A Punnet of Peaches
The title of this screenprint is a direct reference to a vernacular description of a goal as a 'peach', by both football fans and pundits. It also references a folding card from 1972 by Ian Hamilton Finlay and Ron Costley entitled Flute of the Peach.
The text on this card by Finlay and Costley is a series of puns based on the title of a print, Lotte de Perche by French pointillist painter George Seurat. The title refers to the predatory Perch as a Devil fish. By a coincidence the Perch is a common inhabitant of the Forth and Clyde canal and the river Leven. I spent many a summer day in my childhood spinning for Perch on the 'Nolly', from my refuge among the reed banks. My prospect; the canal, my Gran's house on Durban Avenue, the Haw Craig on the Kilpatrick Braes.
Returning to A Punnet of Peaches. The first part of the dedication, Boghead refers to the name of Dumbarton FC's football ground, which was literally built on a bog. However the stadium relocated and is now situated directly opposite the ancient north entrance to Dumbarton Castle, on the East bank of the river Leven.
The word Orchard, in the remaining part of the inscription alludes to Persian Apples, a name by which peaches are also known. The stylised form of the peach and ball are echoed in the typographical layout of the body text. Fire Temple, is an allusion to the fire ceremony, a ritual aspect of the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism; a pastoral religion founded on the teachings of Zarathustra. Central to this religion are principles of animal husbandry, farming, neighbourliness and regard for the truth.
Fire temples were generally built high on mountain plateaus. It was in these temples that the battle between good and evil took place. My Fire Temples are Boghead and the focal point of the ancient capital of Strathclyde, Dumbarton Rock. Local history and national history in conjunction.
Of course Nietszche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra is strongly evoked here particularly chapter LIV The Three Evil Things where Zarathustra uses the apple to symbolise the world and in chapter LVII The Convalescent where he awakens and smells the apple— an unequivocal enharmonic of the peach.
A Punnet of Peaches challenges the exclusive signifying allusions of the neo-classical pastoral, Ode to Leven Water by Tobias Smollett and sets in contrast a reconfigured pastoral based on secular communal everyday urban life.