Hello, and welcome.
Last week was a rare and precious thing, with daily walks dry and often sunny. It’s been a time to kick through leaves, chase fleeting colour, peer into frosty birch and heather, and just marvel at nature, coming home with a few photographs to reinforce the memory. A gathering in of tranquility to counter the imbalance of our imperfect world; it doesn’t erase but it does provide an anchor in stormy waters.
On Monday I walked up to look at the larch before their yellow needles drop. It’s a light and airy plantation with none of the oppressive darkness of fir, and yet… It’s unnatural, too regular. It feels a little like being in a room of pressed humanity, arms pinned by your side, shoulders hunched. And once within, looking out the windows are barred. Finding some soft pastel colour and marks freed my mind. Did you know that larch resin dries pink?
Tuesday I lost myself in the lines of the hawthorn, competing with the blackbirds and redwings to enjoy the bounty of red berries.
On Wednesday I wrote:
There is a nakedness to the landscape now. The rain has cleared leaving a chill wind which continues to strip the trees. There are still a few vestments to discard.
I watch my progress in the puddles. The path has begun to reappear silty dark as the moss slowly reabsorbs the excess water.
The wood is a darker place and fingers of cold reach in between the trees. My hands tell me that this is the coldest it’s been in the afternoon. Wood smoke drifts on the air, smells good, and makes me long for warmth. I only have myself to blame.
Thursday: I’m back to those berries again and chasing the last of the colour. Pheasants idle in stubbled fields oblivious to the numbered shooting stations that have been set up there.
Friday: Out in frost before shopping, finding sparkly magic to fill my basket.
Sunday morning, 9am, frost again. What happened on Saturday? Ah, I remember; I fed the birds and cleaned the windows to the pop pop pop of the first shoot. As I set off down the path I’m waylaid by a field of frost flowering on the seed heads of tufted hair grass (Deschampsia cespitosa). It shifts from cold bloom to sparkle in just a few steps; all I have to do is remember to look over my shoulder towards the late rising sun.
A carpet of birch leaves - now a less glamorous brown - crackle crisp under my feet.
Naked birch trees bloom light mauve, rimed with frost. Leaves still hang on the willow by the track; it carries a strange single fruit of green dog waste bag.
I proceed to get a little carried away in my own personal winter wonderland, mixing the complex with the dreamy. The visual overtakes the narrative.
There’s been a rent in the fabric of the season over the past week. Visible in the falling fallen leaves but also the feel of it too. Chill reaching into clothing; Sunday morning was bone bitingly cold. Autumn is edging closer to the tipping point into Winter.
Now we’re back to cloud hanging heavy on the hills, and yet more rain. I start to try to get my head around my personal complex-simple seesaw.
After last week’s ‘aha’ moment of clarity, I’m trying to work out how to carry this forward. In particular in mixed media. I’ve written before about my tendency to overcomplicate and the contrast between subtractive and additive practice.
The richness of the season, and our first proper frosts have prompted me to continue collecting images, drawn both by tangled details and an aspiration for softness. These are in a sense ‘brain’ and ‘heart’ images - visually I’m attracted to complex patterns but emotionally I’m fed by a dream of landscape, peering into things (water but plants too) curious to see what it looks like from here, if I do this. One is busy, the other calm. Perhaps it’s a left brain right brain thing. Yet even when deciphering a tangle of branches, I’m not doing this analytically - at least not consciously. Both trigger an instinctive response and I’ll often find that I favour my first busy composition over my subsequent attempts at improvement.
In writing this I wonder if one of the things holding me back at the moment is this present lack of, or limited, instinctiveness with mixed media? I spend time weighing up the options when combining and collaging. I’m undoubtedly being precious. And analytical. Strangely this is less pronounced if I work outside - I’m more spontaneous, quicker, bolder and happy to improvise with whatever is at hand. And I have this little worm that makes me want to work not just in nature but with nature. A year on it’s still wriggling and doesn’t want to be ignored.
So how do I get past this? Well, writing helps me think it through. The words run after the images and my brain tries to follow. And hopefully it’s interesting to you in your own practice or as an observer of place, nature and art.
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My photography and mixed media art live here.
Thank you for reading FLOW. Until next week,
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Your photography is charming and Ive just seen your website which is equally delightful.
Your photography is charming.