The Spirit and Sense of Place

A friend shared a BBC Travel link on Facebook this week about the The Broomway in Essex, that she rightly thought I'd be interested in. I have included it here so you can read the article and sense how unique this isolated place must be. When reading the article by Robert Mac Farlane you cannot help but feel a sense of disorientation that this landscape creates. It is felt in the transient otherworldliness caused by a mirror effect of being out on a causeway off the coast, in the North Sea, just above the mud which is constantly lapped by water, under a huge sky and with no discernible landmarks to be seen.

'My brain was beginning to move unusually, worked upon and changed by the mind-altering substances of this offshore world, and by the elation that arose from the counter-intuition of walking securely on water. Out there, nothing could be only itself. The eye fed on false colour values. Mirages of scale occurred, and tricks of depth.'

'Conceptually, it is close to paradox. It is a right of way and as such is inscribed on maps and in law, but it is also swept clean of the trace of passage twice daily by the tide. What do you call a path that is no path? A riddle? A sequence of compass bearings? A Zen koan?' Robert Mac Farlane.

Being.

This sounds like an easy place to recognise a sense of it. We constantly sense our surroundings and adjust our behaviour accordingly. When I studied for my MA I realised this awareness has a name, Phenomenology. It is 'an approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience'. I first read about this understanding in a wonderful accessible book by David Abram called 'The Spell of the Sensuous'. I was pointed to far more academic books during my study such as those by Merleau-Ponty and Husserl but 'The Spell of the Sensuous' was the one that I went back to time and again for inspiration and understanding. I highly recommend it.

Ali woodcutting in Jane Mowats studio in Somerset.

Tomorrow I open my studio door to visitors for an open day. I have been collaborating with another artist, Alison Lees for nearly 2 years on a project called 'Spirit of Place'. This collaboration has been mutually supportive and we have learnt many new skills whilst working together, including both woodcutting and drypoint etching and printing. This has enabled us to create new pieces of work inspired by the spirit of place in which we both live and work. Over the course of the project we have taken it in turns to visit and sense the place in which the other one lives.

Drypoint etching, the 'reveal'.

Ali lives inland in Kent, on the downs which are very curvy and create a sense of movement to the landscape. They are quite intensively farmed and the strict agricultural year informs their surface layer which sometimes accentuates the underlying topography sometimes making the cereal crop seem to blow in the wind across one field and into another. The ancient woodland close to her home has inspired me. I have loved the immersion of exploring this place throughout the year and especially at Bluebell time, seeking out of a place to sit to draw and paint them, listening to the birds, noticing the insects and generally really feeling/sensing the place.

Immersed in a Bluebell wood.

In contrast, I live on the coast in a built up area in a suburban street a few minutes walk to the sea and its pebbly beach. My garden is therefore my closest wild place, the area in which I can sense in general, the season, the daily weather, the wild visitors that use the garden on a regular basis and the never ending cycles of growth and decay that every living space provides.

The path to the beach.

I swim in the sea every summer and enjoy a similar feeling of immersion that I did back in the late spring in the Bluebell wood. Swimming in the sea I notice the birds flying overhead the seaweed floating around me, the wind rippling the surface of the water as it gusts about and gently as if from a distance I hear the pebbles being moved beneath the water by the waves. This is all sensing the place, the land in which we live. Ali and I are now exploring beyond this keen sense of observation and wonder to another level of understanding. We have come to start to recognise a spirit of both places and it is on that level that we continue to work, discover and create artwork together.

My painting of the sea at Tankerton.

Our mid year Summer exhibition is tomorrow the 15^th of July. The doors of the studio will be open from 11-4 on Saturday when refreshments will be available and all are welcome. The address is 'Lucknow', 67 Northwood road, Tankerton, Whitstable, Kent. CT5 2HB.

Also for your diaries I will be opening the doors of my beautiful straw bale studio once again this year to exhibit my own and Alison’s 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.

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