The Penny Factory

A while ago I wrote a post lamenting the apparent demise of The Penny Factory's website. The link I'd put on an earlier post no longer went anywhere.
I'm pleased to say now that the demise of The Penny Factory was greatly exaggerated, and it has a brand-spanking new site, much more effective than the old one. Furthermore, they've got heaps of examples of their wares on the site now, compared to the one example that was visible before.
I bought a number of cufflinks in England when I was there last year, but nearly all of them were from secondhand shops or stalls and cost me very little. One of the few new pairs I bought were from a stall The Penny Factory had at the Royal Norfolk Show. They were expensive by my usual budget for such things, but were well worth getting. I'd have liked to have bought more, in fact.

On a different topic altogether, when I wrote about Alistair Reid's poem, Curiosity, I don't think I could find another reference to it on the Net. Yet now the poem seems to be everywhere. And they all seem to be discussing that curious line about the idyll.

Talking of poetry, I went to a funeral yesterday for a poet, Brian Hare. He had suffered from schizophrenia much of his life, until he reached the point where it became unbearable. A good deal of poetry was read at the funeral, including a piece by James K Baxter that had been one of Hare's favourites, a longish poem on facing death by Walter Raleigh, and some of Hare's own work (as well as few other pieces). Two other poets, Sandra Bell and Michael O'Leary, who were old friends of the deceased, gave tributes. I don't think I've been to a funeral where so much poetry was read or recited before. I'd thought of having poetry at my funeral; now I'm wondering if it's such a good idea!

HitTail provides the material for a surreal kind of dream

While watching movies on Korean Airways, sitting in my distressed oatmeal trousers, I mused and became distracted and thought about how I could extend Heaven into Hell, the reverse of what some characters in C S Lewis’ The Great Divorce attempt.
Kiri te Kanawa, seated behind me, was meanwhile wisely telling her manager that she refused to sing any compositions by John Cage, while another John, John Grey the philosopher (he was three seats back) was spouting forth to the New Zealand artist, Karl Maugham. Karl, I note, is now doing screen prints, as I saw one in the Milford Gallery the other day. I prefer his original paintings, because the colours are so rich, but his subject matter – abundant gardens – continues to appeal. A young man in the gallery was telling me that Maugham has hundreds of photos of gardens that he works from.
Further back in the plane there’s now some dispute about Alfred Hitchcock being regarded as an auteur, since the very word itself has gone skewhiff. At least Hitchcock never made a movie, someone else shouts, in which a horse climbs a ladder, as one does in Bandidas. Or supposedly does. I think Hitchcock would have included a ladder-climbing horse if he'd found the right place for one.
A couple of foreigners have just walked down the aisle, chatting. Mr Vanderlught and Benigno Aquino, neither of whom I have ever met, even though their names have appeared previously in this blog. tend, with their serious demeanours, to make the plane feel like Bleak House, or Miss Havisham’s home in Great Expectations, that book that Lloyd Jones’ writes so fondly of in his own story, Mr Pip.
The plane takes a sudden dip and we all think we’re headed for a shorter life than we expected, rather like the young man who sailed down Baldwin St in a wheelie bin.
As the plane flattens out again, I suddenly realise my namesake, Mike Crowl, from Conroe High School, is sitting across the aisle from me. He holds a full video card, because he has been taking endless photos of the actress sitting next to him, Alice Brockway. She is proclaiming forth that Yes, you can put lemon peel in a compost.
The last I see of her is when she rides away from the airport to the Penny Factory, on a pennyfarthing, which the proprietor of the aforesaid Penny Factory will no doubt turn into a piece of enamelled jewellery, such as a pendant, or a stud.

The Penny Factory

While we were at the Royal Norfolk Show, we kept an eye out for some cufflinks, as we always do at this sort of thing. I don’t usually buy new cufflinks, as they’re often a bit above the budget, but once in a while it’s nice to get a pair that hasn’t arrived in my house via a secondhand shop.

Anyway, we came across the stall for the Penny Factory. (This isn’t an ad, by the way – I just think what this guy is doing is great!). The craftsman in this instance takes old and newish coins and turns them into a variety of decorative apparel, such as cufflinks, brooches, belt clasps, pendants, and the like. But what makes them so special is that he colour enamels each coin to bring out the original texture. And in so doing, turns each item into a miniature work of art.

You can see some examples on his website, though unfortunately they don’t have quite the lustre in the photographs as they do in reality. Still it will give you an idea. Just imagine them as being much more colourful than they appear here and you’ll get the idea. (From what the artist told me, his website is being updated, so if you have any problems, contact him at thepennyfactory@btinternet.com

I could have taken home any number of the items on display, but had to settle on just one pair of links: a couple of 1945 farthings, which glisten with enamel blues and reds and other subtle hues. Why 1945? It's the year of my birth, and at that stage, farthings were still worth something! I reckon these items make wonderful gifts or collector’s items.