wonderbase

land/sea margin

2012-02-17T18:25:00.000Z

We picked our way below the hightide line around a Galloway headland. The cliffs at the tidal zone were polished like jewelry. It was as if the headland was proudly wearing a necklace. Every crevasse offered a space for small crustacea.

The tidal zone became impassable and we had to clamber up on to a cliff path. It wasn't just us clinging on to the rocks, trying to stay vertical. This was a tough environment, where only the strong would win, or where different elements could find a way of surviving together.

The contrast between the solid, high land on one side, then the vertical mass of cliff surrendering to the ever-moving, shimmering sea and sky below and above, was dizzyingly unsettling.

This was a place to make up myths and imagine the past. The slowly-evolving changes, layer upon layer, folding back upon itself in waves. Some a few seconds as the sea crashed at the base. Some, like the tide, twice a day. Others, like the moon, once a month. Others, like the plants and trees, every year or two years. Some decades, as crumbling abandoned workings, others millennia, as in the rocks.

turning year

2012-01-02T18:03:00.002Z

The winter solstice is past. The moon is waxing again. We've come through Christmas and now New Year with great revelry, and that time has come round again to look to the future. It will be without some familiar faces, but new companions will join us. I say "us", although I write this alone. That's because I predict a further shift of values away from the material sphere and towards the social sphere. We shall take comfort and pleasure from the people around us, and give love and support to each other, and to our ideas and dreams.

Recently, walking around the wintry hills, I've been struck by the erosion caused particularly by the combined energy of wind, rain and ice. This surrounding state of entropy reminds me once more of the fragility and transience of the material world. It reinforces the belief - as if there was any doubt - about living in the moment

It was sad to see that the smelt chimney above Dorthgill Force has collapsed. I'm just pleased that I spent so long making a careful drawing of it a few years' ago.

econologics

2011-11-08T11:16:00.001Z

some of the moss of Yad Moss

We need to get used to it. Our experiences and expectations of profligate living are unsustainable. And as global economics continue to seethe in turmoil, concerns of the world's ecologies are eclipsed. We need to remind ourselves that the root of both words - economy and ecology - is the same.

deep in Tyne Bottom Mine

Over the course of two centuries, as capitalism as a driving force has dominated almost every aspect of human existence, ecology has been marginalised. Now that we're at the brink of capitalism's collapse, we should consider how we can live full, happy and enjoyable lives through the celebration of, and partnership with, our local ecologies.

ice-jaws

I make no excuses for returning once more to this topic. It may take time, energy and careful thinking to nurture a close relationship with one's surrounding natural environment, but it is tremendously rewarding in terms of wellbeing. Whether it be moss and lichen, underground minerals or layers of morning ice, there are stories to reveal, rich veins of understanding to mine and to apply to the widest range of situations imaginable, and simple reasons to celebrate complex life. It's as much a topic for artists as it is for scientists and technologists. Brought together, a third force exists, where our understanding is increased and broadened, and where we will discover and develop strategies for full and enjoyable lives. For me, at the heart of this strategy, lies the Adaptive Cycle. It seems particularly appropriate this year when there have been so many tipping points and sudden changes.

To get an outline of the adaptive cycle and how it can be applied, visit The Automatic Earth blog. This describes the thinking of Buzz Holling, a Canadian ecologist and one of the conceptual founders of ecological economics. In his own introduction to the concept, he wrote

"The bewildering, entrancing, unpredictable nature of nature and people, the richness, diversity and changeability of life come from that evolutionary dance generated by cycles of growth, collapse, reorganization, renewal and re-establishment. We call that the adaptive cycle."

Below is the diagram from that blog:

the Adaptive Cycle

I like the 3-dimensional relationship of wealth, connectedness and resilience that is applied to the model. The relationship provides a large space for wonderment and imagination.Yesterday the cloudless sky led to an overnight frosting, followed by a flood of bright morning sunlight. I walked out from my home and up to a ridge. From its height I could see with perfect clarity for more than 50 miles in two directions - three if you count the sky. At my feet, someone within the last year or so had adapted a crumbling stone wall to create what appeared to be a small cist with a turf roof. I speculated on its contents. I was standing amongst the Adaptive Cycle, with release at my feet, surrounded by incidents of exploitation, reorganisation and conservation, with a sense of connectiveness to more than a hundred square miles of terrain, augmented by a wealth of understanding and ideas of resilience. It was a moment to count my blessings.

cist on Yad Moss

the enduring struggle

2011-10-12T09:47:00.000+01:00

It's been a long time since I last wrote, so forgive me and indulge me this passage of introspection. I've been trapped on a roundabout, blearily morphing between a lost driver and a fairground reveller, but never quite managing to realistically fit into either role. It seems that even when I look as if I'm on the inside, I'm feeling on the outside.

