Bitter weather and shorter walks.

Bitter weather and shorter walks.

The winter is certainly upon us now, this week alone we have had snow, sleet rain, dreary grey days but also wonderful bright sunshine. The weather seems to be all over the place and it can make it difficult to settle into a routine. Do we need to put the heating on constant, light a fire or de-ice the car?

Remembering warmer months and summer fires.

We acquired a dog a few months ago, so at least one thing is now constant, I know that I will be going out for a walk at least twice a day and possibly more if it's neither bitterly cold or chucking it down with rain. This has been quite a bonus as it makes me go out in all weathers and even short walks in the blustery rain and hail have been enjoyable. Well, I say that but actually the best bit of these walks is going back inside again! It truly makes me appreciate and be grateful for my home even more.

Gelli-print based on early spring last year.

I am set to start the first art project of this year next week. One which I have been thinking about and researching for a few months. I am going to create a small body of work based on 'Hearth and Home', which I will exhibit in my straw-bale studio next month. I have always been fascinated by fireplaces and their place in the home. I love how mantle-pieces are 'curated' by families and I can still nostalgically remember those of my grandparents and other elderly relatives, which were of the time when the hearth was the heart of the home, long before the introduction of a TV as a main focal point.

Fireplace installation at YSP last Summer. 

Our log burner has been lit most evenings and has become another constant this winter and I am so glad of it. The applied decoration I made last summer in the concrete hearth has worked well. When I sweep up the wood ash from it, I remember the time I collected the leaves, chosen from full and abundant gardens, pressed them into the wet concrete and looked forward to the 'reveal' when the leaves were pulled away. Their imprints are now permanently marked into the hearth and I recognises the traces of Passionflower, Hop and Grapevine leaves. Now on really grey days and darker evenings I find their subtle forms and detail are all I need to remember back to a warmer time, with more consistent bright days. These days will surely come round again, I just need to wait, patiently.

The 'Hearth and Home' exhibition is open to all and will take place on Saturday the 17^th of March from 11-5pm in my straw-bale studio. The studio has a Facebook page of its own, to look at its 'life story', look up www.facebook.com/Green-Build-Tankerton

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

Light and Illumination.

What is it with sunsets? I do love the magical transitory times of a day, the times when the light changes, and as I am not a regular early riser, I especially love the transition between day and night. Dusk is a wonderful slowing down time, especially in the Summer when the spectacular sunsets can be enjoyed by the whole family on the beach.

Tankerton sunset.

The reflection of the setting sun in the sea is a natural gift if we choose to observe it and even more special is the feeling of swimming in the sea, eyes closed, heading towards the warmth of the setting sun. A treasured memory indeed in the depths of any cold, grey winter!

The path up to the sky.

A few weeks ago we had a log burner installed in the living room of our home and I surprise myself by now looking forward to the darker evenings and the increasing chill of the next season. We needed to make a hearth to put the burner on so we laid some concrete and I have been busy playing with the surface. I collected some beautiful leaves from the garden and used them to imprint their delicate undersides and overall form into the damp concrete. The result is a very personalised hearth that hold precious memories now of an abundant summer. The leaves I chose were Honesty, Passion fruit, Grape and Hop. Not only are their leaf forms very beautiful but they are also imbued with another layer of symbolism that could be the start of an interesting tale or two on a long dark winters evening.

Laying the leaves in wet concrete.

I enjoy observing the way that the light changes due to the season or the time of day. Recently whilst walking along the coast the sun was very low, about to set but had seemed to shoot out its last rays along the surface of the water towards the shore and it lit up the yellow Horned Poppy in a way I hadn't anticipated. It glowed! Luckily I had remembered to take my mobile phone with me and the camera on that is great for recording such sights. It's not the best, I also have a small digital Olympus and a larger digital SLR Cannon, but the mobile always allows me to capture any moment, to record it so that I can revisit that feeling of discovery and joy another time. It helps with my artwork too, I can revisit that time and place and refresh my memory if I am struggling to obtain the variation of colours needed in a piece.

Sunset glow.

This week I have been collating all my past blog posts so I could pass them onto a friend who will help me edit my book. It's been a long time coming but I am keen now get it out there. Re-reading the blog posts has been very interesting, seeing how each season often inspires walks, reflections and illumination. Themes seem to come up year after year and it is encouraging to know how much in tune we are with nature if we are able to get out regularly and walk amongst it.

Yellow beauty.

I came across a really nice article via a Facebook group that I follow called Treesisters, there is a link to it here. The article looks at 3 ways to connect to nature, one is to create a 'sit-spot' where you go regularly and observe the natural world around you and another is to go on a walking quest, a practice where you walk alone for 2-6 hours.

Walking with others is a joy too.

