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'
.
.
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| 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.'
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| '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 13th
and 19th 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.
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| 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!
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| 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
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| New delivery of 'Moo' postcards, ready for the exhibition. |
Open
times are 11-5 daily on the weekends from 14-29th
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!
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| ...and stickers too! |
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