A time of Sparkly Transformation

The Winter Solstice is coming up so at long last the evenings will stop getting dark so early and hopefully we will start to feel literally enlightened, a bit brighter and full of hope for the new year.

Personally, I find it very hard to slow down as the dark evenings close in. I am still surprised when its dark at 4 this time of year for if I cast my mind back to the summer I remember that on most days I was out and about until late, sometimes even having a swim in the sea at ten at night. That seems just ludicrous now.

My painting of the sea at Tankerton, a bit chilly now for a swim.

The wonderful thing about living in the UK is that I know that time will come around once again due to the cyclical pattern of our seasons. Perhaps our lives will have changed immeasurably over the year with births, deaths and other momentous events but it is a comfort to realise the world keeps turning and the seasons roll on.

I try and see this time as a sparkly transformation. Festive invitations and obligations keep me busy now but I am inside at home more in the evening and I am enjoying the log burner on most of them, as there does seem to be something very basic and special about congregating around a fire. Before we had the fire I would burn a candle or two in the room that we were sitting in, that would be our bright flame and like moths we would be drawn to the light.

Glass pieces catching the precious sunlight on my windowsill.

There are many sparkly festive lights which are brightening up most windows in town and suburbia at the moment, there have been momentous 'switching on' of lights, even some trees outside houses in gardens are bedecked with their own. Places are transformed by these decorations and it is magical.

I have a plan that between now and Christmas I will spend a bit of time walking outside in the dark, both appreciating the domestic twinkly lights in peoples homes and the ancient star light from above in the deep clear sky. Then to be snug back inside the house I will gaze at the fire and candlelight and feel a basic sense of happiness and contentment that no form of Christmas gift could give me. At this time of year such simple pleasures cannot be bought.

Making by the fireside, at a friends house.

I end this blog with a quote from a previous entry written at this time of year. I know this is well worth remembering too as we become busier and busier towards the 'target date' of the 25 th of December.

'At this time of year, it is not your Christmas presents that are needed so much as your presence.'

Wishing you all my best over this festive period.

I run art and design workshops throughout the year. These can be either 1:1 or for a small group and I charge from £15 per hour.

My own personal art page can be found at www.facebook.com/RoseClarityArtist

 I can be contacted on 07432679164 or clare@people-to-place.co.uk

A Time of Transformation

It is now 4 years since finishing my MA and I have finally started compiling a book, based on the last few years of weekly and seasonal blog posts. These in turn are based on the walking practice that I do as an artist and designer: a practice that creatively connects people to place.

Wonderful office space at Farm Work Play, where I am writing.

In doing this, and feeling slightly overwhelmed by what seems like a mammoth but necessary task, I will be writing these blogs less regularly as I concentrate on the first draft. But luckily, over the years I have gathered together a team of enthusiastic and supportive individuals to make this happen, so thankfully now I am feeling much more excitement about the book, than anxiety and overwhelm.

Working through/rereading all the blogs is quite a task.

I have been out and about as much as possible over the last couple of weeks, trying to experience the turn of Summer into Autumn as much as possible, as I love this time of transition and transformation.

During my first visit to Great Dixter in East Sussex, a place that I had been wanting to go to for years, I walked around the garden in awe of the design, layout and planting. Paths led us through ornamental, tropical, wild and topiary gardens full of early autumn colour and beauty.

Dahlias and bees...

Dahlias, some as large as a plate were regularly being visited by huge buzzing Bumble bees, Robins sang loudly for their territory and the gardeners quietly clipped the many yew hedges.

Flowers and foliage edging the path.

A week later a friend and I celebrated the last harvest of Summer as we visited a flower cutting garden called Blooming Green in Kent and enjoyed an hour or so of idle wandering around the garden, each picking a huge armful of flowers including more wonderful dahlias.

Bumble bee and Dahlia, again!

