wonderbase

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.

in deep

2010-05-27T13:15:00.002+01:00

Walking and working around the wild studio in the rain yesterday, I was intrigued with the terrain. The surface was slippy, of course, and when pressed, water and mud would ooze to the surface. When it was raining really hard, the distinction between surface, earth, air and water was blurred and indistinct. I sat in the shelter and made this image. The closer I observe, either through image-making or shelter-building, the more intimate I become with this place, and the more aware I'm becoming of the adaptive cycle of growth, development, consolidation and release. The intimacy is between everything, from the decomposing corpse of a hare and the mud where it expired, to the circling hillsides reflecting sunlight and cloud-shadow. I'm reminded of the animist belief of the relationship between the body, its breath and its shadow. In his preface to "Drawing Today", Tony Godfrey describes drawing as:

"an archeology of the act of touching...(its) resurgence as a pre-eminent experimental medium must be traced not to academic practice, but to its roots in myth and in the ordinary human psyche and its activities".

roots...

2010-05-19T19:26:00.007+01:00

The wild studio is taking shape. It's changing shape, too, as I bring, alter and mix the materials depending what's on-hand. So far I've done it with roots, branches, stones, moss, abandoned posts and - most usefully, it seems - clay, which I've dug out from the middle. The plans change as I work with the different materials, learning about their different properties, strengths and weaknesses. I've re-orientated it, with the entrance and approach from the side. I've got to decide where to place the fire soon, before bringing-in any more combustible material for the walls/sides.

The stones come mainly from the stream, where I'm creating a small pool and a ledge, in the hope that at some stage I'll want to cool down. Today was the first time I've been up there in a prevailing westerly breeze, and it was reassuring to find that the site I've chosen seems not to be affected. However, that may be a problem when the midges come out.

In the meantime, I'm making a gallon of nettle beer, and I've made a pot of wild garlic pesto in the hope that my breath will deter midges. I've been looking at other plants that I could use as well, although I might need to extend my range to include lower-lying land. Even up here, though, the wood sorrel is in flower. Yesterday I got involved in a forest school session at Calthwaite, where I learnt a lot more than I expected, including the construction of temporary shelters.

It truly amazes me how much this little patch of land is teaching me. The way things just are, the Dasein, and the evidence of bio-semiotics. I doubt if anyone could do the theory without the practice. I'm certainly no scientist, but I'm beginning to understand the meaning of deep ecology, and what my Buddhist friend Pete calls 'mindfulness'. It's visceral and it's meaningful, and it arouses strong passion. I have to remind myself to stop and reflect - and to wonder - from time to time.

This morning (20 May) I took up a sack, an old canopy cover and some string. I've got into the habit of taking up my sketchbook, but this morning was the first time I used it.

It's extremely humid today and difficult to believe I was walking on frost just last week. So I went bare-foot and the ground revealed itself to me instantly. Soggy bits, dry bits, spiky bits and soft mossy bits. I noticed wood sorrel, gentian, mollis, meadowsweet, geranium and water avens. Then I went bare-back and could feel the slightest of breezes on a still day. I heard and saw two plovers which performed a symphony of calls and wing-beats. The stereo effect was as marked as wearing a headset. Later I heard a cuckoo, quite close, and some skylarks. Then I went bare-arsed and made my first sketch, standing facing uphill. As I drew I sensed myself being totally absorbed and immersed in my surroundings, and sensed an almost overwhelming joy of oneness and harmony. People may mock when they talk about cranks like me connecting with nature, but the sense of interaction between all the elements was an exquisite experience, and my drawing became almost automatic.The drawing stopped imitating. Layers of convention about drawing slipped away. What something should look like didn't matter anymore, including the drawing itself.

Next time I come up I shall bring some containers with oils and some boards primed with gesso, and have a go at doing some clay and shale mark-making.

I continued with digging out clay and shale, molding them into the walls of the shelter, remembering to stop and think every now and then. After an hour or so, reluctantly, I gathered my belongings and went home.

I felt invigorated and super-alive, and now, several hours later, I'm still feeling the same way. Is this the chi flowing?

rock...

