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.)

Recognition

Recognition

I believe that humans need to feel like they have a purpose in the world. When this is recognised, a feeling of value is generated. This feeling of value creates happiness which in turn can encourage good health and wellbeing. So, to go to a ‘conversation’ about value and come out of it 3 hours later none the wiser left me disheartened and frustrated. The ‘Creative Challenge’ hinted at, but not explained by the host, Uwe Derkson, on the day was ‘How Do We Articulate Value?’  

His co-host was Nixiwaka Yawanawa, a member of the most endangered tribe in the world, the Awa, who has been working with Survival International since 2013.

I really enjoyed hearing Nixiwaka talk. It felt a privilege to be there and hear his considered answers to all the questions that he was asked. He explained that his tribe all have a calling to connect with the land, they live in nature and practice spirituality regularly, through ritual, ceremonies and journeying. Two shamans guide them, one is 102 years old and the other one, well, he explained, no-one really knows how old he is…

I will not explain any more about the ‘conversation’, as I was deeply ashamed to have been part of UCA, (the University of the Creative Arts), in the not too distant past. I completed my MA with them just over a year ago and it was with a form of loyalty that I chose my old college, (Medway College of Design), which now forms part of the UCA, as a base for my learning. To cut a long and disturbing story short, I felt it was nothing but aloofness and arrogance that Uwe Derkson represented on that day, on behalf of the UCA, to both the audience, me included and to Nixiwaka.

When I spoke to Nixiwaka after the event it transpires that he does not judge, he and his tribe share and he recognises his purpose whilst over here is to educate others about the threatened indigenous peoples’ way of life. I really hope to catch up with him another time, I would love to walk with him in nature and understand more about his tribes’ connection with the land.

I had identified this quote earlier in the week for this blog and now it seems even more meaningful. If more of us were able to connect with the spirit of nature and access the wisdom of our ancestors, we would take more care of the miracle which is life.

"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe around us, the less taste we shall have for destruction" - Rachel Carson

Connecting People

So, I wonder, how can this be done? I think, by just getting out there and walking.

Walking and experiencing reality.

Both, in nature and in urban areas,

Along paths, across landscapes.

Walking.

Placing one foot in front of another.

Pacing, breathing and being.

Becoming human again. 

Peace can be found in this way.

Walking.

People to place

Connecting people

Putting peace in place.

Movement

I remember at school, in Biology, learning a mnemonic for a living thing. The word was REMRING. It featured all the factors needed for life. I still remember it today. Respiration, excretion, movement, reproduction, ingestion, nutrition and growth.  Movement is the factor I recognised the other day which was key to my walking project. Ok, it’s obvious now, so it seems a bit silly to have pointed it out, but if I am going to take anything from meeting Nixiwaka, it is a keenness to not judge (as often) and to share (more). The most exciting quote I could relate to whilst writing my MA critical paper was by Francesco Careri. It was about how, as humans we stood up and walked and what it meant to us in the world.

‘…walking takes on a symbolic form that has enabled man to dwell in the world. By modifying the sense of the space crossed, walking becomes man’s first aesthetic act, penetrating the territories of chaos, constructing an order on which to develop the architecture of situated objects. Walking is an art from whose loins spring the menhir, sculpture, architecture, landscape. This simple action has given rise to the most important relationships man has established with the land, the territory.’ Page 20. careri. F. (2009) Walkscapes GG:Spain

Realising that this was the key factor to my project I recognised why Arlette George and I had been introduced. She is a trained dancer and choreographer. Her mastery of movement using the human form will be crucial to us understanding the importance of getting people out there walking. Because using our body as an instrument to sense and experience the world and connect with nature is something that we may have to relearn. To reclaim our territory and to rediscover our sense of place in the communities, in which we live, will require getting out and walking amongst them. In exploring movement as dance and not just walking, I came across this website.

'The Planetary Dance is an annual all-day ritual of healing and community renewal. It brings people of all ages and abilities together in a beautiful setting to dance for a purpose.'

I see the land as needing us to appreciate it, to wonder at all of its resources and recognise our place within it. We are hugely lucky to be living at this time in this place. I believe we need to walk on the land and see its beauty and in connecting to nature in this way, we become part of its system again. The paths can be seen as a metaphor for the future health of the planet and ourselves. Our vascular and respiratory system will improve as we walk more regularly and the flow of people out in nature will allow a deeper understanding of our land.

Then I truly hope we can find our

'Peace in Place'.