When, as a young man, I used to wander the roads of Europe with just a change of clothes rolled up in a doss-bag, I'd savour walking into a small town as it grew dark. Before the curtains were drawn, you could glance into people's homes where they might be gathered around a TV. They'd be looking out on the world through the TV as I'd be looking in. I'd walk past a pub, bar, chip shop or brasserie and savour the sounds and the smell of cooked food, alcohol and cigarette smoke. I'd go to the docks or the harbour (coastal towns are the most memorable) and feel the cooler air coming off the sea, tinged with fuel oil, fish and seaweed.

I would always, always, find some company; sometimes just to share a smoke, some stories, a joke and a bottle, sometimes for a night of intimacy. This felt like real-life living, partly because of the immediacy of the experience, but mostly because of its transience. There was enchantment in the moment.

Then I learnt about commitment, career development and strategic planning. This, I was assured, was real-life living. No slot for enchantment.

But real-life living on this roundabout blurs the background and becomes a repetitive experience. The painted ponies lose their lustre and the lights' robotic changes lose their significance. The strands of coercion, collaboration and acquiescence become twisted together in a single rope from which to hang one's free will and intuition.

No enchantment. Too many friends, family and acquaintances have left this world with scarcely-hidden regrets that they never experienced travelling barefoot into a wild unknown territory. Without real-life living, you can't imagine real-life dying. I hope I can still remember how to go when the time comes. Until then, I shall continue to wonder at the continuing struggle to find harmony and balance amongst the chaos of existence. I shall continue to be enchanted by being a human being on a planet of others' beings.

As a coda, I need to thank a nephew, Sam, for posting the below to his Facebook wall:

Loch Long

2011-08-19T13:09:00.000+01:00

We've been exploring Loch Long by boat for a few days. It's best explored by water. There is only a road on one side, which is winding and bumpy, with dense forest on the other side. It's a deep fyord with very few anchorages and unpredictable winds, ranging in the space of a few miles from flat calm to violent squalls, so not much visited by sailing craft. However, it has a very special character. The shoreline consists of huge boulders covered to the tideline with knotted wrack. It's an environment for crabs, starfish, mussels, heron, seals and cormorants.

Above the western shoreline margin of boulders is the forest, then the grassy glaciated valleys, and finally the nunatak peaks of Ben Arthur (The Cobbler) and the rest of the Arrochar Alps.

On the eastern side is the road, and above that, the West Highland Line, where goods and passenger trains clatter their way along the wooded mountainside. At Finnart is the Ocean Oil Terminal. The huge ships that discharge their cargo of oil into the complex of storage silos and pipelines make the strangest of contrasts to the wild western shore.

We sailed to the entrance of Loch Goil, then followed the western shore back to our mooring at Ardgarten. Almost next to the fire tender that is permanently stationed close to the oil terminal is the remains of a traditional Scottish 'but & ben', surrounded by some beautiful wild Caledonian Forest.

The Caledonian Forest is the most alluring feature of Loch Long's shores to me. For the forty years that I've known this area, It has always felt to me that it absolutely suits the local mild micro-climate, where sunlight and rain dance together. It can be described as temperate rainforest, containing native Scots pine as well as Atlantic Oakwood. The plantation conifer forests that surround these pockets of wildwood are a terrible and overbearing distraction. Where one is a fragile but sustainable ecosystem, rich in biodiversity and a key feature of Scottish cultural and natural heritage, the other is just a monocultural cash crop. The lorries hauling this timber thunder day and night along the main road that goes along the northern end of the loch, connecting the west of Scotland to the central belt. The Caledonian Forest needs all the support it can get. I want my artwork to promote interest in it.

ultimate release?

2011-07-09T17:59:00.002+01:00

Arriving home from Arrochar late yesterday afternoon I received a message from my father.
David, my twin sister's husband, had died a few hours earlier. He had died with Diana at his side with their daughters Mel and Zoe. Duncan, Mel's twin brother had had to return to Dubai. David's sister, Isi, had come over from Canada. Diana says that she is blessed by having her daughters and grandchildren with her. I want to give them all some comfort, some relief to their sad loss, but only time will possibly do that.

It's a cliché but one that may be of some comfort. Life and death share the same circle. Duncan and Sam are expecting their next baby in the next few weeks; Diana and Dave's fifth grandchild. Ross and Mhairi are getting married at the end of the month. July is shaping-up to be a momentous and emotional episode for the Cadie family.

Most of the time I don't fully understand what's going on around me. Above is the foredeck of my sailing boat. There is muddle, confusion and paradox. I'm happy with that. It's material and content for wonder; an opportunity to find new relationships between ideas. Below is a strange glass jar reflecting and refracting sunlight and foliage.

material matter

2011-06-06T14:19:00.000+01:00

The spillway at Cow Green Reservoir produces a kinetic pattern, serene and gently-evolving, quite different from the tortured torrent just a short distance away as the Tees tumbles through and over a whinsill outcrop at Cauldron Snout.