...ready to, (nearly)

May 21 - only a calendar month to the Summer Solstice - strong sun and a slight breeze - it would have been almost criminal not to have gone up to the wild studio today. I'm going to waymark the trail and call it the trequitra track. So anyone who wants to find it must find out what the trequitra is, and then where I've placed them. I'm doing this because there's no getting away from the power of three. I seem to navigate everything by it, and now I'm constructing the sides with it, or multiples of it; it's such a strong and stable number for weaving and for standing, since it shares its tensions with so much equilibrium, and three points are the least number to make a shape with straight lines. No point of a triangle has any more importance than another, which is probably why the Romans invented the Tribunal.

I abandoned my plan to make earth marks today. I thought it better to get some shelter from the sun. This is my first draft. There are all sorts of things wrong with it, so I will be changing it. It needs to be right before I start lining everything with moss.

I also made my little pool a little bigger, but I chickened-out of a dip in it - the water's still way too cold. I've taken a glass bottle of water up so I don't dehydrate or I'm not tempted to drink from the pool. It's in the side of the pool, keeping nice and cool.

All of this feels like being a child again, building a den. The difference is that I've gained a lot of life-experience, so the process feels like a balance between skill, intuition and knowledge - there we are - three again, in balance! I keep needing to remind myself that I'm aiming for minimal impact, and I have to curb the instinct to make grandiose and over-engineered gestures.

...RECCAE...

Back towards a colder spell (Tue 25 May), and the shelter hasn't suffered too much. Saw a deer taking an interest as I approached. Built some more - low impact means it's more like building a nest construction. Moss is an amazing substance.

All around seems to be coming apart, releasing and reconstituting into a different state. Roots, rock, seeds, shoots. Liaisons and relationships.

No time just now to wonder. It's nearly a full moon once more..

Merry Month of May

2010-05-04T12:04:00.003+01:00

Hal-An-Tow, jolly rumble-o
We were up, long before the day-o,
To welcome in the summer sun
to welcome in the May-o.

Politicians and the media conspire to lead the coming general election along the same old tired tracks, disenfranchising those of us who don't subscribe to socio-political systems that were developed for the industrial and capitalist era. Gaia may yet take her revenge on the stupidity and greed of those amongst us who seek power. Enough said. Last words on that from Jimi Henrix:

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace"

I've begun planning my wild studio. After several sorties I've selected a site. It's next to some running water, higher above High Ashgill, but sheltered in a hollow and some trees, facing roughly south-west. It's only about 10 minutes' walk from the road, but can't be seen. I've decided to keep a record of its development and use through this blog.

As an exercise in what we give and take, I'm going to start with awarding myself 100 credits. I shall then allocate different numbers of credits to items/materials that I take to the site from home, with a greater number for items I buy especially for the project, and subtract them from the 100. If I find and use items that have been abandoned, I shall add credits. Whatever I use in terms of raw materials or naturally-occurring items shall be discounted. I shall award credits to the artwork I produce, whether that be drawing, painting, sculpture, poetry or music.

Separate from the materials score, I shall keep a tally, probably secretly, of well-being; how I affect others, and how I feel at different times through the experience. After I've struck the wild studio I shall mount an exhibition and continue with both tallies of the credits. The final part of the project will be an evaluation at the end of the exhibition, which will include responses from people who will either have visited the wild studio, or the exhibition.

From Yad Moss,
Slainthe Mhah

life-fuse

2010-04-16T10:42:00.003+01:00

High on the ridge that marks the boundary between Co. Durham and Cumbria, along the watershed of the rivers South Tyne and Wear, water and minerals release from the earth as a life-force. Although deep snowdrifts remain in the gullies in a kind of suspended animation, the land continues its elemental exchange. Sky, water and earth, driven by a strengthening sun, fuse together in an intimate cycle. Light is absorbed, reflected and refracted. In places, dazzlingly bright; in others, shaded.

The landscape surface close-up has the beauty and exhilaration of a lover's body. It is made-up of many interacting and interwoven forms, inviting your touch. Time seems to slow down as senses sharpen; although the air is cold, the sun is warm, and although the colour has been leeched from vegetation scourged by a long winter, buds and new growth betray a coming passion of living hues that marks the arrival of spring.