These have sat in a few large vases on the kitchen table over the last week or two giving essential colour to some very grey weather. So it has been with anticipation, as the days started drawing in earlier, the central heating kicked in and the first fire was excitedly lit, we hunkered in cosy and snug and awaited the arrival of Winter.

Blooming Green cutting garden in Linton, Kent.

Next weekend, on Saturday the 25^th of November I will be showing artwork, alongside Canterbury artist Alison Lees. This exhibition in Adisham in her strawbale barn studio will be the culmination of two years work studying 'The Spirit of Place', an art project based in Kent.

If anyone would like to visit, all are welcome. It would be great to meet you, I understand that it is getting busier and busier the nearer we get to Xmas, but if you'd like to experience a calm, yet twinkly Midwinter Open Studio event, see demonstrations of Gelli-plate and wood cut printing, then this may be the ideal chill out zone!

You can find us at 1 Flybridge Cottages, CT3 3LT. We are open 11-5, there is plenty of parking and there will be light refreshments too for anyone who ventures out to see our work.

You can keep up to date with our past explorations and discoveries by looking at www.facebook.com/EastKentSpiritOfPlace

My own personal art page can be found at www.facebook.com/RoseClarityArtist, do take a

look!

Offshore windmills in the distance.

 I can be contacted on 07432679164 or clare@people-to-place.co.uk

Home

Yesterday I found a Peacocks bright green and blue iridescent feather by my front path. It surprised me at first and then I smiled as I realised that it must have blown out of my parked car sometime over the previous week. I have picked up many Peacocks feathers on my weekly writing trips to Monkshill Farm. Recently the Peacocks that normally loudly announce their beauty have been silent, skulking away from visitors as they moult and shed their wonderful coat.

Found peacocks feather on my new book.

The happiness I felt when I saw the incongruous feather in my street was linked directly to the wonderful memory of the place that Monkshill Farm is located. Before its recent reincarnation as 'Farm Work Play', the farm was the headquarters of the agricultural education section of 'Margate School for the Deaf'.

View from the window at Farm Work Play, co-working space.

My family, friends and I had regularly visited it when it was open to the public for official seasonal events, such as 'Lambing days', it had a wonderful café which was open most days, a farm shop and a play area. But to be honest what I mostly missed and what I am able to enjoy once again are the extensive beautiful views that are almost 360 degrees and the great sense of place that this location allows.

View from the summit of Monkshill, looking out towards the Thames estuary.

Today I read an article in 'The Guardian', that explores exactly this type of happiness. It suggests that contentment evoked by familiar and special places seem to have an even higher value than treasured objects such as photographs or wedding rings.

Dr Andy Myers is quoted in the article saying 'for the first time we have been able to prove the physical and emotional benefits of place, far beyond any research that has been done before. With meaningful places generating a significant response in areas of the brain known to process emotion, it's exciting to understand how deep-rooted this connection truly is.'

Being a Kentish lass, I love the Hop fields.

One of the lovely gifts that I was given this week for my birthday was a small book of 10 poems about home. It has a small but poignant collection of poems that captures 'the many ways in which we experience that unique sense of being at home.'

I do understand that home isn't always for everyone the place that creates happiness, but for me mostly it is and this poetry collection is evocative of just how special they are as 'vessels' to hold our own memories in.

North Sea mud, a love of mine on Tankerton seafront.

So, along with these poems, the indulgence of owning and loving my own home, having the knowledge of many special places which I understand inspire and make me happy, it really does pain me to know that this isn't common for everyone.

Migration.

There are many humans for whom this is an impossibility, many who are just surviving, 'on the road', without a base or a home, exiled away from the familiar places that once brought them joy. Many refugees are known to have picked up and carried a handful of earth from their home. Keeping it close to them for as long as possible. These are people whose lives have been torn apart by conflict, from family and loved ones. It is with this in mind that I remember how grateful I am for what I have and remember that I want others to share this feeling of contentment and well-being in discovering their locality. Creatively connecting people to place is my mission. This blog is part of it.

