looks good on display, and the need for a work whose colours and contrasts also look ‘right’ when photographed and reproduced (‘often by Philistines’). Another thing he mentioned was how hard he found it at first to get the hobbits right – imagining them as ‘stocky’ and then discovering that that isn’t what Tolkien meant at all! He was fairly critical of all his early work (as a lot of us here are of ours!) – too much contrast, too fussy, too inaccurate. It’s all a work in progress and it’s encouraging to see a journey like Ted’s from it’s beginnings to the wonderful work he produces now. He finished off by showing the castles he’s painted for the George RR Martin’s Westeros books. After he undertook the commission he realised that he’d never painted a castle before so had a lot of research ahead of him. He said it was nice to be able to talk to a living author!

We then stayed where we were for a second lecture by Alex Lewis ‘On Fairy Stories, the Ogre in the Dungeon’. I confess I had trouble following all the ins and outs of the 4 different versions of ‘On Fairy Stories’ and all the arguments put forth. Perhaps it was the combination of lunch and sitting in the dark for Ted’s slideshow but I had a bit of brain slippage here….

To liven ourselves up we headed across the Tom Quad to the Art Room to see what was happening (although I had a hidden Velcro checking agenda). This took us past the Tom Quad pool and fountain, with its statue of Mercury. The strong sunlight was sparkling through the falling water, lots of nosy goldfish were gulping at the surface and Marbretherese’s camera was out before you could say ‘Velcro’. All cows forgotten, she was now transfixed by the pond. I have no idea how many pond and fountain photos she’s got but I suspect that if you laid them end to end they’d reach Australia.

Insert any one of 300 fountain shots here

We had a great time in the Art Room – catching up with Becky, meeting Ruth Lacon again, and (finally) Anke Eissmann who I’d wanted to introduce Marbretherese to all weekend. Every time I spotted her at a distance she’d gone before I could point her out! As fellow Faramir fans it was time they met. We received a lot of encouragement about our work while we were there, which was nice, and I could see someone taking one of my cards. By the time the exhibition was taken down on Saturday afternoon a bunch of my cards were gone and nearly all Marbretherese’s. Maybe it will lead somewhere – you never know!

After checking the Velcro we had a good look around the finished exhibition. Ruth’s ‘Niggle’s Tree’ was there (just as well it’s ‘sold’ so I could avoid temptation to bankrupt myself) along with a new painting of Mr Bliss in his car with ‘exploding’ cabbages, a lovely, intricate knot work picture from Becky inspired by horses and Rohan, a new unframed Ted Nasmith showing the eagles seen from above with a wonderful landscape below – just finished and brought straight over from Canada, some amazing green and blue beaded jewellery inspired by Ulmo …. lots of interesting new stuff but the highlight for us was the chance to see the two Cor Blok’s. They really were unforgettable. One showed marching Ents, the other Treebeard in his Ent House. The Marching Ents were fierce, funny, original as only Blok can be – we loved them. There was a Horse Chestnut Ent with a conker shaped head, a Holly Ent with red spiky hands and spiky feet, an Oak Ent with an acorn cup ‘hat’. The hobbits sitting on Treebeard’s shoulder looking sideways at him were really funny (in all the best ways) and Treebeard’s expression was so fierce..... I can’t describe it but it was worth coming to Oxonmoot for all on its own. The best Cor Blok I’ve seen!

There was no photography allowed in the Art Room (understandably, I guess, with a new, unpublished Ted and Ruth there), so you’ll have to imagine all these wonders!

Marbretherese and I then had a short walk around Oxford doing the touristy thing. All this to-ing and fro-ing meant several more passes of the fountain which attracted Marbretherese like Velcro to a fuzzy board. I swear I could hear a ‘ripping’ noise as I prised her away….

Back at our rooms to get ready for dinner, Marbretherese whipped out a bonsai painting kit and began painting our view of the meadow in the evening light while I wrote up notes. I’m pretty impressed really. How can I call myself an artist when I don’t have a bonsai painting kit to take advantage of moments of beauty and inspiration? Way to go Marbretherese!

In the evening we had a grand dinner prepared for us in the Great Hall. As really cool things to do go, this was so cool there was frost on it. I mean – dinner in the Harry Potter hall! Looked over by Henry V111, Good Queen Bess, Cardinal Wolsey and some old geezer in an armchair looking as though he’d been Francis Bacon’d.