A further fusion is taking place as volcanic ash from Iceland - the Land of Fire & Ice - vitrifies into tiny grains and is carried by the jetstream across the British Isles and Europe. The images of these clouds of vapour and ash are beguilingly beautiful, their distant view in sharp contrast to the close-up intimacy of the fellside. The sky has gone strangely quiet. No distant jet engines. No con trails. Humans are grounded.

All of this seems a universe away from a General Election, where the issues are dominated by materialism and how best to manage our declining consumer-culture.

sonic fireworks

2010-03-23T09:40:00.000Z

Ice has finally released its grip on the fells, so the meltwater fills the gills, running hard, heading for the rivers, swollen by some heavy staccato showers. I wasn't going to write anything for a while, but I felt compelled after this morning's theatre performance. It wasn't obvious at first. I noticed the bubbling cry of a few curlew and watched a pair of mallard ducks head into the wind. But once over a wall into a meadow, the whole cast came onto the stage. A pair of oyster catchers swooped up into a perfect arc to ride the breeze, then turned windward to land on the opposite fellside. Lapwings wheeled and squealed. More curlews joined the chorus. Skylarks twittered and fluttered close to my climb up from the valley. This was an aural fireworks display or epic proportions

fusing elements

2010-03-17T10:56:00.004Z

Driving across the North Pennines and down to Chesterfield yesterday, there was a real feel of spring around. There are still plenty of car-high mounds of cleared snow up on Yad Moss, but other drifts have melted only to reveal drifts of snowdrops. On the fells across the other side of the Tees, inverted and slanting cones of smoke marked the burning of heather.

Coming back I stopped for a pint at Langdon Beck. I got into a lively conversation with university students from Winchester who were the ones responsible for the burning of heather. I asked them about the environmental impact of burning heather and what, if any, were the alternatives. They told me about 'the worm' that infects grouse, how it needs 16 degrees C to breed, how it thrives in older heather, and then about the economic importance of grouse, with oligarchs from Dubai paying huge sums of money to have the birds on their tables. Over the course of 30 minutes, lubricated by Rivet Catcher (worth going to Langdon Beck in itself), we moved into the a discussion about the relationship between economics and the environment. It was time for me to move on.

sherkin island community arts project: Camera 001 Holland

2010-03-05T11:30:00.002Z

sherkin island community arts project: Camera 001 Holland
Incredibly beautiful and serene reminder of our connection to the solar system and the universe.

wonderlocked

2010-03-04T11:07:00.005Z

St Paul's Cathedral features a new work by Anthony Gormley, and one of the clerical staff has been listening to people's reactions to the work. He called it capturing the anxiety of understanding. He went on to say that great art cannot necessarily be understood immediately, or at all; it may reveal new dimensions of meaning over time, and that was also true about theology.

I take this to mean that each new experience can leave its own stamp of cognition or recognition, which may or may not move us towards a greater understanding of the universe we inhabit over a period of time. It's up to us to choose how to respond, or whether to respond at all. It's our free will. We can live entirely within the moment of cognition, or bracket the moment with a past and a future, and therefore bestow recognition upon it. I'm comfortable with that, mainly because it leaves us open to accept ambiguity and the irrational. That's cool. Here's a little experiment of transferring original meaning (ice accumulating in a running gill) into a celebration of fluid light and shade.

Sometimes, though, meanings come through if we are alert and open to them, and we can become skilled at interpreting them. This is a theme that I want to explore more in my artwork. An erstwhile drinking partner, Graeme, who exiled himself to life on Jersey and obscenely large sailing boats, sent me this passage from "The Long Way Round" by Bernard Moitessier 48hrs before rounding Cape Horn,and his accompanying musings...

