Saltaire – From Pyrenees to Pennines

David Hockney at Salts Mill

Here we are. A large installation – a collage – one of David Hockney’s iPad works. Each of these nine ’tiles’ shows a constantly changing set of views of the same scene at different times, independently of all the others. The full image is in a case of constant flux, always showing a slightly different aspect of the snow scene Hockney was viewing. It’s a bit like those plastic puzzles that I had as a child with 15 tiles and one blank space, so you could move the tiles around till you made a picture. Or not, in my case, usually.

In the absence of actual snow this year, I offer you this snow scene for the week before Christmas, and for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness.

More Windows from Salts Mill

Today I bring you not just one, but twenty or more windows from the shop on the ground floor of Salts Mill in Saltaire. Its magnificent bookshop is upstairs, but here, as you come in, you can buy posters and cards, stationery and supplies, art materials – all temptingly laid out for browsers who wander around this space, decorated with vast ceramic pieces from Leeds-based Burmantofts pottery, elegant vases of fresh lilies. The window in the featured photo is in the entrance hall to the Mill, and hints at the treasures to be found within.

For Monday Windows, hosted this week by Brian of Bushboy’s World.

A Monday Window from Salts Mill

Taken while moseying round an antique shop housed there.

For Monday Window, hosted this week by Brian of Bushboy fame.

A Monday Window from Saltaire

The other week, we visited Saltaire. It’s a Victorian Model Village built near Bradford by mill owner Titus Salt. Built between 1851 and 1871, it was a philanthropic project to provide better living conditions for the workers of his Salts Mill than were available in the crowded city slums. The village was designed with well-constructed houses, a church, a school, a library, and a park. But no pub. Salt had seen the dire consequences over-consumption of cheap liquor could have on workers and their families, so emphatically – no pub. Hence the name of this modern bar, which reflects Titus’ mill in its windows. The village and mill deserve a post to themselves. That’ll be for another day.

For Monday Window, this week hosted this week by PR

The Shadow of Oppression

These powerful pieces come from The Peace Museum in Salts Mill, Saltaire. Prisoner of Conscience is a three part work by Malcolm Brocklesby. This is what he says about the image above: