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Yesterday I found a Peacocks bright green and blue iridescent feather by my front path. It surprised me at first and then I smiled as I realised that it must have blown out of my parked car sometime over the previous week. I have picked up many Peacocks feathers on my weekly writing trips to Monkshill Farm. Recently the Peacocks that normally loudly announce their beauty have been silent, skulking away from visitors as they moult and shed their wonderful coat.

Found peacocks feather on my new book.

The happiness I felt when I saw the incongruous feather in my street was linked directly to the wonderful memory of the place that Monkshill Farm is located. Before its recent reincarnation as 'Farm Work Play', the farm was the headquarters of the agricultural education section of 'Margate School for the Deaf'.

View from the window at Farm Work Play, co-working space.

My family, friends and I had regularly visited it when it was open to the public for official seasonal events, such as 'Lambing days', it had a wonderful café which was open most days, a farm shop and a play area. But to be honest what I mostly missed and what I am able to enjoy once again are the extensive beautiful views that are almost 360 degrees and the great sense of place that this location allows.

View from the summit of Monkshill, looking out towards the Thames estuary.

Today I read an article in 'The Guardian', that explores exactly this type of happiness. It suggests that contentment evoked by familiar and special places seem to have an even higher value than treasured objects such as photographs or wedding rings.

Dr Andy Myers is quoted in the article saying 'for the first time we have been able to prove the physical and emotional benefits of place, far beyond any research that has been done before. With meaningful places generating a significant response in areas of the brain known to process emotion, it's exciting to understand how deep-rooted this connection truly is.'

Being a Kentish lass, I love the Hop fields.

One of the lovely gifts that I was given this week for my birthday was a small book of 10 poems about home. It has a small but poignant collection of poems that captures 'the many ways in which we experience that unique sense of being at home.'

I do understand that home isn't always for everyone the place that creates happiness, but for me mostly it is and this poetry collection is evocative of just how special they are as 'vessels' to hold our own memories in.

North Sea mud, a love of mine on Tankerton seafront.

So, along with these poems, the indulgence of owning and loving my own home, having the knowledge of many special places which I understand inspire and make me happy, it really does pain me to know that this isn't common for everyone.

Migration.

There are many humans for whom this is an impossibility, many who are just surviving, 'on the road', without a base or a home, exiled away from the familiar places that once brought them joy. Many refugees are known to have picked up and carried a handful of earth from their home. Keeping it close to them for as long as possible. These are people whose lives have been torn apart by conflict, from family and loved ones. It is with this in mind that I remember how grateful I am for what I have and remember that I want others to share this feeling of contentment and well-being in discovering their locality. Creatively connecting people to place is my mission. This blog is part of it.

Gelli-print of Bluebells and William Blake poetry.

This weekend I will be opening the doors of my beautiful straw bale studio 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

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!

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

A Speech of Birds

A Speech of Birds

I went out for a wonderful walk this weekend. It was organised by Victoria Field who runs The Poetry Practice. We had a guided walk by two RSPB officials through an area of Blean Woods and stopped along the way to listen to birdsong, connect to the place and practice some writing. The wind blew away a lot of the bird song, but we did manage to hear a Wren, Robin, Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Blackcap and Great Tit.

 

Catkins, soft and pliable compared to the strong oak trunks.

The weather was bright and sunny, but a chill wind blew through and kept us more active and walking to try and keep warm than staying still, writing and being contemplative.

Being in the wood.

Victoria calls the project she is working on ‘A Speech of Birds’, it is a celebration of the Blean through poetry and creative writing.

It was a delight to be in the woods with other likeminded people, really looking, listening and feeling our way. The stopping time which was inserted into a large circular walk felt like a gift.

 

Walking together through the wood.

At these points we were able to experience the woods just a little deeper. At one point we were asked to note twenty observations. We had walked into a glade and stopped and sat, out of the bitter wind and looked, listened and felt where we were.

The space between, a clearing in a wood

The calm silence

before the wind blows once again

Reminding us of the changeable season we are in

Sitting in the glade, writing.

I realised then that this is very similar to sketching a place. When I sketch, I look with more depth into the subject, I capture far more of that moment than when I take a photograph. I suppose this is being mindful, both writing and sketching something specific allows for a deeper observation of the subject.

We contemplated birch trees with bar(k)code musings...

Mindful Writing

I recognise that similarly, the difference between taking a photograph and sketching is also the same of being aware and commenting on your surroundings when walking and writing about your observations.

A single beech leaf.

Being mindful encourages me to fully be there in that moment noting, not just the shape of a leaf but its lightness of form, the irregularities of its surface and the tiny movement as it hangs singularly on the branch, being blown by the cold wind.

Stubborn leaves quiver

Cold chill some wind picking up

Birds sing merrily

Standing in one place

This was one of the subtitles from last week’s blog, it actually fits well into this one too, and so I shall leave it there, standing still amongst new text, experiences and observations.

The Yew and Beech 'danced' together.

We often need a constant; something still that we move around, it can be a partner, a friend, a specific place or many other things. We each have our own. I see these things as landmarks in our own worlds. The Street in Whitstable is one of mine.

The Street, tide out for the Supermoon.

It is a constant, it weathers all storms, it may disappear completely at high tides but there is always a feature in the sea, a trace of its shape formed by the currents that are created by its form as it lies submerged, waiting to be exposed again at the next low tide.

A long way to walk.

Unfortunately, the weather here last week for the solar eclipse was not conducive to fully appreciate the event. The sky was overcast, its colour a deep grey that got deeper and heavier as the light dimmed. People had gathered expectantly on the slopes at Tankerton and then as they wandered off I noticed the sky feel less heavy and that is when I realised it was over, that must have been it, the eclipse had passed.

 

Looking towards the West.

It was a very different experience to the eclipse I had witnessed in 1999, that day had been bright with a cloudless blue sky. We had constructed a viewing box to ‘see’ the eclipse and the image was amazingly clear. But what I remember most was that as the sky darkened the birds stopped singing. It went quiet and cold. That was my overriding memory. A tiny glimpse of what the world would be without the sun and that was a shock.

The evening of the solar eclipse had promised to show us the Supermoon which had blocked out the sun, earlier in the day. We went down to The Street to view it, but again the cloud was so thick and low that it was impossible to even see where it could be in the sky. But, what a surprise! The tide was way out, so far out that when we walked out to the end of The Street it took a long time to get there.

 

Strange interference on the water surface.

The water to the left of The Street looked like the old fashioned coloured pixels on a television screen. The sea glowed with muted colours of the sun set, but the surface of the water looked like it was ‘crackling’ with interference. I have never seen this phenomenon before, so I was able to end the day with another new Street memory to add to my existing collection. 

The Blean

‘Blean’s speciality is that it was the woodland attached to a holy city.’ Cites Oliver Rackham in his foreword to ‘The Blean, The Woodlands of a Cathedral City.’ The Blean is large, over 11 square miles, and ancient. 

In a couple of days I have booked to attend another event for the Speech of Birds project, again organised by Victoria. This writing workshop will be held indoors this time, so I will wear less layers and so will hopefully be able to use my arms more efficiently!

The cold wind on my face

Watching others hankered down

Against the cold, writing

Furiously with cold fingers

into favourite notebooks

We will be looking at prose and poems relating to the Blean and writing in response. I look forward to that, exploring the Blean through writing and using my experience from Saturdays walk to really get to know the place better.

Woodland ants waking up.

 PS. the poetry, haiku and observations are my own and unedited. I am sure they would benefit from some more work; there is certainly room for improvement, but as 'memory sketches' for the day, they serve me well.

Reading and Writing

Reading and Writing

‘To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June’, Jean-Paul Satre

This quote is the one I tried to find a few blog entries ago and even wrongly merited it to Yeats. But in researching the author of this quote I came across many other inspirational words, poems, stories and lyrics. So that was good. 

Seasalter beach, looking East with stormy sky.

Sinky mud, leaking wellies.

   

Ironically, in setting up my walking project, I have done less walking, but more reading and writing than I had ever expected to. I think this may be due to existing time commitments, but I must admit it is also due to the fear of walking alone in the countryside.

Walking with others and their dogs is a lovely option.

Living by the sea, here in Whitstable, I am very fortunate to be able to walk along the concrete promenade that edges the coast, built as part of the sea defence which stretches from Seasalter to Ramsgate.

Walking with company.

It is often busy with other people, especially dog walkers, so it mostly feels very safe to walk alone along the coast. But when it comes to walking along a country lane, footpath or through woods by myself, I feel a sense of anxiety. I think it would be good for me to acknowledge this and work out what I could do to feel more confident,  because if I feel this way, I am certain that I am not the only female feeling this anxiety when walking alone.