Much further upstream from here (in fact, at the other side of the watershed, next to Dufton Fell) are some more whinstone (basalt) columns, standing as sentinels overlooking an amazing hanging valley - High Cup Nick. And on the lower slopes of the escarpment is High Cup Winery, where Ron & Angela Barker not only make wines, but are also hosting an exhibition of work inspired by the surrounding landscape.

Gathering material to create some artwork for this exhibition has taken me further along the North Pennines and out of my usual haunts. This is good. I've been jolted into noticing the differences. I've sensed how volcanic, glacial and human forces have each, in their own times, formed, moved and shaped the matter and material of the planet, within the cocoon of a climate and an atmosphere, yet dominated by the energy from our star, the sun.

The exhibition will be open from 18th June - 29th August.

a brightening fuse

2011-05-09T18:02:00.002+01:00

The mountain pansies are like scattered jewels in some secret spots. A month ago, it was the spring gentian, unique to Upper Teesdale. The colour has shifted from an electric blue to a violet, attracting a different breed of pollinator.

"You get brighter every day,
and everyday I see you
scattered brightness in you way
and you taught me how to love you...
...Oh wondrous light, light, lighter,
you give all your brightness away and it only makes you brighter" (Mike Heron; Incredible String Band)

There are two good reasons for this quote. For one, read on. For the other, I feel it counters the reaction by some people in New York and Washington, rejoicing in the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. Although apparently wrongly attributed to Martin Luther King, the following passage continues the theme of lightness and darkness: - "I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

The spring continues to bring much change, some of it by the bravery and suffering of Arabs and Africans, some of it by intellect and some by intuition. All of it seems driven by energies from within the webs and networks that make up our ecosystem and our humanity, all at universal, global and local scales.

This weekend Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band came to Alston and brought a young band called Trembling Bells. They were all amazingly inventive with their instruments and voices. It was springtime music; they filled Alston with lightness. That's something that Mike Heron still seems to be able to do, more than forty years' onwards.

On Saturday I organised another local exchange & mart in Garrigill. One of the many great exchanges to take place was an idea to develop further. Just like any community, we have people with unusual and useful skills that they can pass on. Sewing, furniture-restoration and picture-framing were topics that came-up. I'm keen to stimulate enough interest through Sustainable Alston Moor (SAM) to put a programme of demonstrations together. These could then stimulate more interest to run short series of practical workshops. People would pay for them, to cover the fees and expenses of those leading the demonstrations and workshops, but in return they would gain skills and guidance in undertaking their own projects. It's like spreading light around, innit?

So, to end, a Celtic blessing that Mike Heron fused into A Very Cellular Song... also inscribed on to a teapot given to Candle Ted by a traveller who stayed for a few years in Alston:

May the long-time sun shine upon you,
all love surround you,
and the pure light within you
guide your way on.

compounding crises

2011-03-15T11:32:00.002Z

Imbolc and Brigid's festival have passed, and we're heading towards the vernal equinox. Huge shifts of power are taking place, culturally and politically, as well as geologically. In Japan, we are witnessing the strongest imaginable interface between culture and nature, where an earthquake created a destructive tsunami that overwhelmed a port city and devastated a nuclear power station, which is now damaging Japanese economic activity - the world's third largest economy. Seismic, humanitarian and economic crises compounded.

Uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East continue, and in Libya's case, with much bloodshed. The news channel Al Jazeera does not sanitise its footage. Ideas, alerts and events are relayed by Twitter, SMS and Youtube. Technology brings us the vision of catastrophic overwhelming forces, exposes the weaknesses of tyrants and exhibits the amazing bravery of unarmed people in Libya and Bahrain.

On a different scale, quiet changes continue amongst the hills and dales of the North Pennines. Lapwings were first back, wheeling and squealing, then the curlew and oyster catchers. I've seen snipe as well, and heard the twitter of skylarks. The land is changing hue, although sometimes crusted with snow, frost and ice still. Changes are relayed on the wind and by the lengthening days, between slowly pulsing areas of high and low pressure and along the weather fronts

I've been leading some drawing workshops (see a selection of participants' work here) at the Words by the Water Festival at Theatre By The Lake in Keswick., using a stripped-down wunderkammer as a base. The experience has re-affirmed my belief in the power of drawing through close observation to help reach a better understanding of how the world works. Now I need to prepare my shelter for the coming season of festivals and shows, incorporating a wonderkammer, and create more artwork for more exhibitions coming up over the summer months.

poles apart

2011-01-28T15:00:00.005Z

A cold frosty night and a dusting of snow warmed and melted into a midday bursting with sunshine. The frost and snow released its colourless grip, receding from the land, and the green blazed triumphantly as the news came through of mass demonstrations on the streets of Egypt's cities.These are days when tides of change sweep in, out and across every layer of society. Our ConDem coalition reveals more of its true colour with each passing piece of new legislation. We are becoming polarised. What I thought was just spiteful "them-and-us" prejudice from the few people I know that read the Daily Mail seems now to be the driving force behind policy - from the very people who tried to make us believe that "we're all in it together".