Gelli-print of Bluebells and William Blake poetry.

This weekend I will be opening the doors of my beautiful straw bale studio to exhibit my own and Alison Lees work as part of the Canterbury Festival, the theme is still 'The Spirit of Place' as it is an ongoing art project based in Kent.

You can keep up to date with our explorations and discoveries by looking at www.facebook.com/EastKentSpiritOfPlace

Open times are 11-5 daily on the weekends from 14-29^th of October. We can be found at house number 25 on the Whitstable trail. Please see the webpage www.ekoh.org.uk for more information.

My own personal art page can be found at www.facebook.com/RoseClarityArtist, do take a look!

 I can be contacted on 07432679164 or clare@people-to-place.co.uk

Celebrating the nature of place

A few months ago I visited the WealdenLiterary Festival at Woodchurch in Kent. The theme of the event was 'celebrating the nature of place', as this seemed very connected to my ongoing project exploring the spirit of place I felt it was well worth a visit. It was held at Boldshaves, which is 'both a family home and a working garden surrounded by ancient woodland in an area of outstanding natural beauty on the eastern edge of the Kent Weald'
.

webpage from the festival site

The gardens were used extensively for the festival with organised walks exploring the outer reaches of their woodland and the inner confines hosting many designer and maker stalls, workshop spaces and both a yurt and a marquee in which a multitude of authors introduced their new books to enthusiastic audiences.

I had booked tickets to see and hear Peter Owen Jones talk about the 'Sense of Place', this seemed too great an opportunity to miss. He was promoting his newest book, 'Pathlands' which is a collection of 21 of his favourite circular walks in the UK. In the book he promised to 'share his thoughts on the experience and the transformative experience of walking.'

'Pathlands', by Peter Owen Jones

At the talk at the event he was promoted to be exploring what is meant by 'sense of place' with the director of the festival, Andrew Willan. I entered the marquee and waited patiently near the stage at the front.

He started off gently explaining about how as a baby we all sense the world. We don't decide we are hungry and call for milk, we feel hunger. He explained 'we are all born fluent in feeling', it is our first language, not the language of words and he asked just how automated do we want to become? Distractions such as mobile phones can distance ourselves from our feelings which can then become anarchistic and uncomfortable. He went on to say that our feelings are what it is to be human, they are great teachers.

Peter Owen Jones talked of a sense of belonging, of having the capacity to engage with intimacy within our natural surroundings. From looking at church records between the 13^th and 19^th century he said it is clear that we didn't travel far away from home, and so we would have had a deep relationship with the land. For example we would have known where certain birds nested, we would have got to know the light and how the seasons change that particular place. He explained these are intricate observations that come from intrinsically sensing and ultimately connecting to a place. It was wonderful to listen to him speak, he was articulate and explained many concepts clearly that I had understood from my experiences, so far in life, discovered by walking and being in nature.

Detail of a feather from a recent drypoint etching print I made.

He asked us just how much time do we spend just practising the art of observation? If we were to devote ourselves to this, to hold a flower, a Rose or a Bluebell for half an hour at least, what could that teach us? He said we seem to have disallowed our capacity for observation. We have become 'blunted' by our unthinking connection to technology and therefore cannot feel the resonance of each place we visit. He explained it is an art that can be regained if practiced and this I plan to do, more regularly in my life.

But perhaps by reading and reminding myself of my last blog 'Observation and sensing the world around us', this is what I do already. Yes I do own and use a mobile phone, and so I am mostly connected to the wider world (if I remember to turn it on/have volume up). But I do find joy in the simple pleasures of experiencing natural beauty in the world and the mobile phone is actually a really good tool to carry and capture that on camera, to share with others and hopefully inspire them to get out there and see it for themselves.

I am still working on getting the content written within these blogs into a book form. You never know, one day I could be talking about it in either the yurt or the marquee at a future Wealden Literary Festival!

Full print of the Autumn inspired piece of work.