"I used this morning's bucketful (of rainwater) to wash the dish towel.A mistake, as it turns out. Last washed in the Atlantic doldrums, thedish towel helped me anticipate weather changes, now that I no longerhave lumbago when the humidity increases.
When the dish towel could stand up it meant dry air and I couldexpect dry SW winds for a while, with relatively nice weather and agenerally blue sky, aside from the normal cirrus and round cumulus.When it stood a little less stiffly, it was almost always a sign of aswing to the west, as the wind was already not so dry. And when mytowel looked all droopy and clammy , as if it had wiped away all thesins of the world, I could expect northerly winds loaded with wetclouds.
The towel is drying now, snapping gaily under six clothes-pins, ashigh up as possible in the mizzen shrouds. No matter though; my quiltedsuit with the little song-bird and the bubble-blowing fish warns me inmuch the same way. Still, it can't hold a candle to the dish towel inits day."

Ilove this little passage when, nowadays, most of us won't leave harbourwithout a wireless, a hand-held wireless, gps connected by satellite,depth sounder, radar, an open web page with a constantly updatingweather report, track plotter, anenometer, wind indicator, auto- pilotetc. etc. etc. of which, he had none.
This is his first big trip(around the world) with winches!!! It was block and tackle stuff forthe sheets prior to this, and he revels in its ease, where I'mwhingeing like buggery because I've got a winch handle in my grubbymitts.

Thank you, Graeme. I'm going to root out that book and re-read it. For now, just look what I found at Royal Quays, Tynemouth.

South Tyne Gorge

2010-02-23T17:59:00.005Z

My mistress was sparkling for me at dawn today as I walked down to her quiet banks. Her necklace warmed in the early sun, now much stronger, and clear jewels of water dripped from her pearls of ice into the river.

I entered into the darkness of her gorge. I smelt the musky fragrance of moss that flourished in the dark places along her glistening sides. I stepped with slow deliberation, releasing my senses to enchantment. This is such an intimate space, and in it and amongst it I was absorbed and possessed. Above, the sky and the sun looked down and seemed to approve, reflecting a shimmering disc that shifted its shape on the water, slowly slipping over and around the smooth round stones. For now, the winter weather had ceased its ravishing, giving time for the earth to heal and rest awhile, giving me time to visit her temple and to dally at her altar.

culture? heritage? ligitimacy?

2010-02-11T10:12:00.005Z

WTF are we stuck with a monarchy in most of the British Isles?

We are still regarded as subjects first and citizens second. All this deference to one dysfunctional family that inherited its power makes me feel physically sick. We've got a stupid and irrelevant national anthem foisted upon us that bangs-on about God saving the Queen. Like millions of my fellow 'subjects' I don't believe in God and I don't believe in the monarchy. I shout at the TV at the start of a rugby match when England is playing. All the other nations have inspiring and uplifting anthems that inspire their players. England, on the other hand, is at an unfair disadvantage; God Save the Queen is neither inspiring or uplifting. It's cringingly, toe-curlingly embarrassing.

Many English people have inspired me, living and dead, from Ellen MacArthur to Horatio Nelson, from Charles Dickens to Geoffrey Chaucer, from Ken Livingstone to J S Mill - I could go on. With perhaps the exception of Alfred, none of them has been connected to a royal line. Yet the History taught to me at school up until about the age of 12 was one long boring litany of kings, queens and other in-breds, their bastard offspring and their bloody acts to retain their power. They were no more glorious than Mugabe or Saddam Hussein.

The rich and the powerful around the globe blunder from crisis to catastrophe, piling on more and more social and environmental injustice. For humanity to survive, their discredited systems absolutely need to be overthrown. The opening paragraph of Chris Hedges article, (Zero Point of Systemic Collapse), Adbusters, reads:

Aleksandr Herzen, speaking a century ago to a group of anarchists about how to overthrow the czar, reminded his listeners that it was not their job to save a dying system but to replace it: “We think we are the doctors. We are the disease.” All resistance must recognize that the body politic and global capitalism are dead. We should stop wasting energy trying to reform or appeal to it. This does not mean the end of resistance, but it does mean very different forms of resistance. It means turning our energies toward building sustainable communities to weather the coming crisis, since we will be unable to survive and resist without a cooperative effort.

front on front

2010-02-03T14:59:00.003Z

Episodes of snow, rain, sleet, ice, thaw, sun, cold front and warm front, north wind and west wind, and the passage and foraging of animals have created a deep patina on the fellside. Where the snow has drifted and frozen there are great white icebergs where human tread leaves the slightest of footprints. Others, where water springs from the ground, thinner coatings of ice are fragile and brittle.