Symptomatic of the distance between the new ruling class and the rest of us is the proposal to sell-off thousands of acres of England's forestry, removing it from public ownership under the stewardship of the Forestry Commission, and offering it to private buyers. The new oligarchy seem surprised that this proposal should stir-up a storm; that so many ordinary people value forestry.

This is getting serious. It's not just forestry. Up and down the nation there are stories of library closures, arts budgets cut - and in Somerset's case, demolished - Sure Start facilities closing, ILAs cut. It does seem that most of the cuts are not just likely to hit the most vulnerable people, but are actually aimed at them. So they are to be punished for the folly and greed of the banking system, as the government magically turns private, corporate debt into public debt, laying the blame on the previous Labour Government's investment in public services. Meanwhile, speculators have turned their attention away from oil, finance and currency and moved in on basic food commodities, forcing-up world prices. These are triggering revolutions, first in Tunisia and now in Egypt.

I can only hope that a political crisis emerges here that brings down the ConDem coalition, and that we are forced to reconsider our folly of concentrating so intently on economics, which distracted us from the bigger issue of global sustainability. Even the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, concedes that his focus should shift from climate change towards clean energy and sustainable development, recognising the failure of climate change talks last year in Copenhagen. Those with the real power and influence are still quietly working away in the background, fermenting their own media stew and cushioned by their bonuses. They will use all of their considerable resources to maintain their grip on power and influence.

Whatever happens over the coming year, it must be accompanied by healing and reconciliation. This polarisation is feeding hatred. I walked past the witch-hazel that Ted had given me. The sun had brought out its fragrance. It was a reassuring sensation at this stage of the winter. It reminded me that humankind too, responds to warmth and affection. We've been enjoying the company of good friends this winter, with much outrageous laughter. The richest seam in my life is the companionship, appreciation and love of the people around me. I won't let that love be dissolved by greed and hatred and lust for power, but neither will I let it stop me from feeling angry enough to fight injustice by whatever meagre means I may have.

sowing & reaping

2011-01-04T16:01:00.003Z

Risen Sun; Rolling Minstrels

It's a Dark Moon today and the New Year bank holiday in Scotland. The Winter Solstice was a fortnight ago. The sun is in its ascendancy once more, so the time for reflection on the recent past is over, and celebrations with and between friends and family are drawing to a close - although I look forward to a friendly competition at the end of the month in North Northumberland when we get to taste (and judge) rival sloe gin concoctions.
Now, then, is the time to plan what to sow for the future, starting with the New Moon tomorrow.

Angel Song; Rolling Minstrels

One of my plans is to gather a body of artwork together over the next quarter that emphasises the unique qualities of the North Pennines' gills; those amazing releases of water that tumble out of the fellsides and score deepening ravines through layers of limestone and sandstone before they join with the major rivers of England's North-East; the Tyne, the Tees and the Wear. I will do this through recording and expressing the observations I've made of one small gill. All I expect in return is for people to stop awhile and think about how the gill represents the cycles of the seasons and how it connects to weather patterns across continents and oceans. The humble gill to which I refer is so insignificant that it hasn't even deserved a recorded name - according to the map -, but in it I can perceive the macro in its micro. And because I live in such a place as this, I feel the need to communicate the significance of the macro and the micro to anyone with whom I can engage. If only one person understands the connections more clearly as a result, I will have reaped some reward.


ice comes to the town at Ayr

Still on the theme of rivers, last week the ice came down the River Ayr like never before in living memory, and packed and cracked into giant slabs against the parapets of the bypass bridge. Events such as this serve to remind us that for all our technological and creative prowess, we can still be awed by natural forces. Paradoxically, there was an ice-rink with a plastic surface set-up temporarily in the town of Ayr at the same time, and although the rest of the UK was experiencing heavy snow, the fields around Ayr were green, so lorry-loads of snow were hauled in and dumped around the plastic ice-rink to make it look more seasonal. With traffic backed-up by sightseers along the mile stretch between two roundabouts during daylight hours for several days, it is easy to see that people can still find wonder in natural phenomena.

I'm feeling increasingly inclined to free my artwork from the mere recording of topography, and to introduce other features. My interest in how our fellside landscape has been influenced by sheep - and how sheep have been bred to live more easily in this landscape - has led me towards looking at how I can use wool along with clay, peat and other natural materials. Ellie showed me how to use a felting needle and gave me some felt offcuts. I'm using these along with wool that I've spun and raw fleece. Below is an example of what I intend to incorporate into a painting:

I want to bring the work down from the hills to stack against the parapets of urban life. I don't want or expect to compete with the Art Establishment, and I know my work is a long, long way from Damien Hurst's £50m diamond-studded life-sized caste of a human skull, "For the Love of God": But for all its lack of diamonds, I believe my work is making a similar statement but from a completely different direction.