I will be opening the doors of my beautiful straw bale studio once again this year to exhibit my own and Alison Lees work as part of the Canterbury Festival, the theme is still 'The Spirit of Place' as it is an ongoing art project based in Kent.

You can keep up to date with our explorations and discoveries by looking at www.facebook.com/EastKentSpiritOfPlace

New delivery of 'Moo' postcards, ready for the exhibition.

Open times are 11-5 daily on the weekends from 14-29^th of October. We can be found at house number 25 on the Whitstable trail. Please see the webpage www.ekoh.org.uk for more information.

My own personal art page can be found at www.facebook.com/RoseClarityArtist, do take a look!

...and stickers too!

 I can be contacted on 07432679164 or clare@people-to-place.co.uk

Observation and sensing the world around us.

It is truly wonderful to be able to walk at this time of year. We have already had a few grey skies and chilly days now to really appreciate the bright sunshine and warming sun of a fine autumnal day. Yesterday was such a day. The sun shone bright and the clouds that caused the overnight rain scudded high above us as we climbed up Holly hill, Dargate.

Looking out and down the hill.

We stood to one side of the Bracken fringed path to let a group of walkers past and in our stopping we were able to marvel at the view down the hill, across the fields towards the Thames estuary. I could pick out the curve of the coast from Seasalter westwards and locate a few boats moored on the Swale at Oare. Looking beyond them, the atmospherics allowed a series of clear outlines of varying horizons, similar to a theatre set, mapping the distances away from us.

A naturally framed view.

One of my favourite books, 'Country Bunch- an anthology of the countryside' by Miss Read has a piece by Eleanor Farjeon on the poet Edward Thomas. In it she explains how Edwards father had given his children a piece of sage advice, to 'keep your senses fresh' and how Edward was able to do this, even as a soldier in the first world war.

Stormy sky clearing more sunshine.

'He could not live a day in the open air without being given something to 'enjoy enormously'; clear weather, flat shingle, a line of trees, the tallness of a church tower on a marsh, even a row of huts- he liked what he saw. And knew that nobody else liked it as much as he did.'

This is how I feel on such a gift of a warm, bright and sunny early autumnal day. I feel by making time and walking in nature, slowing down and allowing myself to observe, to 'look beyond looking', I can really feel connected to the place. Walking with others especially other observant artists is a very simple and enjoyable pleasure.

Walking speed, amongst the fallen leaves.

These lager fir trees on the top of the hill are a local landmark.

We stood leaning against a farm gate on the way back down the path and were happy to chat and point out to each other what we could see. Large black birds, perhaps crows, were spiralling up ahead of us, making a great noise and commotion. The longer we looked the clearer it was that they were mobbing a couple of larger Raptor type birds, who nonchalantly spiralled up higher into the sky.

Looking through the abundance of Rose hips, by the path edge.

A couple of Dragonflies and a Peacock butterfly flew over and displayed their own precious beauty to us. It did not go unnoticed. We 'enjoyed enormously' both the breadth of the distant view and the closer treasures that we observed.

The views were extensive. 

Our senses were awakened and we could clearly hear and feel the crunch of the abundance of acorns that covered the path back down to the car. The wind started up with a chill in it and we gratefully got into the sun-warmed car to find a local pub to have lunch.

The path out of the woods, thick with fallen acorns.

I will be opening the doors of my beautiful straw bale studio once again this year to exhibit my own and Alison Lees work as part of the Canterbury Festival, the theme is still 'The Spirit of Place' as it is an ongoing art project based in Kent.

You can keep up to date with our explorations and discoveries by looking at www.facebook.com/EastKentSpiritOfPlace

Inked imprint of feathers, found on a previous walk.

Open times are 11-5 daily on the weekends from 14-29^th of October. We can be found at house number 25 on the Whitstable trail. Please see the webpage www.ekoh.org.uk for more information.

 I can be contacted on 07432679164 or clare@people-to-place.co.uk