spring to summer

Now we've reached the vernal equinox, I've begun planning an expedition to take place over the summer solstice. This is to walk along the watersheds of the rivers South Tyne, Tees and Wear, collecting material and artwork as I go.

This morning I walked along the South Tyne valley, up onto Yad Moss to Crookburn Bridge, where the B6277 crosses the county boundary between Co. Durham and Cumbria, before returning by the road. A tarmac surface may be quick, but it was very hard on feet and legs.

the Cumbria/ Co Durham boundary; also the North West/North East regional boundary

As you can see, one challenge I shall have is a lack of firewood at night. This view looks straight across towards Great Dun Fell (covered in cloud) and is the route I shall take. I 'm guessing that there isn't a single tree across those eight miles. I plan to stay the first night on the Northumberland border close to Killhope Cross and move from there to this point for the second night. Both these happen to be close to roads. From here, not only will there not be a single tree until I get within sight of Garrigill, but neither will there be any roads. Here's a view of the last trees I saw, about 3km away...

For all its bleakness, the detail in the moorland is full of life. I nearly trod on this frog. It was probably the first time it had seen a human. I hope the experience didn't disappoint.

Inanimate forms, too, abound, revealing miraculous patterns and colour transformations. To make the most of the experience, I shall be prepared to deviate from my planned route often, over the course of five days and four nights. I expect to spend about one third of the time observing (eco-gazing!), painting, drawing and taking photographs, one-third walking and one-third resting (more eco-gazing!), eating and sleeping.

Below is a sketch-map of my planned route. Because I need to deviate and stop so often to make artwork, I need to do it alone. However, if anyone wanted to spend some time at my night-time rests, that could be good, especially if they brought something to drink or smoke, or to add to the fire!

The purpose for this trip is to raise money for the new roof on Garrigill Village Hall. I shall ask people to sponsor me by buying prints of the work I shall be making. I shall hold an exhibition of the work at the village hall over the autumn equinox. 30% commission from any work sold at that will also go towards the roof. More details on a separate page on this blog: http://wilderstudio.blogspot.co.uk/p/wandering-watersheds.html

eco-gazing

What is life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare? (William Henry Davies)

Good question. We should make time. The variable weather at the moment gives plenty of opportunity to experience the widest range of physical conditions. Why should we make time? Standing, staring, gazing and wondering are not passive states. They are interactive. They require one to confront the way things are. They can lead us to an enhanced sense of well-being, that we belong in the natural realm.  In an article entitled "The healing touch of the wild" for Positive News psychotherapist Hetti Dysch concludes with the sentence 'Helping us to reconnect individually and culturally,wilderness therapy invites us to get to know our landscape and inspires communities to be guided by the blueprint of sustainability and interdependence that nature reveals.' For me, it's a way of triangulating current situations.

This morning I was watching and sensing the interaction of wind and flow on the river water. This was time, the river and my presence creating a moment. Having learnt and practised meditation techniques intermittently, I knew that I could change my level of consciousness. Apparent emptiness could be filled if I allowed the river in. With concentration, I can hold on to what I consider to be a deeper level of consciousness for a while, so turned my attention to the trunk of a tree.

As so often before, once I had started to draw, I became part of what I was observing. The drawing is only an exercise in observation; an aid to understanding. And although I don't set-out to create a drawing that becomes something that might have its own value as an end-product, the desire to create something beautiful does, nevertheless, play a part. By something beautiful, I think I mean something that attempts to communicate or express some human emotion. I was drawn to draw this particular tree trunk by some very raw sensibilities, such as the raw sexual attraction of an orifice and of the released binding from a wire fence. Making the drawing was so very different from taking a photograph and later manipulating it, as I had done two days' previously:

I took this image on my way to the top of Noonstones Hill, from where I could experience the effects of the weather at different altitudes. Also the image below.

From the summit I took this image of Yad Moss. I think it speaks for itself. I was not inclined to interfere with it in any way.