(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.)

On Show

 

On Show

The first time I had a solo art exhibition, I felt that I had allowed a part of my soul to be on show. I was more nervous than I had felt on my wedding day. To show your art in a public place has to be an exercise in trust.

'I Dream', one of my artworks on display at the moment.

Therefore to be asked whether you do this for a hobby is a very hard question to reply to. I suppose that if I wanted to produce artwork that was guaranteed to sell in my home town of Whitstable, I would be creating images of beach huts, fishing boats and sunsets. These would then be bought as mementoes of peoples visits here, accessible and easy to live with. But I don’t feel any artistic urge to create these images. I create art from a deep place within me, I feel driven to respond to this urge by ‘doing art’.

Detail from 'Cathedral secrets'.

Art for me can be felt as a meditation. I understand that we all express ourselves in different ways, but for me, it is through creativity that I feel connected to the real world, not the world that is portrayed in the news, but the physical and emotional world around me. I wonder whether art is seen as a pleasurable activity that you don’t have to earn an income from, therefore, not real work but a hobby.

My Painted plank of wood, on show in the studio.

Personally I have yet to hear of any other professions that are so expected to give their time for free. As an artist I have been asked to run free workshops, give work for auctions etc. Yet, never have I seen a barrister, accountant or other professional asked to do the same. In fact, it is interesting to note that I have never been asked to do any work voluntarily as a designer. It would be unprofessional, at the very least to do so. Perhaps that is it, as long as artists are expected to do things for free and willing to do so, then they can expect the hobby reference. Art is all powerful and anyone can create art. Good art takes practice, lots of it, to master the skills required of observation, recognition, application etc. It will take a change of attitude to art in general for this to be appreciated. As long as we fall into the segregation of art either as hobby or big money art, such as Saatchi’s collection with work by Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst etc, then I believe artists may remain generally meek and willing to give their time and products, often one off artefacts for free. Either that or its revolution time!

Disquiet Beauty

I went to Rochester yesterday to see an exhibition in which a friend is exhibiting. The exhibition is called ‘Disquiet Beauty’ and it explores the ‘notions of beauty and alienation, attraction and repulsion and the otherworldly in their use of materials and form.’

Now I would be surprised if anyone suggested that these artists are doing this for a hobby, but I bet there is someone who will. The work is highly crafted and exquisite in its detail. Cormac McManigan, a college friend, had created jewellery pieces of bronze cast into the shape of Stag Beetles, there were works from Kate McGwire and Tessa Farmer there too.

 

 A Kate McQuire piece, made from many pigeon feathers lined up alongside eachother.

Tessa’s work I had seen before in Ashford, at the Stour Valley Arts gallery a year or two ago. I was fascinated by it then and in this exhibition she still has her intricate, tiny fairies flying on bumble bees and attacking wasps, but they also are seen grooming some of the Victorian curiosity exhibits from the nearby Guildhall Museum.

A drawer of moths from the Rochester Guildhall collection.

Kate McGwire has exhibited in the last year in Canterbury at the Beaney Museum. I was disappointed to have missed that, but very glad to see her work for real in this exhibition. She is a sculptor who uses bird feathers.

I loved this piece, by Kate McQuire, it reminded me of a horizon line, with dawn approaching.

She lays them out in a very fluid way, so that they look like they are moving en masse. The framed wall pieces are just beautiful, but it is a shame to have that wonderful iridescence of colour on the feather behind glass, but I expect that protects them, from light, dust and curious fingers too.

Framed feather formation by Kate McGuire.

The pigeon feathers that seem to powerfully rise out of the drain/soil pipe into the gallery is a great piece.

 

Kate's largest feather installation piece, in this exhibition.

I have seen this installation in photographic images in other settings. She must be extremely patient and have real artistic vision to reinstall her work in different areas. But it is the contrast that makes each piece so special and site specific. There is two other artists work on display, but I will leave their work a mystery for anyone reading this to discover for themselves. The exhibition is on until the 3^rd of January 2015 at Rochester Art Gallery and Craft Case.

Display

Rochester was a good place to visit over the half term; it was where I had spent my time at college for 4 years from 1987-1991 and more recently for another 2 years, working part-time on my MA.

 

Rochester Castle and wall silhouette, with sun setting.

