The Wealden Literary Festival and Mud-larking.

 

Blog 06.07.21

The Wealden Literary Festival and Mud-larking.

The other weekend I went to the Wealden Literary Festival. It had been cancelled last year and as it is set outside in the beautiful 'Boldshaves Garden' I thought it would be a wise and safe introduction to reopening my wider social life, since it all closed down so suddenly back in March 2020.

It was an overcast and dull, drab day. The roads and fields were covered in misty rain as we drove down into the Weald of Kent from the coast. But the closer we got to the site the more excited I became to experience something new- people, places and spectacle had all been very limited over the last 15 months or so.

I love this little festival, it’s got a very chilled vibe, everything is presented beautifully and the gardens in which it is hosted are charming. Every time I go I promise myself I will return and explore the gardens fully when the festival is not on, to experience the larger sense of space and detail of the planting and structure. This year I might actually do it.

The festival ‘is a chance to unearth some of the magic of the natural world and celebrate our relationship with place through literature, arts, crafts and food...’. They do this well, it has numerous workshops on offer and many children's activities- of which I especially loved the fairy trail that you could follow on a map through wild woodland, entered via a storybook arch.

For the grown ups there were many more activities to enjoy. I had booked tickets to attend a conversation between Katherine May of ‘Wintering’ and Lara Maiklem, author of ‘Mud-larking’. I am so glad I did, Katherine chatted to Lara and we discovered her true love of looking for treasures on the foreshore, specifically along the River Thames in London and further out into the Thames Estuary. When I say treasures, I am not talking precious metals or jewels, these treasures are items of everyday use that are valuable in their own way, of telling a story, adding personal depth to any history that we may read.

She especially loves to find pieces of shoes as they reflect the person; any imprint in the way that the show was worn, literally- the repeated movement of the foot within the leather can connect her in her imagination with a physical trace of its owner. She says the discoveries are often uncanny, there is an essence of the owner in the worn pieces of leather she finds.

Lara explained that when Mud-larking, it was the quality of attention that she paid to the foreshore that was enjoyable, the art of looking that was, for her a form of meditation. She said that sometimes she will see something and just gaze at it whilst it is still in the mud and that is almost enough. And yet, her curiosity gets the better of her and at last she will unearth the object and then there is the period of ‘after-larking’, when she will clean, research and preserve the object.

A few clues were given as to what to look for if you were ever tempted to try for yourself. Give yourself time to ‘get your eye in’, look specifically for straight lines and perfect circles- what doesn’t quite fit in the local environment that you are concentrating on? I often pick up fossils off of the foreshore where I live in Tankerton and I think that this is excellent advice. I will also add, look for changes in colour and pattern too.

But the main reason for such an interest is in the joy of discovery. It’s a pleasure of connecting physically to the past, our shared history, as these finds are part of ordinary things probably used by our ancestors too. They tell a story, a lost moment in an everyday life. The item can become a relic and stand for so much more than the history books may ever tell. Perhaps the act of Mud-larking and the interest it gives us is a comforting understanding that we may live on in tiny fragmented ways and could be a prompt for a future soul to reimagine our life. Relics of ordinary lives caught up in the flow of a historic river, weathering all storms and settling down in the mud, awaiting discovery.

Heart and Soul

It is with a lighter foot that I step up and move forward and start to write again. The act of writing is not difficult for me, but I am far better at putting the act off, distracting myself with something more worthy and surprisingly even more 'domestic'. Household chores have too often been given priority over creativity, not that you would know that by the 'lived in' mess of my home. But I am starting to really understand now that procrastination is an artform in itself and one that I have been developing unknowingly for many years.

For a good dose of inspiration I visited the Wealden Literary Festival which has more recently been seen to be encouraging more women writers to take centre stage. I went to a couple of talks and enjoyed the honesty and enthusiasm with which the women spoke of their experiences within the popular genre of nature writing, especially that of nature and place. I recognise the voice of these narrators. I feel their writing. It resonates. From now on I too will put my heart and soul into the writing and see what happens on the page.

I have just signed myself up for Whitstable's first swim-lit Festival this Saturday, 

between-the-tides

It starts with a swim at high tide at 10.37 and finishes with a night swim at 23.01, with many talks by authors such as Tanya Shadrick, (who I was lucky enough to see at the WLF), with workshops, music, coffee and cake in between. I am hoping this local festival will inspire and encourage me further. 

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