The point I'm trying to make is that meanings and values seem to come to the surface just by gazing. I guess it could be at anything - or anyone - that you love. It seems to reinforce that love. Just as lovers gaze at each other, just as a mother gazes at her baby and the baby gazes back. They and we are a part of each other, and sense a fullness by our belonging. A love of the fullness of life and the way that we are part of that fullness may help us to break our addiction to consumerism. If that's so, maybe we should do it more? And if that's so, I'll give the activity a name. I'll call it eco-gazing.

shape-shifting

In this winter's quieter moments, there's the chance to draw. It's a great excuse to just gaze as well, and just to wonder at how the material world is as it is. The more I gaze, the more I wonder,and the more I wonder the more I wander - into the realm of fantasy and fable. Below is part of a longer panel around the idea of the Celtic tree-spirit, Leannan si. I'm playing with ideas such as these at Celtashgill, my new Wondercelt blog.

Running water, cold air and rocks collaborate and create fantastic forms of ice, turning unremarkable gills into remarkable wonderlands.

Ice grows its crystals across glass, along twigs and around the edges of foliage, leaving another lexicon of shapes from which to draw.

on the wander

The new year has been shoved along by ferocious winds, which, for a few days at least, have relented enough to make it OK to walk around and absorb what's going on. It's very mild, too, although damp. I've taken the opportunity to look out for a new wild-site to use as a base.

Wandering around the fellsides within striking distance of home, I'm aware how much erosion and chaos the winter weather has been causing. Chaos triumphing over order. Everything in a state of entropy. I quite like that. It's reassuring to note that for all our technological powers, they are as nothing to the forces of natural physics, at any scale. Fungii, mosses and lichens colonise our buildings, gripping the contours of eroded ridges. Winds blast and howl around the corners and under the eaves. They flog to destruction anything loose. Rain and snow is forced into the smallest crack and crevass.  We would do well not to ignore such things. We should be mindful of natural forces all of the time, even when, as now, they whisper to us rather than shout.

I guess this watchfullness is the main motivation for wanting to revive a wild-base. After quite a short while in a natural environment, I can start to feel an attachment. The area around me begins to communicate. I sense a full range of experiences and emotions, although the originhal stimulii may be inexplicable. Sometimes I sense there's a flow that I can be part of; sometimes not. Today I felt like dancing, but didn't.

crysalis colour

Bark Face

After having stayed very quiet in one place, you begin to notice that the natural world, which at first recoiled from your presence, gradually gets back to its business. Close-at-hand, all sorts of relationships form, fall apart and reform, and at all sorts of timeframes. The contrasts of dark and light seem to intensify, and colour emerges from where there seemed little before. Further afield, where your presence is almost insignificant, clouds and sunlight play on the gradients and planes, reflect off water or become absorbed into clefts.

I've been preparing some new artwork for an exhibition at High Cup Winery, which is open from 18th June - 29th August, and based on the North Pennines around High Cup Nick.

Meander

drawing threads

A visit to the Tarset valley in Northumberland  on Thursday placed me in a different landscape and stimulated some new drawing. However, within seconds of laying out my materials, my attention was drawn to the ground around my feet, where fresh wood sorrel (oxalis) was growing through the leaf litter and moss.  I became engrossed in the same old topic of the adaptive cycle, and the same old obsession with triadic form and composition. Sorrel, moss, and leaf litter were representing the stages of development, consolidation and release. The leaves of the sorrel were divided into three.

After the sorrel, I turned my attention to a dead tree that had fallen across a drystone wall. Here again was the same adaptive cycle. The dead tree had created a new and vibrant environment for insects and therefore a food source for birds. The wall had lost its original purpose of creating a boundary; it was keeping nothing out or keeping nothing in. It had been colonised by plants, some seeking shade, some seeking dry rooting and others seeking shelter from wind.

Light gives way to dark, dark to light, death to life, life to death. Everty time I draw I explore and excite new relationships.