From out of nowhere

2010-12-18T07:05:00.000Z

wild union

We all seem to be preoccupied by the weather at the moment, seeing as we're experiencing the longest and deepest spells of winter for several decades. Because of its strangeness, lack of familiarity, we examine it closely, like a new-born baby. We baby-gaze the landscape, close-up, mid-range and distant. It gazes back at us, sometimes with a serene but inscrutable eye, and sometimes with an accusative stare, a howl of wind and an unfettered scream of snow blizzard. Ice forms from thin air, building tiny communities of diamond crystals. Snow blows in swarms to colonise dark places and smother parts of my studio. Frost crusts the inside windows of the car, even though it was perfectly dry and warm when last I left it.

With a gathering of people we built a grotto of snow, ice and flame in this strange winter world. The night sky was pricked all over with stars. The ideas came from nowhere, as did the songs and the tunes on a tin whistle. It just fitted right. Love, laughter and joy of the moment. The following week I shared a meal with a different gathering, but the strange winter world remained. The tunes came and lasted all night, carried from pipes to fiddles, through guitars and drums. They came with the weather, from close friends and family, gathered together like crystals; we all came from stardust, from love. We brought energy from somewhere and nowhere, fused it together and created a spark that carried through and between each one, before nestling deep within us.

ways of walking

2010-11-18T17:50:00.000Z

Walking through changing weather stirs different ways of thinking. What seems remarkable one moment dissolves to nothing in the next, as one tiny detail comes from nowhere and burgeons into a completely new universe of connections. It's the greatest of pleasures, to turn fragments of thoughts through a kaleidescope of senses, and then to wonder at the patterns that emerge - then to shake them up again and watch a whole new pattern assemble. Walking seems to me to be just the right pace for thinking. Walk fast and you get the cardio-vascular system working. It seems to steel you ready for cold, wind and rain. Walk slowly and deliberately and you can open your senses to receive what's around you. Walk lightly on the balls of your feet and you feel you can float above stones and puddles. Walk with a pedalling motion and you feel you're in 4-wheel-drive, absorbing yumps and bumps, with nothing to hinder your progress.

Today there was no distance to see because I was in cloud, so I concentrated on the miniature world at my feet. My shelter has become nothing more than a collection of sticks and branches around a sodden muddy dug-out, but I still like being there. Yesterday the wind was nipping at my ears and cheeks, so I took to the river valley, which only offered the draughtiest of shelters. The day before, the sun spread a warm caress down one side whilst the frosty air scourged the other. Looking at the ground around my feet I could see the hoar frost which had sharpened the fingernails of heather. Coatings of ice exaggerated forms. By the time I set for home, the sun had kissed these fingers of ice, transforming them into strings of jewels; beads of water that steamed back to nothingness, back into air.

If I had been running or cycling, or in the sterile world of a car, I would have missed all these little moments of enchantment.

Bucolicus

2010-10-29T16:08:00.000+01:00

'Worth The Wait' tripych

Much of the week has been spent going to and fro town and country, flat lands and hills. Our exhibition (as Alston Artists) at Hexham Moot Hall has played a large part in this. Also our need to ensure that Trish has a reliable car to face-up to winter driving conditions. These trips have highlighted the differences between urban and rural, wild and tame, in all sorts of ways. However, I'm loathe to overstate the differences. I don't believe there's such an obvious dichotomy that many metrosexuals seem so keen to make.

Hexham Moot Hall Gallery

Staging the exhibition is a case in point. What we are doing is bringing aspects of life in the North Pennines to an audience in a small market town, which is itself a destination for tourists and visitors from urban areas. Of course, not all of our work is solely concerned with the North Pennines, so it does illustrate neatly that we are part of a wider culture. That our work is providing many points of contact and familiarity is appreciated by most visitors.

What is more difficult to adjust to is the need for more social controls in more densely populated areas. Recent redevelopment around the South Harbour in the Port of Blyth have also resulted in a forest of railings, foliated with warning signs and security apparatus.

I would love to become a seagull for a while in such a place. Or maybe even just a piece of driftwood.

Random acts of nature will crop up in the most cultivated and controlled environments. Chaos will always flirt and sometimes seduce the most ordered of circumstances. For that I'm wickedly thankful, even though the wind is raging and the rain batters the windows of our hillside home.

harvest moon

2010-10-15T15:41:00.002+01:00

beechmoss

The days are shortening. We've had frosts and ice for two mornings. At times the fellsides have been caressed with the slightest wisps of mist, and at other times choked in dense cloud. We've had clear blue sky bursting with golden sunlight, and, with a new moon, ink-black night sky pierced with stars, with bright Jupiter low in the southern quarter.

fungi nest

With the exception of moss, the green hues continue to leech their intensity. The fungi are fruiting and multiplying. The dark earth is seductive; it's hard to part from her musky aroma, but the warmth of the kitchen and the promise of grilled wild mushrooms, garden onions and freshly-dug potatoes is just as alluring. There's been little opportunity to visit my wild studio, but it's been a stimulating time nevertheless, because this week is a national Wool Week, and we (as in the North Pennines Wool Group) held an event at the North Pennines Centre, Lanehead. Here's an image from that event, featuring Ellie Langley gleefully demonstrating the carding of wool.