Portraits over the head table with the Bacon’d geezer

We found ourselves in an interesting group – Robert Davis, who’s talk we had so enjoyed so much in the morning, a guy who was as much a rabid G&S fan as we were (what are the chances of that?) and another guy who’s passion was Roman History. How we got surrounded by so many guys I have no idea. Maybe it’s invisible Velcro. By the time we got to the humungous Chocolate Brownie I’d dredged up every last dreg I knew about Julius Caesar, the Roman Senate, Tiberius, and how Gordon Brown Was Like Him and was reduced to nodding sagely and pushing chocolate chips around my plate. Not that it wasn’t interesting, it was, but…..the pressure! There is a G&S quote from The Gondoliers ‘I’m afraid I’m not quite equal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation’. Now if we could have talked about Viggo’s career I’d have left them all trailing….

Fan vaulted entrance to the Great Hall

We retired briefly to the bar where we caught up with Marcel, who’d had a nightmare journey, but by this point we were so tired and Marbretherese was besieged by lurgy sniffles (hence her glazed expression at table while I scraped my brain for any surviving morsel of Roman History), so it was an earlyish night for us.

More tomorrow where we learn more about Mrs Neave, how not to appreciate art and I have A Great Idea For Next Year’s Costume Parade.

Elegaer · Post by **Elegaer** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 3:57 pm

Iolanthe wrote:
Tolkien Society Oxonmoot 2008
25-28th September
Christ Church, Oxford
There was no photography allowed in the Art Room (understandably, I guess, with a new, unpublished Ted and Ruth there), so you’ll have to imagine all these wonders!

Or you befriend someone who just happens to have some photos, albeit blurry ones!!!

Sorry, marbretherese, I think yours were the only ones I didn't get photos of, cos it was too gloomy round in that corner to get pics without flash ...

Iolanthe's lovely velcro'd display:

General views:

Gorgeous jewellery and gorgeous costumes:

The Cor Bloks and others:

My stuff (mainly):

marbretherese · Post by **marbretherese** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 9:40 pm

Elegaer!! What great photos! (it doesn’t matter about my paintings, everyone on here has seen them anyway). And one of your photos shows both the Cor Bloks and the Lode Claes to the right of them!! Thanks so much! What’s more, that brings me nicely to my contribution to Part 3 of Iolanthe’s report:

Only the prospect of a talk by an artist like Ted Nasmith could have dragged me away from the Burne-Jones window and the Monteverdi in the Cathedral. It was well worth it, though, to see how his work has evolved and to discover the story behind each painting in his own words. The castles were also interesting (shame the projector cut the bottom off most of them) and at the very end he showed a car painting – his first love – which was incredibly beautiful (considering it was a car!). Two lectures in a row was probably a mistake in retrospect – I too found Alex’s argument hard to follow – and was desperate for a cuppa. But I did have to take some shots of the fountain on the way out – I took some whenever we passed it – luckily for everyone here at MEJ I will only post a few of the best ones:

Three shots of the Tom Quad Fountain including Mercury Statue and some goldfish

As you can see from Elegaer’s fab photos, the Art Room was positively buzzing by the end of Friday – all the artists had arrived by now and the exhibition space was jam-packed with Interesting Works. I spent a lot of time drooling over the prints of Anke Eismann watercolours, especially the ones with Faramir in them

I too loved the Cor Bloks (so grateful that Fangorn brought them over) and there were some wonderfully detailed line drawings by Lode Claes (also courtesy of Fangorn, I think). I really liked the textile on top of the piano, too. Once the Art Room closed, I was grateful for the chance of a walk and managed a few arty shots of bits of Oxford:

Sheldonian Theatre, Greek writing over a doorway at the Bodleian, Radcliffe Camera with Bicycles
[copyright]marbretherese[/copyright]

I should point out here that when Iolanthe refers to my Bonsai Painting Kit she means a very small one, as opposed to a kit for painting bonsai. Just in case you are confused

! I started off a bit tentatively, but eventually, and with a lot of suitably Arty Angst, it turned from a blobby mess into quite a creditable View from our Window. Or maybe not - judge for yourselves!

The Welcome Dinner (some Oxonmooters did not arrive until Friday afternoon) was fabulous, especially given the setting, and in the bar beforehand it was Morfindel (in charge of looking after Newbies like me) who introduced us to Robert Davis and some other guests. I would have liked to discuss Davis’s talk with him but I was definitely Coming Down with Something and my brain had turned fuzzy, so I kept quiet. The meal was excellent but frankly I felt as though it was all happening to somebody else. There was a certain amount of banter and a lot of intellectual chat so I had plenty to listen to but I wasn’t well enough to contribute, unfortunately. Shame about the early night but we had a lot to look forward to the next day and I didn’t want to miss any of it . . . .

Merry · Post by **Merry** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 9:49 pm

I love the meadow, marbretherese! You are definitely gaining mastery over the medium. I love AE's Faramirs, too. I have one as the opening page on my laptop.

I'm also loving these reports! The photos of Oxford, especially the Radcliffe Camera, are bringing back great memories. Please carry on . . .