Now the title of this isn't really about eastern spirituality or philosophy or an attempt to come up with a cool sounding name but more to do with making a bit of an a*** of yourself.
I have few days of work so I headed to a favourite spot of mine, one where I did some of my first rock balances and where I built this. Now it had collapsed I wanted to use the stones to make something else.
I've spent a few days out rock balancing recently since I did this this but I didn't manage to get anything to stay upright long enough to get any pictures. I don't think my heart was really in it and I couldn't be bothered to rebuild any of them more than a couple of times once they had toppled over. It is fun to do though and it isn't all about getting a picture so it wasn't wasted time.
I felt a bit more focussed today on getting it right. A lot of it is in the preparation and making sure you pick the right stones and arrange them carefully and the rest is in patience and persistence and an added dose of luck. So I began by trying to do an enhanced version of that stack done on Heysham beach.
After a while it started to rain but other than getting my camera wet it didn't matter too much as it is so warm and muggy.
I had the video camera running most of the time and the one time it was switched off I got my welly wedged under a rock and when I attempted to walk I fell straight over. £250 from You've Been Framed would have been handy but karma dictated that it wasn't to be. Karma hadn't finished with me just yet though.
The paddle out to the boulder the balance was on was just about the same height as my wellies, somehow I managed to stop them being breached but the trouble with constructing something on a rock in a few feet of water is if you don't balance a rock properly then "plop!" it is gone in microseconds and you have to wade back to the bank to search for another one. Just how many crossings was I going to get away with? Well Lady Karma allowed me enough to get it done, and she smiled on me enough to get it built first go.
The first sculpture had an insane wobble. The third from bottom layer had a pebbled that rolled every time a new layer was added, several times I had to hold the whole thing upright and put it back into equilibrium. I am interested to see the video footage to see whether it's wobble is clear to see.
The second was more robust but surprisingly so. The lower round pebbles that increased the height of the left hand slab were held on with friction and should they move it would all go. It was quite tall so I worried that I would get flattened if it did fall. Either that or very wet as any evasive action would end up as a swim.
Anyway I got away with it and packed up and headed back to my car.
As I clambered up the hill to the parking area I saw someone else was parked there. Two old ladies were sat in fold-up chairs looking out over the river, each clutching a glass of red wine and smoking a cigarette. They weren't best pleased having their drunken picnic interrupted. But still I smiled and said hello.
This was met with a scowl. Obviously one that they had both spent a lifetime perfecting. I was sorry to interrupt their lunchtime drinkie-poos but you run the risk of being disturbed by a strange bloke in wellies if you insist on having your soiree in a car park.
Anyway, being too long away from food, irritable, tired and grumpy I muttered to myself "manners cost nothing" - grumble - grumble - "parking here and drinking cheap wine and smoking fags" - mutter - mutter - "I didn't want to say hello anyway!"
I packed up my tripods and and put my camera gear into the boot while the elderly grumpy twins laughed uproarously as their cheap plonk kicked in.
I slapped the gear stick into reverse and manoeuvred onto the road and drove away still grumbling under my breath.
I looked at them in the rear view mirror and suddenly there was a black flash in the mirror. "What the hell was that?!"
Doh! I'd left my reflector on the roof. I saw it land in the road so I parked up at the next layby and sprinted up the road. It was nowhere to be seen and each side of the roadwas thick with bracken.
*********!
I looked and looked and looked and couldn't see it anywhere. Oh no I don't have to ask those two old dears do I? No anything but that please.
And so, tail between my legs with my best - mum brought me up properly - polite voice I siddled up to them.
"'Scuse me?"
"Yes?"
"Did you see a black circular thing come flying off the back of my car?" The ground opening up beneath would be nice timing should it happen.
"No?!?" The quizzical look I got was far worse than that earlier scowl.
I walked back along the road and sure enough there it was under a bush. Seemed Lady Karma wanted me to talk to those ladies, they wouldn't know where I had lost it but it would appear once I had and I am sure that their side of the story would be quite different to mine.