 

Really stormy skies over Whitstable.

I wonder whether this could become part of the art project that Arlette George and I have now decided we will do together, to explore human movement in the landscape. We will look for funding to create a project that will link two far away places in the UK: the Ardnamurchan Penisular in Scotland and Kent in England. Both areas have a large coastline and lie at the furthest geographical Westerly and Easterly points of the UK.

It's amazing what inspiration can come from just looking closely.

So, in my mind, to create a dynamic between these places and between the land and our bodies through the exploration of movement would be great. I don’t know how the project will look at the moment. That in itself would be part of the inquiry. How to articulate the project and create something of worth that could be discovered and used to inform the walking project ‘People-to-Place’ would be just one outcome. I would hope that the project in itself would lead us to other less prejudiced conclusions too.

Seaweed awaiting the tide to come in.

The Landscape as Metaphor

I attended an inspiring workshop on Saturday, it was held at the Beaney Institute in Canterbury and led by Mary Reynolds Thompson.

‘Reclaiming the Wild Soul’, turned out to be the perfect antidote to the last weekends' disappointment. From the start we were given a warm welcome and an appreciation of how we could expect to spend our valuable time. It was made clear what was to be the subject of our inquiry and guidelines were given so that we were able to understand the expectations of our group work such as confidentially, emotional responses and sharing.

A close up of the top of a groyne. A mini landscape.

After such a disappointing and traumatic workshop held the previous weekend by the UCA in Margate, this clarity and recognition of us as individuals was most welcome. Mary led the workshop with great integrity and generosity.

Mary lives in California and so it was a great opportunity to participate in, I think, her only workshop this year on our soil.

We wrote about archetypal landscapes, such as deserts, forests and oceans and rivers. These formed short texts, poems and more. In exploring the landscapes and in our thoughts how we feel about them, we are able to tap into a deeper wisdom. The other participants at the workshop were a great group, fully engaged and inspired by the idea of the landscape as metaphor and I really enjoyed their company. We all seemed to create beautiful writing.

‘When we connect to the wild we discover within ourselves the insight of the poets, the power of the shamans, and an unbridled passion for our precious earth. The wild exists in us and around us. Enter it and you transform the way you live, work, create and dream.’ 

Mary Reynolds Thompson.

She has written two books on this subject and holds many events. I urge anyone with an interest to look her and her work up. It is inspiring and deep.

Daily Practice

Here is a small snippet of a longer written piece, my response to a poem by Mary Oliver that I had been asked me to read. The poem was very apt. A couple of questions prompted me to think about ‘How is paying attention to the world a kind of prayer?’ and ‘How does this poem make you re-examine your own ‘wild and precious life?’

‘My wild and precious life; my luck to be here,

Right now, to feel connected, engaged and open.

Appreciation of it all is my prayer; I try to remain devout in prayer; even on the greyest day there may be a rainbow somewhere, a raindrop with all the colours within.’ 

Clare Jackson

I listened to a wonderful radio play years and years ago called ‘Spoonface Steinburg’, it was written by Lee Hall and broadcast as a monologue on BBC Radio 4 in 1997. The music is amazing, with excerpts from operas, sung by Maria Callas. But the part of me it touched and was able to be eloquently put was her understanding of what it was to be alive. How she recognised that everyday actions that we take can all be seen as prayers. I recommend listening to it, I will do so, soon.

It was with excitement that I realised that my painting ‘My Path’ is on this weeks page in the ‘Earth Pathways’ diary.

'My Path', on this weeks' diary page spread.

I feel quite proud to see it there and very pleased that it has been put with a poem by Simon Sawyer called ‘Dream Song’ which I feel really resonates with it.

‘Out of the earth came wind, and out of the

 air came sun, out of the rock came water.

Where they met, spirit grew,

And trees were born,

The trees dreamed of birds,

The birds dreamed of song, the song yearned

To love, and the love grew strong.’ 

Simon Sawyer. 2012

Every day I complete my ‘Morning pages’, a few pages of writing recommended as a creative tool in Julia Camerons’ wonderful book ‘The Artists Way’. I see this as my daily practice, this and appreciating what it is, to be.

(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.)

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.)