
Andy Marshall's Genius Loci Digest: 5 April 2024
In the hope that they help others unburden and renew as much as they have for me it gives me the greatest pleasure to present - in the spirit of Hokusai - my Thirty Six Views of Beverley Minster.
This digest revels in the in-between, the transitional, the presence of absence. My camera with its dials and knobs and sharp focus has taken me into the blur of things. It has taught me that because things can't be measured it doesn't mean that it isn't there. The spirit of things, the essence of our places is as real as my shutter button.
In the hope that they help others unburden and renew as much as they have for me it gives me the greatest pleasure to present - in the spirit of Hokusai - my Thirty Six Views of Beverley Minster.
It is the humble hand where all this starts - from the first stone laid at the Roman basilica that lies beneath, through to the final carving of the pinnacles that pin down the grandeur of the Gothic church. This is a story about people.
What I’d discovered was the source of my creativity, my leitmotif, my creative colostrum.
Both Ben, with his careful craftsmanship and Austin with his seasonal perspective, live in a time-space with a longer view - a time that is qualitative rather than quantitive, and more importantly, one that pulls into the frame our future generations.
But, out of the horror and destruction of the blitz has emerged something quite remarkable: a huge swathing, pulsing galaxy of bricks. Here the cut of the frog and arris is softened by the wave’s embrace.
These conservators, these minimal interventionists, aren’t simply curators of the paint pot and infill, but also guardians of a rich cultural tapestry that teaches us what it means to be human.
This is a story that moves beyond virtual reality - one that includes the observer and a dimension of time that flows within a structure that is a portal in more ways than one.
What buildings like St. Mary represent is a vast cognitive reserve, a wondrous and sophisticated cosmos of quivering emotional intelligence. This building is full of tiny signatures, a lexicon that betrays the aggregate human attempt at survival in the desperation of a crisis.
From the ground zero of my breakdown there came about a remarkable journey of enlightenment, of change, of fresh perspectives. Out of the flux of the horror of finding myself cocooned on my bedroom floor, there emerged a new person.