  By drawing the rotting wood, the rusting iron and the crumbling stone of the farm buildings at Tarset, I understood a little more about the buildings' history, and how it was connected to the changing practice of agriculture from pre- to post-industrial times. The farm buildings are now used for more than stock and crops. There is a studio for artists who stay for a year's residency and an office for the publishers of poetry. A barn is used for exhibitions. So the cultural space, too, has adapted to change.

As I was drawing, I reflected on what I was doing. This was my way of experiencing 'deep ecology'. I continue to struggle with the question - is this the way I see things, or is this the way things really appear? I feel part of,and apart from, this place and its inhabitants at the same time.

no shelter

snowblast

Weather fronts crashing into the British Isles seem to drag Heaven and Earth closer together, into a tormented Hell, or at least a maelstrom, of flying twigs and leaves, stinging hail and freezing, frozen clods of peat.

  When the wind stops and the clouds part, Earth is like a tease. She's beautiful. She seduces you to tumble across her mounds and valleys.

The shelter is no more a shelter. However, it still feels good to be there amongst the remaining sticks. The remnants of my fire-pit remind me of the summer. I should use the charcoal there to make some artwork. The stones I used to partially dam the gill and form my pond have been scoured out by the force of recent spates. Now's the time to retreat back down the hill a bit to the warmth of the studio.

In the warmth of her workshop, Ellie (fleece with altitude) showed me how to 'draw' with wool and a felting needle. This seems such a direct use of materials, I immediately came back to my own studio, continued with the felt drawing and incorporated it into the following piece. This includes charred scraps of wood, raw fleece and my own made oil paint. I've now got my own felting needles and intend doing much more like this.

fruit of the fell

Mares' Tails

Yesterday I went to the shelter with a small tent and stayed overnight, returning at midday today. It was an interesting experience but it didn't produce much in the way of immediate artwork - which had been my intention. Instead, most of my time seemed to be spent keeping warm, dry, safe and comfortable.

Laden with a sack containing tent, doss-bag and sleeping mat, kettle stove, camera, torch, art materials and some fruit and coffee, I walked up to the top of the gill arriving around 8pm. It was breezy so no midges. I had to set-up the tent immediately and gather enough firewood to see me through the first couple of hours of darkness. As soon as I started it became clear that I would be here for the experience, rather than the production of art. With the light fading, the lively sky was the main focus of attention.

The moon made a brief appearance before disappearing all night into the plumes of cloud formed as the moist air hit the Cross Fell massif. This photo was taken with a slow exposure - the sky looked a lot darker than this at the time. As the light faded in the north-west, the stars made an appearance about as brief as the moon's before the cloud thickened. I watched them for as long as I could from the supreme comfort of the hammock, occasionally swathed in woodsmoke from the fire, before they disappeared and the sky was only distinct from the ground by being slightly lighter.  It was not until dawn that sufficient low-level cumulus from Cross Fell cleared to reveal once more the mares' tails. There were two distinct layers of them, and I imagined a third layer even higher, each going in a slightly different direction. It can sometimes be difficult to remember that the sky is in three dimensions, but here was proof in all its raw beauty. As the morning sun climbed it reflected off the clouds in the east.

The overnight rain had soaked all the wood, of course, but there were enough dry twigs on the inside of the shelter structure. I placed them in the base of the kettle and put some lighter fuel on. After a few sparks from the steel, there was a small flame and I slowly added wet wood until I had a healthy heart to the fire. I decided that since I was boiling the water that I'd use it straight from the gill. This I did and apart from the odd ground of coffee (I had no strainer or extra cup), the drink was a delightful way to start the day. Luckily, the showers stayed away as well. I did this drawing of the kettle.

It seemed a shame to stop at one cup, so I boiled some more water and had another, using the rest of the water for a wash in my little pond. (I wished I'd remembered to bring a towel). Spending time doing these domestic things took my mind off what I had come here to do, but it felt OK to just enjoy being here in the fresh morning breeze.

