Our place; in time, location and nature.

I need art. I think we all do. Art in its widest description: that is creative writing, film making, poetry, dance, performing arts and visual arts such as photography, painting and printing, land art, sculpture...the list could go on and does.

Peacock butterfly basking in last Octobers sunshine.

 With the horrors that have been in the news recently it can be difficult to know what to do, think or behave. But society has always had a place for art and if you have a think about other cultures and their perception of art, this could include the fascinating Wabi Sabi of Japan, delicately illuminated Celtic texts or the raw songwriting and performance art of Icelandic Bjork.

Dandelion clock covered in morning dew.

A sample of last years Artists Open studio work on display

But one way I have been keeping sane amongst the chaos over the last year has been to produce more art, attend more workshops and share my knowledge and skills with others. Art can allow you to be in the moment, to achieve something in the time given and encourage you to see a clearer, brighter picture of the world.

Last October I exhibited my artwork as part of the Canterbury Festivals', East Kent Open Houses trail. Lots of people came to view the work, with only one person this time asking if it was a hobby.(!)

I had many different types of artworks on display, from pewter casts to printing and painting as for the last year I had been working hard, in collaboration with another artist, Alison Lees on a project entitled 'Spirit of Place'. This had led us to explore more deeply the places in which we live in Kent.

Tiny feather underfoot.

Alison lives inland in a rural area with the undulating downs and ancient woodlands on her doorstep. In contrast I live on the coast, by the pebbly beach that is endlessly shaped and reshaped by the tides. The subtle changes in the seasons are less conspicuous here. I am possibly more likely to recognise the build up of tourists visiting the coast at certain bank holidays, than I am to notice the Seakale sprouting through the pebbles or see the first Swallows of the season.

Flint, Chestnut and leaf collection from a seasonal walk.

Creating a Cuttlefish mould for a Pewter cast.

Alison is surrounded by the endless physical changes that our agrarian calendar enforces onto nature as well as the consistent pattern of growth and decline that is nature itself. A walk up the path through the field opposite her home cannot be achieved without understanding exactly which season we are in and even what part of that season; asking ourselves questions like 'are the Skylarks rising yet?', a walk in the woods can indicate exactly the timing, speed and quantity of seasonal growth. As we walk we comment on the abundance of delicate little Wood Anemones, the deep violet blueness of the Bluebells, the birdsong and our amazement at the sheer force of nature that powers the plants up and through the deep leaf litter that covers the floor of the wood.

My exhibits included an 'Cabinet of Curiousity'

What I wanted to achieve in the October exhibition was a contrast of work, to show the difference of the places. I did this by consciously walking the land, picking up and collecting 'treasures' from the walks, which I used to create new artworks that allowed other people to share my insights and hopefully get them out there seeing with an artists eye and appreciating our place in time, location and nature.

A linocut print entitled 'Blue Coast'

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' and is an ongoing art project based in Kent. You can keep up to date with our explorations and discoveries by looking at our facebook page

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

Autumn

 Autumn

I am going to start this blog with a quote from a friend, Alison Lees, who, as a fellow artist is incredibly sensitive to her surroundings and aware of the changes that the seasons bring.

‘Yesterday as I was outside, I noticed a particular movement in the trees. We looked up and stared and it was very clear, right then and there that Autumn walked in! Amazing and beautiful.’

Autumn always brings with it mixed feelings for me. I am disappointed by the darker shorter days and the general chilliness in the air, but I am enthralled by the beautiful display of colour in the foliage of both the trees and plants.

Early morning autumn sunlight on the wibbly-wobbly walls.

Autumn sunlight is low and sharp. It glows. This morning it shone on the side of our wibbly-wobbly straw bale garden studio and it highlighted the texture of the wall, the brushstrokes of the lime-wash and the beauty of the plum tree in its shadow form.

 

Shadow plum tree on cob rendered walls.

I find this time of year is a good time to focus on the detail, the wonder of it all, as we go into a slower mode of being.

 

Detail.

Autumn slows me down. It feels like there is less time to want to fit ‘it’ all in. I look forward to the darker evenings so that I can get cosy in the house and not expect so much of myself.

