Raft - Table - Teapot




Is what will follow a tea tale?  All I can say is what is written was accomplished whilst drinking tea and reflecting on a morning run in which my flow state was in overdrive.  Towards the end of the run I stood amidst hay bales, flung my arms in the air and engaged in some silent disco.  I then took off the headphones, climbed on to one of those hay bales and looked out across the rolling landscape.  The picture is, to me, one that is an immersive art installation – it offers something so complete; the wholeness of the cycle of seed, crop, harvest, and the exactness of where each hay bale sits is a point by which the bailer finishes and starts again.  It all works to become idyllic, a still point, an art work because it challenges you to think.    


Here atop my hay bale I saw the image that represents some aspect of me, and that image is … a life raft, on top of which sits a table, on top of which is placed a teapot.  Whether that appears as a cliché is not a worry I have.  It is as simple as it is complex.


The need for an extension to my tiny coach house was all about a table; about being able to have the space in which a table could be what a table is, what a table represents.  For me this is as much what takes place around a table, as to what takes place on a table and that the table needs space and time to breath.  When I leave things open on a table, whether that is an open book, a pile of books, a sewing machine and threads, wool and needles, a heap of papers or an unclosed laptop, this is about ideas and thoughts existing, inhabiting the space, living and breathing, part of the on-going dialogue.  There are always times where these are either tidied, ordered, filed, archived, placed somewhere else or given to others.  The surface of the table reveals once again; a surface into which memory, vibration, experience, happening, is etched, and one which is ready for the new. 


This explains the table but not the raft, which relates to the type of foundation on which my extension is being constructed.  A raft foundation  the consequence of living within a tree conservation area.  As a piece of engineering this is a thing of beauty.  Now concreted from vision, I see this as symbolic to the ebbs of flow of the life that will exist above at ground level.  And thus we arrive at what is placed on the table; the tea pot accompanied by the tea caddie, the tea strainer, the milk jug, the china cups, and what might take place around the table as tea is taken.


This tea tale is the result of running which took place at a metaphorical table, and writing as  a reflection on running which took place at an actual table, whilst drinking tea.  As I ran I found myself thinking about the importance of protecting aspects of tradition which, in the moment, was bound to the environment in which I was placed; the fields and the farming.  However, more comprehensively this connects to ‘environment’ as concept and actuality and the importance of the environment as one in which we can flourish, not simply exist. 


As a result of these reflections I shall add a page to the Tea Talk Diaries which will be call The Tea Table Gallery …..  Here myself, readers and contributors to the TTD can upload pictures of tables where ‘Tea’ takes place.

p.s.  I did wonder whether the title Raft, Table, Teapot might be seen as a version of rock, paper scissors

p.p.s.  I wonder if the direness of the current political situation is due to the ability or inability of the parliamentary chamber to operate as a metaphorical table.











Comments