Collections

 

Collections

When I walk I pick up things. It’s a habit, a deeply engrained one that is difficult to break. My home is full of many things which I have collected on my walks. These are as varied as my walks; one day it may include a beautiful feather from a magpie and another walk may include finding a super smooth small pebble. I write ‘include’, as I have never been able to just pick up one thing.

one collection on top of the piano

There are many which combine to become a visual reminder of the walk. I have collections of natural objects all over my house; they start off on flat surfaces, such as table tops and shelves, in groupings, as they were found, then over a period of time they may be put into a pot or other empty’ish’ vessel, still within the home. As time goes by I note that they get ‘tidied’ and they seem to seek the great outdoors again. There are many pots of found objects by the back doors of the house; they are gradually creeping into their natural habitat.

 

Older collection trying to escape back into the wild.

I do wonder what any archaeologist who may dig up our land in the future would make of it. Our garden is full of found fragments of pretty Victorian glass and crockery, which were discovered on a walk out at Conyer in the old dumps. Ok, not really just discovered on a path, but dug for with great enthusiasm. We also have wonderful piles of ammonites and fossilised ‘Devils Toenails’ from walks on the windswept Redcar beach, beautiful large pink and purple smooth pebbles from Dunster beach in Somerset, where we have had many wild windy walks and of course many, many special shells, pebbles and rocks from our own beaches, here on the Kent coast. Thinking about it, even our car has pockets full of the precious glittery finds that we picked up on our walks around Loch Sunart earlier this year.

Recording

One way that I thought I could restrain myself from bringing home so many things was to photograph what I see.

 

Found objects from walk on Seasalter beach.

But that has now just become another way of collecting. I collect views, landscapes, still lives of plants, the atmospheric effect of the seasons etc. So I have tried over the last week to just take just a few mementoes from the walks and photograph them when I come home. In doing so I hope that that will be enough of a visual reminder and I can move the pieces out sooner into the garden. But the fact of the matter is I love the things I choose on my walks. They speak to me of the season, the place and remind me of whom I was walking with or if I was alone. Once in the home they become even more beautiful or unusual as they are seen out of context. I see that they are no longer competing for my attention but being seen almost as art pieces.

My Dresser

I have a dresser that is full too. It has some useful crockery on it, but it is also full of things that I have found whilst out walking.

 

Detail of my dresser.

These walks take me into charity shops, junk shops, boot fairs etc. I used to feel pretty guilty about this collecting until I read a book by the artist Mark Hearld.

‘Mark Hearld’s Workbook’ charts his inspiration and is a collection of his wonderful work, so far. He lives in a house that makes mine look tame. He also has every surface covered in things, but refers to them as his inspiration.

My dresser with Mark Hearld's book on it showing his dresser...

In describing his work, Simon Martin writes that ‘he sees the act of collecting such items, at flea markets and junk shops, as creative, an activity akin to making a collage.’So I think perhaps my act of collecting, recording and displaying my walking treasures is also artistically acceptable and I could perhaps even become proud of it!

Inspiring Environments

Last Friday I went on a workshop held in Kings Wood, near Ashford in Kent, run by Stour Valley Arts. It was titled ‘Inspiring Environments’ and was run to encourage group leaders to use the natural setting of Kings Wood as a classroom in which people could be inspired to create artwork together and therefore positively engage with each other.

 

Found objects from Kings Wood.

We were given a demonstration by a couple of artists on how a number of useful tools could be used, encouraged to explore the area we were to make our art in and then started collecting useful things to create our own artwork. We worked in small groups and by lunchtime all of us had created wonderful large art works in the wood. They were all very different, but all had a story to go with them. It seemed that the imagination was inspired by the very act of creation. My group collected feathers, twigs, silvered with fungi and dried bluebell stalks. We found a natural depression in the ground and created a nest like structure that we then put fir cones in and a random bright red gladioli flower that we found on the ground. It had its own story, but I am sure you can make one up yourself that would be just as interesting.

Nature Connection

Over the weekend I went with my family to the Permaculture Convergenge. It was a wonderful weekend. The food was great and we were surrounded by lovely like minded people.

Leaf, left on ground (not picked up and kept) at Gilwell Park.

One workshop that I attended was led by Klaudia van Gool. She encouraged us to take our shoes off and connect with nature. We stood barefoot in a large circle under the huge Oak at Gilwell Park and became mindful of ourselves, the ground beneath our feet, the roots of the tree under them and the canopy of leaves above our heads. We learnt how to see with ‘owl’ eyes, hear with ‘deer’ ears and walk barefoot like ‘fox’. It was a beautiful educational and meditative experience. For once I was actually being animal, being not doing. I have planned a barefoot walk with a friend early next week. I shall practice these experiential nature connections while walking and see just how much difference it can make, perhaps I will be fully sated by this and not be tempted to pick up things and bring them home, or record the journey in photographs. As the walking artist Hamish Fulton has said about his work, ‘The walk is the work.’

Physical nature connection, spiders webs this morning.

 

(I completed my MA last September and recorded the last two months of it in another blog called www.thesaltwayfarer.blogspot.co.uk

Please feel free to look at that anytime, as it is from that, that I am where I am now.)