More than a lifetime, 300 years! When we make thing to “last a lifetime,” do we ever imagine them lasting 300 years? Many of Grinling Gibbons carvings have done just that. Next year, 2021, will bring the 300th anniversary of his death, and celebrations are being planned by a newly formed British Grinling Gibbons Society. Those plans aren’t quite online yet, but I’m watching for their announcements and will add them here as soon as they appear.
Bigger and Better
Hannah Phillip, Programme Director of the Grinling Gibbons Tercentenary, contacted me a few months ago while she was getting started planning the tercentenary events. Hearing of the events, I decided to make my previously published Gibbons articles and photos freely available for the Tercentenary.
So, I’ve moved them from this hobby blog to a new home all their own. I’ve also upped the ante on photo resolution. All of my own photos are available in the full resolutions that come out of the cameras. Yes, we have images of manageable bandwidth on web page articles, but click through to get the full detail. A couple of hundred images from 13 locations exist now, and I’ve reserved space for a couple more locations where Hannah might enable us to take yet more photos … when pandemic travel permits.
Since one of my early goals was to bring more, and larger, photos of Gibbons work into being for all who care about them, all of my photos at the new site are being offered as “Public Domain” under the Creative Commons Zero, CC0, license. The Tercentenary organizers, you, and anyone else can use my photos as you please without license constraints.
Visit the new Grinling Gibbons Photo site.
P.S. In addition to the photos Eva and I managed to capture on two trips to London, I have included articles about modern day woodcarvers who imitate Gibbons in their own unique and beautiful ways: David Esterly, Patrick Damiaens and Alexander Grabovetskiy.