Rochester has a castle and a cathedral, city walls and a great history. It was built on the main route through from Dover to London at an important crossing of the river Medway. It has the feel of a transitory place, people pass through; there are many gatehouses, avenues of trees and other significant thresholds and ways. The main Rochester Bridge that crosses the Medway from the London Road is beautifully decorative and has large metal reclining lions on it, similar to those at Trafalgar square and also some much smaller standing lions holding shields, high up among the metalwork.

The decorative detail on the bridge is quite something; I wonder whether such symbolic forms would be added to a new construction, I don’t remember seeing anything on the newer river crossing; the bridge carrying the M2. I recognise the form of both bridges, just as I recognise the silhouette of the castle keep and the castle walls but sometimes the detail gets overlooked with familiarity.

 

Setting sun, glowing through fallen leaves in the castle grounds.

That is why I appreciate visiting exhibitions and seeing work on display. It is a reminder to look again, ‘Disquiet Beauty’ certainly allowed me to do this. I had always been fascinated to see stag beetles, we often see them in our garden and they are a bit frightening when they ‘buzz you’. As Mac said in his TV interview they are prehistoric creatures and his beautiful bronze casts replicate that strangeness that is recognisable, almost familiar, but also very, very odd. 

Mac's stag bronze cast jewellery pieces: brooch and pendant.

 

We have been visiting other artists on the East Kent Open Houses trail. Last weekend we drove to Conyer to see Hugh Ribbans’ creek-side studio and wonderful work. He was allowing visitors to have a go at printing on his large press.

Having a go at printing using the magnificent press.

Similar to Rochester Bridge, it was ornate in its decoration. The metal had been cast, not just to do the job in hand, but it had fierce looking dolphins across its top, snake and arrow forms on its front panels and a curious looking gold coloured crescent moon holding a lever in place.

The 'Reveal', very exciting, a joy for all printmakers.

This was not a machine to be used by a man making art for a hobby, this press meant business. Hugh has, in the past used a steam roller to roll over his lino-cuts and create prints. This perhaps is the stuff of revolutions! Watch this space, and if you see me, please don’t mention the ‘h’ word.   

(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.)

Migration

Migration

World Migratory Bird Day was set up in 2006 by the United Nations. It was initiated to highlight and celebrate migratory birds and the phenomenon of bird migration. A friend told me about WMBD,about a year ago and showed me the marvellous posters that advertise it.

An image from the WMBD website.

We decided to work together on some ‘birdy/journey’ artwork that we could then exhibit and bring this event to the attention of a wider set of people. We thought we could make some sellable artwork too, as the posters were well designed and a marketing tie-in would help us all. Over time this led to another couple of artists joining us and we excitedly watched ‘Winged Migration’ together.

This clip is one of my favourite parts of the film, along with the eerily beautiful vocals from the ‘Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares’.

It is called 'The Return of the Cranes’,

After watching the film, all of us more deeply appreciated the beauty and resilience of birds and the incredible journeys that they take, it  was staggering to realise that some birds fly for thousands of miles at heights of up to 3000 feet!

The Easterly direction from which the Brent Geese came.

We have continued to work together and I feel our artwork on display now, as part of the Canterbury Festival, reflects this wonder of birds, journeys, connectedness and resilience.

As I continued to work on my 'People-to-Place' project, I recognised that the bird/journey artwork was very relevant as I had, in my MA research touched upon human migration and the paths they took to move seasonally from one place to another. These routes were what I was now looking for in the environment, in my bid to reconnect people to the places that they live in. Native peoples would have been more aware of migrations as they had to be more connected to where they lived, for their very survival and so, observed and understood seasonal changes in their environment.  We may have lost that knowledge and understanding as we have ‘evolved’ as a species, but, birds and the sheer endurance required to complete their long migrations filled me with awe.

Brent Geese

On Monday this week, I went with a friend for a long walk along Seasalter beach.

Looking towards the Isle of Sheppey, Seasalter Beach.

As I was walking on the foreshore, I thought I could see the white tops of waves towards the estuary, all along the horizon. It was only when we got closer that we saw the white shapes were in fact white tails of numerous floating birds.

Brent Geese, close to the shore.

They were facing due West, into the wind and were fairly quiet. As we walked back to the car, I asked a birdwatcher what they were. ‘Brent Geese’, he said. ‘All the way from Siberia, they prefer our winters.’ When I looked them up this morning on ‘Google’ that I realised they had flown 2,500 miles, following the coastline from northern Russia.

Could this be their tracks?