Over every exposed feature, top coatings of dazzlingly white crystals conceal dark, compact layers of ice. Features have lost their lumpen appearance and seem to be responding and adapting to the seasonal vicissitudes. This current state, where the thaw has been arrested, new coats added and slight drifts formed, has drawn different and new lines and textures on the land, where every yump and bump can be picked-out. I like to speculate on why they are there.

The land looks beleaguered; remains of grass and moss are scuffed, scraped and covered in droppings from sheep and rabbits. Stems and bark are gnawed away. Frost and ice shatter clumps of clay. At Ashgill Gorge a tree has come away from the rock on which it has grown for the last few generations, sliding down a good 30 feet, crashing against and smashing a footbridge.

Everywhere there are signs of hysteresis, like the piece of birchbark I collected. Having lost its original function, it has become a host for moss and lichen.

energy transfer; energy release; the chi within

2010-01-26T13:20:00.008Z

It's 14 days since the fragile lives of Haitians were shattered and torn apart by an earthquake. An estimated 75,000 people have been killed, 200,000 injured and 1 million people displaced. The sudden and catastrophic release of energy also revealed to the rest of the world a terrible social injustice that has been going-on for two centuries - that the wealth of a few was based on slavery and colonialism, and continues today in a more subtle and sophisticated form. Haiti is burdened with an international debt of over $800m. This at a time when bailed-out banks are paying bonuses for 2009 predicted to reach £6bn.

Drop Haiti's Debt: Sign the petition online now org.uk/r/KQQDLV/6T6O/MFIXM/NNCMZ/AM4J0/NR/h>

Haiti needs long-term support as well as emergency financial assistance, not loans with strings attached, if it is to ever rebuild.

"Join our call for the full cancellation of Haiti's debt of $890m, and for all emergency and development funds to be given not loaned."

Against this background of injustice, the ordinary people in Britain have donated over £25m, and the figure is rising. Like the magma below the earth's crust, there is an inner energy that we call love; an energy waiting and willing to be tapped. The people of Alston Moor responded in a short space of time and we raised more than £400 in Garrigill at one event. People were moved by an energy to do something. This was not so much a release of energy, but a transfer. In this case, a little bit of our wealth, health, mobility and fortune to our impoverished kin in Haiti. This leads me to reflect on the notion of chi, of the constant transfer of energy as it seeks balance and harmony. I'm not reflecting on this in sentimental terms, even though we might call it love. For example, I see predators and prey every day where the transfer is taking place, and where erosion and deposits reshape the landscape. There is a raw aesthetic about the natural cycles that is devoid of sentiment, but strangely attractive. The chi is all around and within us, and operating in different time-signatures. Geologists think in terms of eras of tens of millions of years, anthropologists of tens of thousands, historians of tens of hundreds, politicians of tens, lovers in the moments of intimacy and orgasm. What seems to be out of harmony and balance, and therefore unnatural, is that so many people can only live one day at a time, powerless to shape their future. Perhaps that's the difference between energy and power. Our ability to communicate has given us power, not only to build new ways of channeling and expressing chi, but also to abuse and exploit the world and its life. Perhaps when power is expended, energy is not transferred; life loses something; those with the least lose most.

In a culture of poverty and oppression, it so often seems that people will never overcome, never able to resist the expending of power by the strong, whether they be criminals, religious leaders or despots from amongst them, or brutalising opportunists from elsewhere. They seem vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

Yet against all the odds, at extremes of relationships, and especially at times of catastrophic change, love and kinship can come shining through.

Imagine there's no Heaven

It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
John Lennon

high pressure block

2010-01-12T15:21:00.001Z

Perhaps the weather affects our functioning more than we think. Here on the British Isles we're used to series of fronts moving in from the Atlantic, bringing warm weather in episodes of rain. For several weeks now, that pattern has been blocked by a high pressure sitting over us. Everything feels suspended, locked in ice, bound by snow and with no wind to drive change forward.