Ellie at the North Pennines Wool Event

With two group exhibitions currently up-and-running (as Alston Artists), and another one at the Moot Hall, Hexham, in a couple of weeks, most of my time is taken up in the studio. So just at the time I should be absorbing all the changes that the season is offering, I'm having to spend precious daylight indoors.

slipping and sliding

2010-09-20T20:23:00.004+01:00

Russian kale

The Russian kale that Ted gave me grows strong and reminds me, wistfully, of Alex, who died in Ted's caravan last week. He was the most gentle of people with a heart as huge as his intellect, and an enchanting inner serenity. All who knew him, or of him, will miss his presence. I feel particularly sorry for Ted. He has lost a true companion.

There are times when the season and events seem to sweep you along and shake your emotions from one extreme to another, sometimes in only a matter of minutes. Several times already I have felt the woodland shudder and rustle, as its dead branches rattle in the wind. The fungus is fruiting well, but each time it's soaked by a shower it looks less appealing to pick and eat.

old birch trees

You can be lost but never alone in woodland. Enchantment is all around, especially noticeable at the approach of equinox, falling as it does at the full moon this autumn. It's such a shame that Alex is no longer here to enjoy it.

tree sprite

Woodland is such a rich source of inspiration; it can set imagination on fire; it's one of the places where you can get a real sense of being alive - of a live being - sharing Planet Earth. It can fill you with a lightness of being that is otherwise burdened by debates about reducing the national deficit or the respective roles of the financial sector and multi-media journalism. It goes a small way in sweetening the disappointment that these topics have trumped dealing with world poverty and sustainable development.

missing a meme?

2010-08-31T12:09:00.003+01:00

Bjørn Lomborg, a scientist and one-time climate-change sceptic, has written a new book in which he proposes that $100bn a year is needed to fight climate change. After reading an article about it and him in the Guardian, I sensed once again the huge gap in the debate and his proposals. The article states:

Lomborg acknowledged trust was a problem when committing to long term R&D, but said politicians were already reneging on promises to cut emissions, and spending on R&D would be easier to monitor. Although many believe private companies are better at R&D than governments, Lomborg said low carbon energy was a special case comparable to massive public investment in computers from the 1950s, which later precipitated the commercial IT revolution....
...He added: "This is not about 'we have all got to live with less, wear hair-shirts and cut our carbon emissions'. It's about technologies, about realising there's a vast array of solutions."

Maybe he's right - I certainly hope he is - but it's also about cultures, and realising that here, too, there's a vast array of solutions. Without the cultural change, and therefore the political will, real commitment to finding solutions to climate change for us humans cannot happen. And then there's the (cultural) danger of relying on a technical fix - again, removing solutions from the hands of ordinary people and investing our future entirely in the hands of technocrats and scientists.

How can we activate the cultural change needed to fill this gap? Perhaps we could look at how the social sciences have classified culture. For example, by looking at the meme, as identified by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976). The meme is a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one person's mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. It can be used to convey the concept of evolutionary principles by explaining the spread of ideas and cultural activity such as catch-phrases, expressions, beliefs (as in religious beliefs) and fashion. I happen to think that there is a countless stream of memes that have been gathered and commodified for the sake of selling us stuff that we don't really need, but upon which global economics have now come to depend.

A meme I detected in the Lomborg quote was the idea of living for less and wearing a hair shirt. If you unpick that as an idea, it doesn't seem very attractive. It behoves us to create a 'counter-meme', that says for example that living for less removes clutter and reveals the real richness of human being. Who wants to wear polyester all the time, anyway? If we become meme warriors, though, we have to recognise the very real advantages that science and technology have given us. I feel moved to repeat my favourite quote from Shumacher's "Small is Beautiful" from 25 years' ago:

Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and the beautiful.

It's a two-way thing, though. As an artist, I need to respect the research and practice that leads to technological and scientific innovation, to use it as appropriate, and at the same time to learn from past times, other cultures and indigenous peoples. I see it as using low, intermediate and high technology according to need, and that leads to a steady trade in memes! It's an exciting learning route. Since I started writing this post, I've taken time out with Trish and we enjoyed canoeing several miles on Ullswater, going ashore a couple of times for a picnic and somewhere we could just enjoy being in a quiet place. The canoe and picnic illustrate my point of technologies and cultures, which I shall now transmit by way of my laptop and the Internet...
THE CANOE - originating from the Canadian First Nations as a fast and light means of water transport, made from birch bark, ash and hazel. Now made from Kevlar (used as body armour), which is stronger and more durable than birch-bark, and probably lighter.

THE PICNIC - originating from France as an al fresco meal...