They will now be our guests, increasing in numbers up to January, mainly eating the inter-tidal eel grass, Zostera spp. leaving our shores in late February; they fly for over 3 months, to return to the Arctic tundra in June.  My father-in-law regularly digs along the intertidal area of the north Kent coast, (for archaeological finds, not bait), and often tells me of the birds he sees.

Looking for clues.

He goes out when the tide is right, all throughout the year and has become very aware of the passing through of many species of birds. Through his passion for archaeology, he is deeply connected to the tides, seasons and migratory habits of the birds in that area. He knows where the eel grass grows that the Brent geese favour, whether it’s a good year for it and all the other plants that live on the marshes. His regular connection with the landscape has given him specific knowledge of the area.

The sign for the 'Saxon Shore Way' path, leading around the Kent coast.

Journeys

I have always loved a journey; it is the path to the destination and a part of the whole experience. I like to explore a map and plan a route, look for landmarks and feel confident I can find my way home/back. I use the same method whether I am driving a car or walking. (I don’t use sat-nav.)

Sheep following a well worn path.

I feel that movement in itself can be remembered, sometimes as much as the physical landmarks. Walking up a hill will be remembered in the muscles of my body, where it felt easy, where I overstretched, where I rested etc. I wonder whether the physical act of walking along a route regularly enough physically and mentally connects us with the environment.

The choice of paths at Seasalter, along the grass or walking along the seashore.

 

Walking along the beach means having to step over every groyne.

I remember reading while researching for my MA that there is a link with movement and body memory. Just as we know that people can learn in a variety of ways, including kinaesthetic, then the act of walking may in itself allow us to learn whilst moving. I will experiment with this, in the next week I may try to learn a new poem whilst walking the same route regularly.

Close up of a groyne post, often holding small pebble treasures in its weathered wide grain.

I know, as a keen dancer, that the more I know a piece of music, the easier the moves within it become. The journey of the dance is led by the music. The music reminds my body of what way to go and what to do. Again, I think back to the ‘Songlines’, the navigable but invisible tracks in the land that allow Australian aborigines to walk for many hundreds of miles through their homeland.  These Songlines were memorised in an oral and aural tradition and used to tell stories of the earth’s creation. The people would walk the path and journey along the Songlines to a piece of narration in the form of a song, importantly the song is set to the speed of the walk itself. This reminds me of my body’s awareness when I dance. Subconsciously it remembers the music, the movements and the full dance. It is in the physical muscle of the body and in the memory of the sound. The dance movements release or realise the journey of the music.

Journeying

This is something I like to do; it is a deep, rewarding human activity and common practice to all indigenous societies throughout history. To journey in a shamanic way is to visit other landscapes, where the destination is unknown, but a clear intention can bring you to the right place. Shamanic journeys stay vivid in your mind, unlike a dream which is intangible and easy to forget. Listening to the sound of the drum which accompanies journeying allows for a more intense experience which gets into our subconscious mind. I may write more about this another time.

Big sky.

(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.)

Pathfinding

Pathfinding

A path is needed if we are to traverse an area regularly. For my ‘People-to-Place’ projects I want that to be an initial and essential part of working with the community. The route of the path when found, is the physical link to connect people to their locality. Route-finding is a very exciting part of early exploration of an area.

Walking in woodland, along a path.

To walk through urban and rural areas allows us an opportunity to steadily discover our surroundings, at a pace that informs and integrates the information at every footfall. It is something that we naturally do if we are visiting a new area, especially when we are away on holiday. We walk out and find the local amenities, bar, beach etc. Maybe we feel we have more time to discover things for ourselves when we are away, it may also feel like a kind of conquest, a feeling of wanting to feel in control of at least our knowledge of where we are, even if we don’t speak the language. It could be seen as a form of communication in itself.

 

The concrete promenade that edges this part of the Kent coast.

Walking around, trying to understand the place and connecting ourselves to the locality is an initial way that we use to build up knowledge and layer our understanding of an area.

The promenade along the beach in Whitstable is a good example of this.

Over the last few years, as the town has become more and more popular, there have been more people walking along the prom towards Herne Bay. They are walking along the coast to discover their surroundings, to put themselves in a geographical context. This would have been essential to us as early man. We would have had to explore our locality to see what food, shelter and dangers existed. Seasonal excursions would have allowed people to recognise important landmarks, for example the sight of spring blossom in one area would have been remembered, so that fruit could be found in the Autumn, tracks of animals would have been noted, routes of birds, high ground for observation etc. The whole locality would have been mapped in their minds and this was essential to their survival. A favourite route may have taken in many of these aspects and here is a thought, maybe we had ‘Songlines’ too, akin to the aborigines of Australia. Maybe we too had a method for recording this information in the form of song as we traversed the area on foot, at walking pace. That knowledge has been forgotten in our culture, but we could create a new form…

My Path

On a more domestic personal scale, the route that I use to my studio has been formalised and the path finished. I am really pleased with it. It has taken us just over a month of our spare time to find the correct route, mark up the edges, take the turf up and dig down to create a strong foundation in our heavy clay soil.