Pace

Autumn is my slow down signal. I always used to try and ‘keep the pace’ up at this time, but now I tend to recognise that I need to slow down. If I don’t, I start getting the inevitable cold and cough and then things quickly start to go pear shape. That is one of the great things about walking, it is all about pace. Walking pace is, as a human, our natural speed to observe and understand our surroundings.

Last week I collected my first sweet chestnuts of the season, these were found by remembering where I saw the trees last year, walking up to and around them and looking down into the recent leaf litter and spying the bright green spiky balls. This can't be done virtually, digitally or any other way than to be present. I had to go there myself and seek them out.

One of Jo Barkers harvest mandalas, not chestnuts, but beautiful.

In making this decision to go and harvest these seasons’ gifts I was allowing myself the time and the commitment to be there, to pace myself to the season, to walk, look, recognise and gather. It could be seen as a bit trivial, but I believe the more we engage with the land around us in a seasonal way the more we begin to appreciate our connection with it and nature itself. In this time of gathering in the harvest in preparation for the colder darker days ahead it is only honest to recognise that we too are animals and will need to change our behaviour in tune with the seasons.

Process

It is with interest that I type this word and only just now, realise that that it has two meanings. I was going to write about the process of preparing a body of new work for the imminent Artists Open Studio event that starts next week. But as I wrote the word, I read it as process, as in to ‘walk in procession’. Both are about movement, the first one is a movement of thought that takes ideas through a series of changes to become something else. The ‘walk in procession’, speaks for itself, it is movement.

 

Above are two paintings reflecting the spirit of that place. Top- Canterbury Catherdral, Bottom- St. Margarets' Bay.

The project that I am working on is about how people connect to place through walking. This will involve them encountering exterior space as they walk. Trained as a spatial designer, I know the influence of how an interior space can influence the mood of someone either walking into/through it or spending some time in the space.

Detail of 'Cathedral secrets'. Playful movement.

Just imagine if we all became re-tuned in to our outside environments.

We may be able to recognise the ‘tricks’ of the trade; use of colour, finish, proportion etc that retail designers, for example use on us. We gradually lose this ability to see, the more familiar and safe we feel in that environment. Major supermarket chains use these tricks to allow us to choose our ‘favorite’ store and therefore feel safe enough to spend our money there, on a regular basis. If we were able to learn to recognise, at a walking pace, all that nature, the land and the changing seasons had to offer, we could become much richer without spending a penny!

Playing

The process that I have found to be the most successful with creating a new body of work is very playful. I have looked to my older original paintings to inspire me.

 

'I Dream', original painting.

I have always painted freely. I have never come to the canvas with a preconceived idea of what to paint, I wouldn't know what to choose for a start! I like the meditative quality of painting; the choosing of the colours, the paintbrush size, the way I mix paints together, the flow. So, in looking to my existing paintings for inspiration I came across a series of ‘motifs’ that frequently occur in my work. These are trees, birds and paths.

 

Working with motifs.

So I set out to simplify the originals by tracing over them, creating a basic line drawing from the positive and negative spaces on the canvas.I have written about this way of looking before, 'the space between'.

 

Looking at positive and negative space.

These I reduced down and then used carbon paper to transfer onto another material to colour in. The whole process has been like a form of Chinese whispers. The end result has been a joy to colour in with no overarching angst, just a playful experiment. The pace of the work has suited the season. It has transformed an older image into something simpler, quite new and fresh.

Working from my original designs.

I have started a Facebook page with a pseudonym, why? well why not? It is playful and fun. It can be found here.

Poetry

As the evenings get darker I find that I start to look for good poetry pieces to snuggle up with, as I get cosy. They can be beautiful to look at too, as the next photo shows.

 

These are Native American Lyrics; poetical verse.

I suppose that the words could be seen as processing across the page. Now that’s a thought…

I wanted to leave you with one other, a quote by Yeats but I cant find the correct words, it goes something like this ; to read a good poem in January is equal to a summers walk in June.

But in researching the correct words I came across these instead;

‘We live in a fast-paced society. Walking slows us down.’ Robert Sweetgall 

That will do, point made. I am off now for a walk.

(I completed my MA in September 2013 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.)