...in this case consisting of tomatoes (originally from S America) plus grapes (variety originally from Germany), both grown in our conservatory, home-made cheese (from out-of-date milk) and chives, home-baked bread (flour from Little Salkeld Mill, just a few miles from Ullswater), home-grown salad leaves, home-baked banana (from the Windward Isles) cake (preserved in our freezer), and home-baked quiches (French recipe) made with our own hens' eggs. The knowledge and experience to produce this simplest of meals draws on cultures and technologies from around the world, but, with the exception of the bananas, all had low impact in their production. (It was all delicious, by the way.)

There we were, a few miles from home, in a beautiful place, enjoying the water, the sky and the land, and not a hair-shirt in sight. If this is living for less, I'll have more of it, please! Spread that meme...

transience

2010-08-10T15:29:00.003+01:00

Summer growth organises into forms, patterns and shapes, sometimes fast-changing and developing, sometimes almost imperceptibly.

I was doing some drawings on the Somerset Levels, and even as I did so, the focus of activity in this wonderful watery world seemed to slip from sky to land to plantlife and back again. Kingfishers were the perfect example of this. Exploring slowly and quietly with a canoe, we were able to look into nooks and crannies that would be unnoticed from the bank, and sense the generations of ingenuity that have gone into making the most of the topology, from withies to elvers, from tides to floods.

Here's a recent addition to part of a bank that was eroding away.

The tide became more significant when we left Somerset for Devon and embarked on the River Dart. It was the tide that could carry us or impede us, that gave us water over which we could paddle, or mud in which we would wallow. It was an overarching reminder of how we are part of an interconnected, interacting universe, where the moon's orbit dictated how and where we would travel.

We spent one night on a wild shore where the tide brought the water close to us and then sucked it back again. Once our fire had died down to glowing embers, we were kept awake by excited geese and some creatures - probably squirrels - in the tree canopy above us. However, it was somehow reassuring that all these rhythms and signs have continued for millennia, and that our presence made such a tiny impact that we felt to be a part of this place, even for only a moment.

The family gathering with four generations arriving at the same spot from three different continents that preceded our visit was a stark illustration of humankind's ability to override physical restraints. It was also an illustration that it didn't necessarily make us happier, healthier or wiser.

'Youth-in-Action' at Lanehead

2010-07-28T10:10:00.004+01:00

Over the weekend, I enjoyed running a workshop with 50 young people from UK, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Romania & Slovakia, constructing a painted panel representing their views about issues for young people living in rural areas.

The resulting panel was exhibited alongside their presentation of music, dance and an 'environmental fashion show' with nearly 30 fantastic costumes made from natural and re-cycled materials.

It was the culmination of a project they have been working on for two weeks in West Cumbria. The project is called 'Youth Actions for Rural Futures' and is supported by the EU programme 'Youth-in-Action'. It was held at Lanehead, high in the North Pennines, and close to the source of the River Wear. The centre is available for cultural, recreational and environmental activities with residential accommodation.

An outstanding feature of the project was the clear sense of cultural identity these young people possessed, and although they had their own music on i-pods and games on their mobile phones, they were also up for contemporary music and dance based on traditional forms. It was reassuring that although the temptation was there, they were not interested in getting out of their heads on drink. They were bright, energetic and friendly, environmentally aware and respectful of each others' cultural differences. If this could be replicated across the continent, then Europe would have a sustainable, multicultural future, and the old prejudices between race and ethnicity, religions and lifestyles might be banished.

St Swithin's Eve, St Swithin's Day

2010-07-15T13:11:00.002+01:00

There's been no ignoring the weather. We put my big tent up on Garrigill Green yesterday morning in readiness for the arrival of poet Simon Armitage. A couple of thunderstorms later and we gathered for the reading in the village hall instead, in the early, midge-infested evening. It was great that so many people came to hear him. He's walking the Pennine Way from North to South, back to his home, doing a reading each night and passing a sock around for donations to help send him on his way. Poetry readings are such strange events, taking what is essentially a solitary intense experience and making it a social occasion - but I absolutely loved it. Granted, poetry is best heard rather than read, but I like to savour the words of a poem and enjoy the beauty of its structure as well. I suppose its the difference between a reflective activity such as literature and visual art, and time-based activity such as performance. One of the best features was looking and listening to the small reactions from people in the audience as he sprinkled words over us in differing rhythms. Some reactions seemed to be about understanding situations and places; others about strangeness, and others just sheer joy in shared vicarious experience. This morning he will have set-off over Cross Fell. As he mentioned it last night there was a rumble of thunder. I walked back via Ashgillside with a belly-full of Allendale ale - at a breathless pace - over the darkening fellside with Nigel & Katie, through a suckling herd of Galloways, before leaving them and continuing on home alone. We talked, marvelled and wondered at the amazing landscape and sky.