The snow covering changes the definitions of familiar features. Some forms reveal more detail, where lack of colour-changes clarify pure form. Others seem almost grotesque, malformed and lumpen. After the first day, though, the temporary presence of ice and snow sculptures can outstay their welcome. Instead of delighting and illuminating, they seem rank and stultifying.

goodbye to the noughties

2009-12-31T12:31:00.005Z

Winter Solstice has passed; winter festivals continue. Snow lies a foot deep. Rabbits and sheep search for green plant material. Thankfully the wind hasn't been whipping it all up into drifts. It seems ironic that the disappointing Copenhagen outcome occurs at a time of freezing conditions and more snow than has been the experience for most Britons for many years.

This is always a good time of year to pause and reflect. We've been twice in one week to The Sage Gateshead; first to see Kathryn Tickell, Sting and Andy Sheppard (thanks to Andrew & Ross), and second to see Jez Lowe and the Bad Pennies with Andrew playing as a guest. Both events made me feel a part - albeit a very small part - of England's north. There is a familiarity about the North's music and culture that is very attractive. It makes me feel vital and sociable. There's more I want to explore and celebrate. I'm still trying to do that through paint, through joining-in with music, and through human relationships.

Tonight is a Blue Moon - the second of two full moons within a calendar month. I've just been listening to a special Open Country on BBC R4 featuring a septuagenarian woman artist in Cambridge who is celebrating the event by being outside for the entire month and planting ceramic beads from a necklace each night. She spoke of the night and its sky. She reminded me that the more light we make for ourselves, the less we can see of our universe. She said that you can't see the Milky Way in Cambridge. I find that ironic, disconcerting and a terrible shame that so many people are denied one of the most thrilling experiences of a clear night sky.

Reflecting on the recent past, and looking forward to the new decade, I want to break free of conventional routes and take the less certain alternative tracks. I want to be physically, intellectually and creatively more adventurous, whilst I am still able, in every aspect of living. Who knows where that will lead?

Copenhagen to Winter Solstice

2009-12-10T11:04:00.002Z

The progress in Copenhagen seems agonisingly slow. The world really, really needs to let its leaders know how important it is to reach a binding and meaningful agreement. It will take great courage and determination, and require supreme strength of leadership and perseverance. There can be no Plan B.

Meanwhile, here on Cloud Nine, the season of Yuletide gets closer with each foggy dawn and with each blustery shower. The ground is so sodden it cuts-up and oozes mud through grass at every step. The gills tumble full all of the time. Standing water reflects clouds. Colours are attenuated, and day-by-day I feel people moving closer together; a bit like seabirds. I'm sure that something inside of us makes us want to enjoy the warmth of human company when the air outside grows cold. Bacchanalia and Saturnalia, here we come. I've felt the 'tristesse d'automn' pass once again, replaced by a slight elation. Here's hoping that its warm glow will fan into a roaring fire of adventure and energy that will see us through the coming deep winter. I want to make some more artwork; I can only hope I can carry some meaning through it with clarity and honesty.

Before I can do the art, I want to feel less anxious about progress in Copenhagen. Ironically, today, 17 Dec, it's snowing in heavy pulses and feels extremely cold outside. George Mobiot is almost manic in his articles for the Guardian, but he's making some good points. I like his suggested speech for Obama. It would be hugely divisive in the US, but better that now than the global divisions to which we're heading. His final suggested paragraph, along with his final comments, are:
"I have no illusions about the resistance these proposals will encounter. This will be the political battle of my life. But I know it is a battle worth fighting. If I duck it, future generations will never forgive me, just as they will not forgive anyone in this room for failing to rise to our greatest challenge. This is the battle we owe to our children and to their children. This is the time to do not what is expedient, but what is right."
Can he do it? We should hope so. There won't be another chance like this one.

Kyoto to Copenhagen

2009-11-27T00:34:00.001Z

The argument continues to be raged about whether or not climate change is happening at an increasing rate, and whether or not it's due to human activity.

I'm increasingly frustrated by this argument, because it's such a waste of enormously valuable time and energy.It's all dependent on scientifically proven analysis, which, quite rightly, is always open to question.