I must have messed around looking at plants and rocks and running water for more than an hour, although I had no way of knowing since I hadn't brought any means of telling the time. That was good, too, being led by the length and direction of shadows. Apart from seeing some car headlights last night heading up to Hartside and the sounds of distant airliners, I had no inkling of the rhythms of other people. That's not to say that I wanted to be alone. It suited this exercise, but I would have loved to have shared the warmth of the fire and the tent, and the hot drink, with some good company. To have been with someone else who felt the same way would have more than doubled the value of the experience. Humankind is gregarious by nature; we are herd animals, and a warm fire and shelter are good incentives for companionship.

I had decided that I would map this gill in its entirety, starting from the top, so I went to where it springs from the ground and did some drawings. Because of the breeze and the rain, I didn't really record what I was seeing as well as I ought, so I'm now hoping that my memory serves me well for work in the home studio. In the meantime, here's a rainbow to nurture that hope.

After taking the tent down in the rain and packing everything up, I walked back home, sensing that there's still a lot to absorb from the experience before it results in any meaningful artwork.

tree bark

Following my walk up to the shelter yesterday - the first since taking a week away canoeing and camping - and finding nothing to repair, I lay in the hammock for a while. Whilst away I'd been talking to our friend Pete who is manager of a Buddhist retreat near Totnes. He and his partner Anne were about to go on their own retreat for eight days at the Gaia Centre, where they observe a strict silence. I tried to initiate a conversation about the effect of communal silence which seemed to be resented. I think they thought I was trying to impose my ego on them, and that communal silence and meditation is about dissolving ego. The reason I mention it is because we had earlier talked about the experience of meditation, and there I did get some recognition that the act of drawing can be very similar, in that object and subject become merged. I mused about this in the hammock, and my awareness increased to a sharp recognition of the surface of the tree bark across which the hammock was strung. However, I didn't want to invest my time just now in drawing, and opted instead to take photographs. For me, taking photographs is the exact opposite to drawing. To 'take' a picture requires me to separate myself from the situation and to objectify it. To 'make' a drawing requires me to be part of the situation. For that reason, I need to work with the photograph later so that I can understand it better.

early fruiting

Yesterday was my first trip up to the shelter for over a week. Things are changing even more. I saw what appear to be chanterelle mushrooms.

I hadn't long, and it'll be some time before I can go back up. It was an unpleasant walk up there as I was accompanied by a swarm of flies, but once there I was overjoyed to see that the shelter had withstood the ravishes of more wind and rain. The sun came out and I swung in the hammock, looking skyward for a while. The flies had dispersed. I decided to draw and became absorbed in a drawing of tree-trunk, roots and earth. This is becoming a recurring theme, and I sense the tension between earth and sky as plantlife of every scale aims for optimum growth.

St. Swithin's Day

Rain yesterday and overnight has swollen the gills for the first time since I started this project. The sound was noticeable immediately. Rushing, splattering and gurgling, it was as if someone had placed new batteries in a wrap-round ghetto-blaster, bringing the earth itself to life. I wasn't sure what to expect at the shelter. Sure enough the cover had slipped again. Not much, but in wet conditions enough to give my art materials a good soaking for the first time. With yet more wood and yet another length of string, I made good best I could. This is teaching me about adaptation; how necessary it is to work with natural forces and not against them.

Knowing that the ground would be wetter than before, I donned boots and shorts, enjoying the sensation of the long grass licking my shins and calves as I swished through, feeling slightly smug that I wouldn't have to endure wet clammy trouser-legs. The rain has also enlivened the colours of the wildflowers around, especially a very delicate geranium. Nothing seems to upstage the garish yellow buttercup, but closer looking reveals a diverse chorus of more modest plants.

Biting insects are on the increase, including clegs which have sucked more than their fair share of my blood in the last couple of days. The act of drawing is distracted every few seconds by the need to brush an insect away. Even so, the intense observation and what it reveals is hugely rewarding, and the sense of merging into the immediate landscape is palpable; refreshing and invigorating. I was reminded of life-drawing sessions, and would like to do some at the shelter. Perhaps because I've been so stimulated by creative people recently, I feel I want to share this place more than this blog allows.