The quiet of rain.

 

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Mixed media on paper 170 x 60 cm.

 

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Monday. North wind. Bright, cold. The buzzard ushers me into the wood, sharp crack of twigs under foot. I decide to cross the burn but half way across realise its too deep so turn back and clamber my way up the bank where I am met by a man and his dog. This is my first encounter with someone in the wood. He asks if I am ok and I feel embarrassed by my clumsiness. I introduce my self as an artist as if that might explain things and he asks if I am famous to which I laugh and apologise and say no. He tells me about Japanese artists he was watching work and dragons and his new home he is building. He has a giant sequoia on his plot where his garage will be. It has to go, it shouldn’t be here anyway. I paint the fragile day. It starts to rain, the drops settle on the paper. I stop, not wanting the rain to obliterate my marks, carefully roll up the paper and quietly take my leave.

Songs from the wood.

 

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It is quiet, dim, still down here. High above the tallest trees dance with the wind, touching each other. The days are cooling now, the numbing of fingertips. A buzzard skreeks through. Antlers of wood rest on the forest floor, broken and birdsong rings in the air, bells peeling, joining, falling rising together, inviting the day.

 

Mixed media on paper 150 x 52 cm

 

 

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(Detail)

Rattlebag.

 

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A library. Of things found. In the woods where I walk and draw. Objects that offer clues. Evidence of home. A pigeons skull, lichen, beech nuts and peoples things, their cups and saucers lie broken amongst stones. I am searching for finds. I carry them home in a Fair Isle tammy, a nest of vulnerables making sense of a place. Breakable, overlookable. An archive, catalogued, photographed, stored for now in a small cardboard box that once housed five rolls of half inch wide masking tape.