What's wrong with what we feel intuitively? Is intuition only OK for swallows (those tiny birds that cross thousands of miles and different climates)? My intuition tells me that the unthinking burning of fossil fuels, hypertravel, unbridled production and disregard for waste is not a good thing. It also tells me that it creates a huge chasm of emptiness in the relationships we (I?) crave between the natural world and the world of meaningful human relationships. This is not a situation in which I can feel enriched and enhanced. I want to demand that a healthy, fun-loving, caring society is based on human relationships, care and respect of the biosphere of which we're such a powerful part.

2009-10-07T09:17:00.002+01:00

Weekend wind has damaged the top of the camper; yet another thing to fix. As we were crossing the River Wansbeck, doing 70mph on a dual carriageway, a crosswind slammed into us, tearing the top off the van's body. It opened from the front like a gaping jaw. If it had blown clean off it could have caused a serious accident. A strap now holds the jaw shut until I can get it properly fixed.

At least the wind had dropped by Monday. The warm moist air moved through in the early evening yesterday, replaced by a clear moonlit night with the stillest of air. By daybreak we had our first real coating of frost, most noticeable along the capping stones of the walls. I crunched across the grass to look for the hens' eggs. The weather report on the radio told of record overnight temperatures for London, and that the coming cold front would bring a 'plummet' of six degrees, down to 12 or 13! In the next breath the forecaster predicted snow above 800 metres in the Grampians. Personal comments and subtle changes in emphasis by the radio presenters expose just how local they really think. This is a moot point - it illustrates that even from the shelter of a great metropolis, individuals are still aware of, and affected by, changes in the weather. The downside is that if the national weather is always reported from a metrocentric perspective, it reflects a distorted view of national climatic conditions.

More rodents have moved in. I'm trying low-level terrorism in the fading hope that they'll take the hint that they're not wanted. I've learnt not to delay too long before laying down the bait.

I'm still struggling to find effective ways of presenting what I really feel about the nature-culture interface. I'm torn between making it more obvious and therefore more contrived, or making more oblique references. I want to be able to earn a living through my work, but not at the expense of abandoning its sense of purpose.

loose change

2009-10-01T17:07:00.001+01:00

October flutters in on a shaft of sunshine. It's slightly exhilarating, as it came on a breeze with a bite of coldness, after a warm, damp, dreary, murky end to September. I see the fungi is fruiting well, but guess that this chill may halt further growth. There's plenty of hedgehog fungus to collect; really tasty with a fried egg and a piece of buttered toast.

The studio's in even more of a mess than usual. I've done an installation called Transition in Syl & Ray's empty shop window. I've got work out to Gossipgate Gallery. I'm taking more work out this weekend to North Northumberland. Jay came to collect some carvings. I need to steel myself to tidy everything away.

Syl & Ray have come up with an idea. They wonder whether Josephine Dickinson might like to associate a poem or a few lines to the installation. I'd be absolutely delighted if she did.

This is a time of rapid change as foliage takes in mineral from the soil, ready to drop and return to the earth; to insulate and feed the ground ready for the next spring. The mice are looking for easy pickings and nestings in our walls. It's important to our sanity and comfort to make sure they're not welcome as house-mates, let alone room-mates, let alone bed-partners. If ever you need visual evidence of transition, adaptation and resilience, it's all around us at the moment. Flora, fauna and us - all looking for a harmony and a balance where we can rub along together with the minimum of conflict, without ever reaching a point of no return; never causing a catastrophic tipping point. Can we learn from this and prevent catastrophic climate change? Some scientists believe that there aren't many months left.

Anglo-Saxon treasure

2009-09-24T09:36:00.002+01:00

The unearthed Anglo-Saxon treasure in Staffordshire is already being likened to the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Book of Kells and the Sutton Hoo burial in terms of its significance in providing us with an insight into Britain's past. There seems so much we can learn from it.

30 years' ago, I was given the task of designing a date-stamp and first-edition envelope for the Holy Island Post Office, commemorating St Cuthbert.

My research took me to the Lindisfarne Gospels, of course, and ignited a flame that lit-up the Dark Ages. It is no accident of language that they should be described as illuminated. Bit by bit, since then, their artwork and calligraphy have revealed themselves to me, carrying the beliefs and celebrations of their authors and artists over to contemporary times. They illustrate perfectly the adaptive cycle of 'everlasting life', the intricate tracery of an interconnected universe, and the interdependence of humanity, plants and animals.