Personally I find even a daily 15 minute walk can bring great awards such as peace of mind if you allow yourself to be immersed in the very act of walking. This can be achieved both in a busy city and in the countryside. It is the act of giving yourself permission to just be, to walk and to observe without judgement. Perhaps this is why sunset walks are so attractive and satisfying. I for one, cannot help but be affected by the phenomenon of a setting sun. It quite simply 'fills you up' and when the experience is shared with loved ones it is truly wonderful.

A well worn path towards the sunset.

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.

Sunset and bubbles, could it get any better?!

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

Big Skies and Changeable Weather

Big Skies and Changeable Weather

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last week visiting various parts of the Kent coastline and going for walks. These walks haven’t been anything arduous. I think that it’s the ‘going out’ that is important.

John Muir was a Scottish naturalist, who moved over to America and created the first national parks, he said,

‘I went out for a walk, (and finally concluded to stay out till sundown), for going out I found was really going in’. John Muir

Going out, especially in the wintertime, when it’s snug and cosy indoors may not be the priority for most of us. Unless you have a dog to walk, or don’t have access to a car, it tends to be avoided. I am lucky enough to be able to drive, so I can choose quite easily where I will walk and recently it has been a case of picking friends up and driving to a favourite or new spot.

 

Walking with friends in all weathers.

A flask of coffee and biscuits or cake persuades most of them to join me on short, often wild, windy and wet walks along the coast.

Snow coming?

Of course I can walk from where I live and I do. Walking a well known route regularly has different benefits. The smaller details are recognised, such as the movement of something small along the path, for example: a glove that had been dropped onto the floor yesterday is now put up on a wall. This reminds me that others walk here too. Another day the glove may have gone, has it been reunited with its owner or is it in the bin?

My shadow finishes up on the beach!

Small manmade interventions happen every day and of course seasons change too. Nature reminds us of the time passing, if we care to take note we can watch a whole (plant)life cycle. I see the flowers of the Alexanders that thrive along the coast here bloom, fade and then their seeds appear. Dark black seeds denote where the plant thrived as its foliage shrinks back in the autumn. Now, most of the seeds have disappeared but a few remain and I snack on them and enjoy their Aniseed taste as I walk and I note that their foliage is regrowing now, (also edible!).

Detail of chalk cliffs at Westgate.

The artist J.M.W. Turner loved the big skies of the East Kent coast, particularly those of Thanet.

‘..the skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe.’ Turner

The sky changes, as the weather rolls in or out. Recently we have had dramatic stormy skies to watch as we walk.

 

Wet weather approaching.

The huge clouds roll across and out to sea and mostly take all that wet weather out with them, but in the process they create the most wonderful reflections and optical effects on the beaches.

Deal seafront seeming to float in midair.

When the sun pierces through the clouds and shines brightly, it creates dramatic silhouettes and dark shadows.

 

Deal Castle.

This is a stark contrast to the glowing low brilliant light that reflects on the sea that can be so bright that I need to shade my eyes.

Walking is good for you!

Last Friday on Radio Four I caught the end of the Today programme. As often happens, the last six minutes were the most interesting. Apparently plentiful evidence, published in the publication ‘American Journal of Clinical Nutrition’ has proved that walking is good for us. To walk twenty minutes daily has been proven to add to our longevity.

 

Piers such as this one at Deal encourage walking out.

John Humphrys interviewed two writers, Claire Tomlin and Ian Sinclair and asked them if the study was correct, does walking allow them to think better too? 

I have written in this blog about Ian Sinclairs work as a psychogeographer, specifically his ode to the soulless ‘revamping’ of the East End of London in making way for the 2012 Olympic Park: ‘Swandown’.

Ian Sinclair and Andrew Kotting in the film 'Swandown'. Photo by Anonymous-Bosch

I had not discovered the biographer Claire Tomalin before, she described her walks along the Thames, literally in the footsteps of Samuel Pepys. She had been advised long ago to experience the landscape as her subject would have done, either on horseback or even better,she said 'by foot'.

‘You see the sky and the river in the same way as your subject did…it’s just very thrilling to feel you are covering the same ground.’ Claire Tomalin

She went on to say that Dickens, who walked 20 miles a day, often across Kent, thought it was essential. He had to walk in order to write, he felt there was a definite connection between walking and writing.

Seasalter Marshes, Dickens could have walked here too.

When Ian Sinclair is interviewed he explains that he does the same walk every day for 40 minutes through Hackney.

‘I walk as a kind of mediation between the state of sleeping and the state of arising…by doing the same thing there is no novelty, other than the small changes that happen day to day…’ Ian Sinclair

Claire Tomalin finishes off the interview by plainly stating that ideas ‘come to you as you walk’.

 

Walking physically and mentally opens up new vistas.

This is a great reminder for me for when I feel ‘stuck’ creatively and it is wet and rainy outside. By going out, I will go in and as that happens, walking, wandering and wondering begins.

 

 (I completed my MA in September 2014 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.)