Its been a while since I posted here but sometimes things are quietly brewing and its not necessary or even possible to organise whats happening into a coherent story.
I've been reading the journals I made since completing my MA in 2022.
I wrote down this quote by Dougald Hine.
'travelling and being in place are different states, that it takes time to move from one state to the other, that simply having reached your destination in a bodily sense does not mean you have arrived, and that it can be foolish to attempt to do or say much at all, until you have allowed yourself to complete the process of arrival. Dougald Hine Waiting for the Waters to Rise
Then I wrote...
… so when I completed my MA I got somewhere and I have been sitting waiting since... a new gathering is need. This will be hard. Where to start... to see everything at once, all the connections, the books, talks, podcasts, conversations, thoughts, encounters... my life, all my experiences, try to make sense of it all. Or just Be
Two years later I've done a lot of 'be-ing' and everything is still sloshing about in my head from one side to the other like a storm in a tea cup with no sense of pattern. But I feel like writing now and words are beginning to roll around the bowl together in a big beautiful swirl. So maybe some will settle and I've arrived somewhere.
my practice so far and the decision to stop using plastic
For many years I've used polyester resin to hold fragile natural objects such as insects, skulls and bones, wings and feathers, shells, seaweed, snake skin, flowers, and other found objects, scraps and fragments gathered from my wanderings. I also embedded my words in resin tiles so the words became objects. These objects and words embedded in resin were the material I then use to make poems and pictures.
But the use of plastic in my work became a problem for me. It didn’t sit with how I try to live, that is as light on the earth as I can. My plastic use these days starts with refusing and reducing then moves to reusing and repurposing and finally recycling. The clear cast polyester resin I use is a petroleum product, a non-renewable resource. Using it requires disposable gloves, acetone and much care as in its liquid form it is toxic and unpleasant to use.
So for Earth’s and my own health’s sake I've decided to stop using resin. I bought one last bottle to finish the pieces I've been working on and made a final piece with the fragments that were lying in drifts around my studio.
Now I've stopped using resin what next?
Questioning my use of resin has led me to think about all the materials I use; the acrylic inks and paints, printing inks, primers and glues, brushes, paper, wood, cleaning products, packaging… everything. As with our food, our clothes and all the product we buy, there is too much choice and over abundance. Oh those beautiful colours! We can have anything we want from anywhere at anytime, instantly, and we are encouraged to move fast from one thing to the next. Buy, buy, buy. Fast fashion, fast processed food, plastic paints. It's all the same. But is this really choice?
Buying with no thought to how products are made or how their production and use impacts the Earth and the people involved in their making and distribution, leaves me feeling complicit and disconnected. Its not just Earth and distant peoples affected by the practice of buying mass produced stuff, its me. This abundance is not really choice its another symptom and/or cause of human separation from more than human lives and Earth and I am trying to reconnect.
So I'm rebelling. As I choose to grow as much of my food as I can I am now choosing to move away from bought art materials to explore making my own.
Back to the 'what next' question
As an artist what do I do? I draw. And what do I draw with? Acrylics.
So to start I am experimenting and researching ink and paint making.
And as I take over the production of my own art materials I'm finding the processes are naturally redirecting and inspiring my art practice and there is no 'what next'. The process is becoming the work and as well as being fascinating and fun it is giving me a sense of autonomy and some distance from the consumerist rat race.
notes from my sketchbook
gathering materials, filling sample books and sketchbooks with swatches and notes
no idea what will happen with this material but this is how I have always worked
I accumulate stuff as I wander, explore and experiment
and the stuff becomes the work
the products of time and place lie around gathering dust
and eventually some of them come together to make a story or a poem
this will happen with the pigments and the inks eventually
but at the moment I am learning
wondering about my ancestors
what did they draw with, write with, paint with
they didn’t buy from a shop or order from Amazon
before plastic
before consumerism
before extraction
before colonialism
before enclosure
before separation
the process of refining clay, rock, earth
smashing with a hammer, grinding with a pestle and mortar, sieving, washing, settling and drying to make a fine pigment that can be mixed with a medium to make paint
slow work
the process of boiling plants, berry, bark, leaf, root, nut,
mashing, soaking, sieving
adding gum arabic or cherry resin to make ink
adding alum and soda ash to make lake pigment
slow work
it is important where the raw materials come from
cherry sap from Swanpool cemetery
chalk from Seaton Beach as I walk with my brother and his wife
clay from the cliff base of Prisk
slate from Nansidwell
pink stone from Swanpool Beach after a swim
charcoal from Mind allotment vine pruning
red earth from the banks of Dart River where I was born
oak galls from Swanvale
time is gathered in the material
a bag of rocks
a handful of clay
a jar of berries
a pocket full of leaves
holding experience of place
recording the story of encounter
what will produce a colour?
new stories
the story of plants
the story of rocks
explore their gifts and listen to their teachings
gather, process, draw, record,
sing and write poetry
witness, celebrate, grieve, see
papers, swatches, tests
art to celebrate the earth
as I drew the birds
as I made the resin pieces
as I filled my sketchbook with swimmers
the process is the same
it starts with a walk
time spent in a place
in a lane, by a river, in the sea, scrambling down a cliff, beachcombing, gardening, sitting
noticing colour, collecting, curious and present
inks grow
beautiful like mycorrhiza
inks change with time, light, the touch of paper and the presence of other liquids
chemistry becomes alchemy and magic
they merge, dry, morph
a black berry makes a soft grey ink
turning green with bicarb of soda
inks are living
alive, unstable and unpredictable
learn to draw with this living ink
patience and presence
take them where you want them to go
accept the ink goes where it will
experiment with printing
press seaweeds, berries, leaves
test, watch the bleed, the growth, sediment settling,
rivulets converging, smudge, spoil, reform, splatter, scratch, blot,
how liquid sits on paper
breaths rivers and estuaries
focus macro and micro
something growing slowly
connection to place, earth, plant, time, attention, line, blob, splodge,
the process of collecting, grinding, boiling, dissolving, mixing, bottling
watching the changes
seeds growing in modules
vegetables fermenting in bottles
hawthorn berry
Chilean myrtle
wild madder
oak gall
walnut
rust water
copper salt vinegar
the ink I make is a vessel
breaking up rocks with a hammer
small chunks with a pestle
smaller sieved
smaller still
in water
suspended
jars of coloured water
fine particles sinking to the bottom
the liquid poured away leaving the sediment
dried the pigment is scraped from jars into paper pockets
earth colours are ready to be mixed with binder to make paint
elements
bound into screens
becoming AI
becoming social media,
becoming news, music, pictures
human stuff
do they remember?
being rock
being earth
being alive
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