Martin sent me this - he thinks this may be the field at Hammerwich where the hoard was found - and is only a few fields away from where we lived at Woodhouses.

Autumn Equinox 2009

2009-09-21T16:48:00.001+01:00

The weather is not inviting. Wind, low cloud and drizzle portend the arrival of autumn. It's a time of year for reflecting on all that's passed since the winter solstice. However hard I try, I can't stop sensing a vacuum now that I've de-rigged my exhibition at Northumbria Uni and I no longer have the anticipation of a weekly visit. It's ironic, because one of the clearest perspectives that came from the work was the universal cycle of organisation, development, consolidation and release. Now I've reached the release phase, I can see how difficult the transition between attachment and loss can be. Released to re-organise. It's quite daunting. There are a few factors floating around out there, and I need to summon the energy to connect with them.

trying to connect you...

2009-09-21T15:45:00.001+01:00

In an effort to extract more sense from what I observe of the world around me, I make, collect and classify material in what I call the Wonderbase.

It's a way of observing the margins, edges and transitions that occur in both nature and culture - in particular at the nature/culture interface, and within a contemporary context of climate change, economic and social change.

The aim of the Wonderbase is to encourage conversations and exchanges between people, It includes artifacts and lost objects. They are there to speak of how connected we had to be with the natural world before the industrial age, and how we must re-learn in order to survive the post-industrial age and peak oil, only this time with the help of technological innovation and the new sphere of the virtual world. It's there to celebrate the best bits of past cultures from the fragments that remain. It's there to help us learn once more that nothingness exists and is equal to beingness, as is illustrated by light and dark, earth and air, zero and one, sound and silence. Love is all you need. Richness lies in belonging, not belongings. The recitation of genealogies is like that. Africans in the bush thought the Scottish explorer Mungo Park was a poor man, wandering alone, without his kin.

As manifestations of the Wonderbase, I'm creating wunderkammen and arks for different places and different situations.

Virtual World On The Move

2009-04-17T15:39:00.001+01:00

Once, us Earthlings believed our planet stayed still as the firmament moved around us. Now it's us as individuals who can remain in place. Satellites and networks, orbiting or geo-stationary, serve and reflect back our communications in fractions of a second and at a fraction of the costs of terrestrial or conventional means.

It's such a wondrous phenomenon that it leaves me reflecting on what this power of communication allows us to do. What if there's no-one else out there who wants to join in a conversation that takes us further than the state of the weather or what we had for breakfast?

--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jules Cadie,
High Ashgill
Garrigill
ALSTON CA9 3HB
01434 381941

2009-03-29T08:26:00.000+01:00

Well, the event happened, and loads of transactions took place.

This was for people to share, exchange, buy and sell objects, ideas, services and resources – anything that participants believe to have a value and can be used in a transaction with other people.

When I proposed the idea, I said it was an experiment and an adventure. This means that the outcomes were uncertain and that we will be finding out what works best individually and collectively as we go along. I saw the event developing as somewhere between a live art installation, a bring-and-buy sale, an art & craft fair, a festival, a FreeCycle event and a local producers’ market.

I now need to get round each participant to find out what to do differently next time. It is them who will shape the event and decide how it should go forward.

what's hot?

2009-03-27T17:39:00.000Z

On days in late March when the wind blows from the north, carrying snow flurries over the felltops, it can be hard to believe the climate's changing. And there are some serious doubters amongst the apologists, that brand the rest of us as alarmist, and really don't think that the Industrial Revolution and our 200 years' profligate lifestyle has anything to do with changing the climate. Frankly, even if they were right, I'd STILL want to change from the conventional lifestyle, because all its trappings are obscuring the aspects of living that mean most to me, like love, friendship, kinship, sharing, laughing, walking over the hills, sailing, drinking, eating...

I love living in this community because of the interesting people who share it. I'd like to think that we can make projects work and prove that sustainable living is not about hair-shirts and worthy tokens. It's not about having less, but about living more. Anyone want to talk about this?