Uplifting - soul and mind

Vegan Jo and I went out to see some of the Open Studios Cornwall. We aimed for St Breward, a little village on the edge of Bodmin Moor. Cookie Scottorn who made my head and boat lives there and I was most interested to see her studio.
We stopped at Jenny Beavan's Studio as we entered the village. What a delight she was! So very sociable, telling us about the work she does with schools. She uses the local china clay and porcelain and is a very organic sculptor. She took us upstairs to see her other work - all boxed up with photos and labels on the boxes - all her work since she has made over the years and has now developed on from. She had wonderful teapots and cups and bowls. It's so interesting to see artists work over time. She said she was thinking of  auctioning them off as to her they were old fashioned. I told her not at all - I'd seen modern work similar in galleries and to see if the galleries who currently display her work would sell them. 
I fell in love with a current piece called Energised Water - made of porcelain, glass, tiny beach pebbles and sand. When I meditate I visualise the sea waves going in and out as I breathe so it felt so perfect to me. I decided to buy it but thought I'd see Cookie's studio before doing so. As we were leaving I saw Datura's she was selling for a cancer charity - so bought a yellow and a white one!
We decided to walk to her studio along the beautiful country lanes and passed young cows in the fields and two calves in a ramshackle "barn." Plus the horseshoe gate in extras! Well we didn't find the studio so decided to go back for the car! 
Cookie's studio was a delight! In the entrance was a dragon and then this old suitcase of her mothers. We went in her garden and saw the old Wenfield Bridge Pottery  kiln's chimney. It is listed but the land has been bought and she is negotiating with the owners over their plan for a two storey building to be built around it!!! I loved her work area with all the kitchen utensils! I bought little things - a mug, two foot vases ( as in the shape of feet !), and 6 cane toppers!!
We went back to Jennies for the sculpture - she was delighted! I don't think she really believed I would come back! We then set off for Yurtworks, which had an installation and camera obscure in yurts! As we drove there vegan Jo let out a squeal - we were passing through a village she had stayed in many times for family holidays as a child! So we diverted there to see it. It was still there, but now had Scandinavian style lodges, the old huts now used as games rooms and wellington boot and wet suit stores! She had to have a paddle in the stream she had played in as a child. I'm sure holidays were simpler back in our day! There definitely were not llamas as there was now! We continued on and passed the glorious parish church of St Breward, built in Norman times and rebuilt in the 15C. We had to look round that! So pleased we did - wonderful sundial with the  insertion of a missed word "fly" see the extra, beautiful stained glass, and wonderful tombs with inscriptions and friezes,inside and out. Also 3 very unusual tombs.All can be seen on the Flickr link above!
Finally we found the yurts down another pretty country track with amazing views. Sadly the Camera Obscura had stopped working that day, but there was a very friendly dog that made up for it! The installation in the yurt was about the artists connection to the land that his family owned and he had now come back to. A display of all the things discovered on the land and in the stream. He said to go clockwise round the yurt, before entering the other yurt inside this big yurt! It was supposed to be a journey through the seasons, going from despair to joy, with the inclusion of photos he had done on mans changing relationship with the land in Alaska. Wonderful photograph of a wolf! Neither Jo nor I could see the journey he described but it was thoroughly interesting and you can go round it starting here! The inner yurt was just stunningly beautiful - with plates made by another potter and glasses by his daughter, made from glass worked in wood - the more the wood was used the more markings were made on the glass. Jo decided to buy a glass and I a beautifully smooth porcelain vase - both will have to be sent to us as neither for sale on the day!
We finally made our way home through more country roads - both extremely happy and souls soothed and minds inspired by all we had seen.
I also decided to turn my small spare bedroom into a meditation room with the energised water sculpture as one of the few things in what will be an empty, newly plastered and painted room!!