This morning I went to my wild studio, made a drawing, came back, scanned it and digitally modified it into the image above. Some days it's difficult to be motivated. Others, like today, are like being on speed. Interacting with people, the weather and the landscape, combined with the blessings of good health, can make me feel so joyful. What a ride!

guerrilla art?

2010-07-05T10:14:00.001+01:00

This weekend, like all the weekends for many months now, visitors to Garrigill have been faced with a boarded-up pub on their arrival. The George & Dragon was the beating heart of the village and a welcome watering hole for cyclists on the C2C and walkers off the Pennine Way. It is now a visual blight. A group of local people is trying to arrange a way of re-opening it as a community pub.

In the meantime, I've decided to paint the boards in the windows and doors. This is the first one. You'll notice that the top bit is missing. That's because I'm hopeless at measuring. I painted on strips of thin ply which I then stapled to the boards. However, I painted the top one on a strip that was too big, so had to go home and cut it down. It is now in place but it messes up the perspective a bit. I shall make an attempt at doing the rest over the next couple of weeks.

Chat about Ireland

2010-06-19T14:25:00.005+01:00

Out west, first to Dublin, then on to Galway, where the drying turf stacks looked the way they probably have for centuries, but also like a contemporary environmental art installation.

From there out to Connemara, Co Mayo, Clare Island and Achill Island. All the time becoming more immersed and intermeshed in Norse and Celtic cultures. To find out more, follow this link about my trip to Ireland.

The festival of Samhain (pronounced Sow-en) or Halloween on 31 October marked the beginning of the yearly cycle for Celtic peoples. This was a time of death and the promise of re-birth, a time of waiting and reflection...

...depicted in Brigit's Garden in part with this sleeping figure formed with bronze leaves.

Recent and ancient history combined with the present in a collage of images and relationships. They provide ideas, comparisons and contrasts for living in transitional times, brought into sharp relief against a background of the deepening oil crisis precipitated by the spillage in the Gulf of Mexico. The episode seems to be characterised by a meanness of spirit along the lines of the other recent economic and financial crises. We are all tainted by it, whether we like it or not, so I believe it's incumbent upon us to seek and promote different values, healthier and truly happier, where the richness that lies within us all can be shared and celebrated.

bound for New Galloway

2010-06-03T19:34:00.003+01:00

Trish and I played for a few days in Dumfries and Galloway in a mixture of rain and sun, canoeing and camping. Living close to the ground and to the water is very invigorating and increases awareness, although ground is very hard on which to sleep, and water makes you very cold when combined with wind. As it was Trish's birthday, we had a bottle of bubbly. To prove the point of the cooling effect of air and water, we wrapped the bottle in a wet towel and left it in the breeze and in the shade. When we opened it, it was wonderfully cool.

We canoed many miles and stopped on little islands. We were privileged to be in the company of many water and land birds, including red kites, heron and oyster catchers. Upstream from Loch Ken is the River Ken, and we went through the reed beds and water meadows up to the pub at the Bridge of Ken, close to the village of New Galloway.

Festiva

2010-05-31T09:00:00.001+01:00

End of May and the season's festivals start-up. Ted has borrowed the VW camper and gone off to the Forest of Ai for Knockendorrach Festival. We stuck the roof back on before he left, and after admiring his growing vegetables, we had tea and brandy in his showman's caravan at Nenthead with Alex. Needless to say, the north wind has returned with a chilly airstream.

I walked over the hills and moors from home to the Langdon Beck Beer Festival on Saturday. Soaked to the skin I may have been, but it was worth it for the walk (which took me past this derelict mine-shop) and the barley-brews. I tried two thirds of the 20 on offer before Trish came and whisked me back home.

Now today is the Northumberland Show at Corbridge. This will be the first outing for the North Pennines Wool Project, of which Ellie Langley invited me to be part. It's been an incredible learning experience so far, and I'm increasingly fascinated by the link between the North Pennines landscape, sheep, fleeces, wool, processes and products. I have the deepest respect for those who grow this raw material and transform it into garments, adornments and furnishings, drawing on ancient skills and contemporising them with originality. It's a huge shame that British wool is largely absent from high-street retailers, either as yarn or finished product. Ellie is organising a petition to bring this situation to the attention of retailers and shoppers. Click here to support British wool and sign the petition.

Next weekend sees the start of the Around Northumberland Art Tour, where artists and craftspeople open-up their studios and workshop to give visitors an insight into the way they work. This year, there are enough of us to have our own 'North Pennines Cluster'. The artists in the cluster are Glynnis Carter, Paul Hickey & Norma Hickey, John Fowler, Lionel Playford, me, photographer Alan Hayward and felt-maker Ellie Langley. I'll be posting more about this event.

breaking out

2010-05-28T15:30:00.001+01:00

This blog is becoming entirely focussed on my wild studio, which really only makes up a small part of the Wonderbase. So I've split-off the studio blog, which is now at wilderstudio. I've left the previous posts on this place, but anyone interested in future updates will need to follow this link.