PERCY KELLY - memories on film
Date Posted: 24th January 2021
This is the longest January I can ever remember. It just goes on … and on …
Perhaps like me you’ve sorted out photographs, paintings, lists, cupboards, drawers etc. Sorting out the computer is a bit like the wardrobe – deciding what to delete from years gone by now forgotten like bell bottom jeans and mini skirts … er they all come back given time! I’ve also updated the website www.percykelly.co.uk so it’s easier to navigate. But the most productive thing for me has been making these videos which are now on You Tube. It is a challenge to my computer skills but I’ve learnt a lot in the making. I’ve now worked out how to insert film footage into them.
I’ve just up loaded a test piece on to youtube which you may enjoy. Yoiu can see PK talking about his work, and Joan David his friend whom he called his saviour showing some of his illustrated letters and envelopes https://youtu.be/1zaH1YHhRGA. . Some of you will have seen the 16 minute film about Percy Kelly that I've inserted either at the gallery, at talks I’ve given or during the 17/18 retrospective at Tullie House where it ran on a loop for 4 months. But the exhibition was so well attended that some people complained that they couldn’t hear or concentrate. So here it is with an introduction from me and a few of his paintings which will probably cheer you up and at least you can watch in the comfort of your own home..
The painting of Crosby Villas which heads it up is one of my favourites. It is one of the few with a signature and a date 1976 – although the date puzzles me because he was living in Wales then. But I have discovered that he sometimes changed dates and he also painted from sketches that he made on his visits to Cumbria. To me Crosby Villas is a long terrace of grey houses on the Maryport to Carlisle road but Kelly has made it very special He wrote “To me a street was once a place of bricks and mortar but then it became a place of miracles.” After reading that I can never drive past without remembering those words. That’s what artists, poets, musicians, actors and writers do – they alter our perception of things.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6ttheHdU2klE5mo-ExTr8g
These are the links to the individual videos on You Tube. Tomorrow evening (Monday 25th January) around 8.00pm on Radio Cumbria, I will be having a conversation with Steve Wharton who has been commissioned to make a film about Bill Peascod – artist and climber.
Here are the links to all 6 videos so far and there are more in the making. The one about Bill Peascod is very popular.
Kelly Video- https://youtu.be/RFrGYuu1eao
Lowry Video - https://youtu.be/KNr-vJ1tsw0
Anne Redpath Video - https://youtu.be/hCmPRSjiOX0
Bill Peascod . https://youtu.be/9Fk455U85d0
Percy Kelly oils https://youtu.be/xSUqKsV3eN8
Percy Kelly memories https://youtu.be/1zaH1YHhRGA