Category: Uncategorized

 

 

I’m reading Rob Cowen’s book ‘Common Ground’- a portrait of a Yorkshire edge-land, a piece of forgotten landscape that he returns to again and again to try and understand its layers. He writes……’We project all we are and all we know onto landscape. And, if we’re open to it, the landscape projects back into us. Time spent in one place deepens this interaction, creating a melding and meshing that can feel a bit like love. In the drowsy light of the coming evening I not only see where I have walked before, but who I was when  I walked there. What I was feeling; what I was thinking. And isn’t this how we navigate this sphere ? Creating fusions of humans and place, attaching meaning and emotions, drawing cognitive maps that make sense of the realm beyond our comprehension. Our connection to the world is always two things at once : instinctive and augmented.’

 

 

Mixed media on paper – 23 x 29 cm.

 

Charcoal and watercolour on paper 140 x 50 cm.

Detail from piece.

 

Watercolour and charcoal sketch.

Cold December wind. Rooks in the trees. Snow on the mountains to the north.

 

 

 

Charcoal and watercolour on paper – 140 x 60 cm.

 

Oil on paper – 55 x 58 cm.

 

 

Oil on found wood – 20 x 9 cm.

 

 

 

The wind swings around to the north, pulling waves against the lochan shore. Rain splatters the paper, clouds nest in their eyries, cloaking this waterlogged land where thieves hide in waiting. I have nothing to give but my willingness to join their league. I too traipse this moor looking for opportunites. I watch.

 

This was one of the drawings I made yesterday on Rannoch moor. It was the first time I had gone on my own – a long drive of over three hours to get there . I stepped out onto the moor alone. It felt exhilirating. The colours were wonderful – indigo blues, purples, greys and burnt oranges and ochre. All changing with the constant shift of light across the moor, watching as rain came despite the forecast, but then this place seems to have its own laws. When I returned last night I came across a poem from the poet Mark Goodwin –  @kramawoodgin on Twitter with whom I am collaborating currently on a project of moor amd mountain. It made me think of Rannoch so I returned the poem to him with the piece I wrote above. Here is Mark’s piece – beautiful, sparse and gentle –

 

Time of Thieves.

 

a figure on

a far shore

 

pulls

 

the lake’s slick ripples

 

as a cloth of sorts

towards their

 

distance

 

i cannot grip

water’s sheet

 

i can only watch

 

as a figure

ravels up

 

all

 

that reflects our sky.