Detail of new path

Now it is complete. We used what we could salvage, a similar task to creating 'Green Build Tankerton', the straw bale studio that lies at the end of the path. We were given about 20 old concrete slabs; we found about 20 bricks in other areas of our garden and finally found a use for many very heavy fire bricks that we salvaged from dismantled electrical storage heaters.(We were intending to use them as a base for a cob built pizza oven, but that will have to wait.)

Fishbone looking path.

The different coloured paving slabs and bricks looked good but didn’t fill the space in its entirety so we finally found a use for my many, many collections of pebble, shells, pottery pieces, clay tiles and other wonderful pieces!

 

Flint collection with interesting markings.

I embedded them in the cement as carefully as I had dug them out of the earth in the past. It felt like reverse archaeology.

Fossils finds from Redcar beach, Easter 2014.

Especially when I embedded the large fossil finds from Redcar beach into the cement. I am especially pleased with the ceramic pottery finds from Conyer, near Sittingbourne in Kent.

Victorian pot and glass bottle base.

Conyer once had a thriving brick making industry, which emerged in the nineteenth century and was finished by the 1960s. Thames barges when fully loaded could carry 40,000 bricks in them. These bricks were urgently needed in London for the Victorian housing ‘boom’.

Pottery shards, some from Conyer, some from our garden and Seasalter and Swaleciffe beaches.

The areas from which I dug up my treasures are the remains of creek-side embankments that were built from London waste. The waste was carried on the barges as ballast and would also have had a price for being cargo. There is a really good book written by an old family friend called Don Sattin, that tells the story of the barge building village of Conyer, called ‘Just off the Swale’.

Uncle Dons' book on Conyer.

 

When I was young I remember going for walks around the old brickfields and can remember seeing industrial remains of the old tram tracks etc.  More than once we watched the raft race from the embankments and cheered as we saw our uncle and other family members merrily sinking into the Swale. I think even at that young age I was aware of what I was standing on, coloured pottery shards and interesting glass medicine bottles would be poking out of the earth spoil but I wasn’t encouraged to dig them out.

Camp Coffee glass bottle and pottery bottle.

My grandma once decorated an old clay urn with small fragments of broken patterned pottery, I loved its chaos, it was so ugly but enchanting. It still stands in my parents’ porch and holds old wooden walking sticks made on our long country walks that I remember even now.

Embedding the finds in was akin to doing reverse archaeology.

Found objects

The pottery I searched for as a child, as a teenager and as an adult has always fascinated me. Victorian Britain wasn’t as much as a throw away society as much as we are. They could never have understood how we are now able to dispose of something because it has either, been made as a single use item or is just not wanted anymore.

 

One collection embedded in cement.

When I used to dig up the broken pieces of pots, teacups, plates etc, I used to imagine the terrible moment that that thing was broken. What happened? Had they tried to mend it? How many times had they mended it? At what point had they realised they had to throw it away? I am not the only artist to be fascinated by domestic rubbish and the human stories that lie behind the fragments of artefacts. There is an artist called Mark Dion who in 1999 worked on a project titled ‘Tate Thames Dig’. 

 

Mark Dions' book of submarine treasures.

He worked with many volunteers and found a multitude of pieces of broken pottery, glass, bone etc along the foreshore of the Thames. These he then organised ‘in the field’, cleaning and recording the finds, putting them into categories and finally exhibiting a selection of these into a 12 foot long curiosity cabinet. All of the processes were recorded and are shown in his book ‘Archaeology’. So, with validation of Mark Dion to see discovery and collection as a fundamental observation method along with the artist Mark Hearld validating the seeking out of curious finds in charity and salvage shops as inspiring his new work, I feel quite vindicated of any anti social habits of discovering and collecting stuff. Exploring, discovering and collecting is a natural path for anyone curious about the world we live in and it is this path that I will continue to follow.

My Path, traversing a curious collection of artefacts.

(I completed my MA last September 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.)