All I can hope for when they recount what happened that someone will ask them "how much did you have to drink?"
View Large On Black
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Karma Stones
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Rainbow Leaf Colour Wheel
Whilst out in the park yesterday we visited a chamelia we know of that produces amazing colours as it sheds it's leaves. There was one leaf that I found that was green one side of the central vein and red on the other. I've never seen one like it before. You can see it at the bottom of the wheel.
I wanted to show off this leaf with changing colours starting from red on one side of it and green the other. The obvious solution for this idea was to fade the colours in a circle.
We bumped into Litrate again this morning when we were out for a walk and he was out on a bike ride. This time he must have just recognised my face as I wasn't stooped over examining a leaf. He asked me what I was planning and I said "nothing much we are just out walking" but that wasn't quite true. When the walk had finished I wanted to make this coloured circle.
Just as I was completing the circle and getting ready to set it up I noticed the wind had dropped. I remarked to my partner that that happened yesterday just before it got really windy and the storm broke on top of us. That weather soon destroyed yesterday's efforts. Yet again I would need to be quick to avoid the same thing happening.
I soon forgot what I had said and relaxed and waited for the sun to break free from the clouds. A group of three butterflies - red amirals, two females and a male - circled around and around in swirls chasing each other before sunning themselves on the warm rock. It is obviously loving season in the butterfly world. The beautiful long golden grasses and the insect display kept us distracted from the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. The circle still looked striking without the sun shining through it so I got some shots and sat down and waited some more.
The wind, without warning, started to pick up considerably. It seems what I noticed about yesterday might have been accurate after all. Across the hills to the coast you could see the storm clouds rolling towards us.
"It is going to rain" my partner said.
"Errm, I think they are going to go around us" refusing to admit defeat. "It's ok the wind is not blowing towards us." I picked up some grass and threw into the air. Nope it was blowing straight towards us.
I turned around to look at the weather coming and the wind had loosened several leaf sections and they would soon be lost. I sprinted through the heather to try and save it (I'd like you to imagine Usain Bolt doing the 100m - It wouldn't be an accurate image but I would like you to imagine it anyway) and fortunately I got there in time. I whipped it off it's struts and protected it from the wind.
It was no use. Despite willing the storm to go around us it was coming right over the top and would soak us while making autumn with my leaves. With my tail between my legs we retreated hoping that I capture the light as I wanted it another day.
BTW, check out the time lapse video down below, I think it's cool!
Rainbow Leaf Colour Wheel Timelapse Film, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.
Flickr has squished this somehow and it is more jerky than the original but hey - there it is!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
3 Framed Rowans
The sun shined on me and my leaves once again.
It is very, very humid here today. When I peeped through the curtains first thing it was bright and clear and windless. After a warm but windy week I thought I might have the opportunity to play with leaves and light without everything being destroyed in seconds.
I love rowan leaves. Whenever I see a rowan I admire the elegance of it's little leaves and how they grow symmetrically from their tender, red stems. I've only ever done anything with the berries despite searching for coloured leaves many times. All the trees that were accessible to me had leaves that went from green to brown, desicated and shrivelled with no intermediate colourful stages. I have long admired Andy Goldsworthy's coloured rowan leaves around a hole sculpture but could never find any similar leaves. I pondered whether those that he found were from a very special year. Finally I did find some trees in full colour but they were all in the street and their leaves too easily blew away when they landed onto tarmac so there were never enough left for me to collect. But still I am fascinated with the shape of their leaves.
When I finally got out of bed it had completely clouded over and looked set in for the day. If this was going to be a dull day then I would need to change plan and focus simply on the shape of the leaves themselves.
As is my normal style I constructed little frames from stems of grass and pinned them all together with thorns and included a little cross strut to keep it square. Then I pinned out each leaf to show it's form. I chose three different trees to pick leaves from. A large well established tree, a medium sized bush and a small sapling from which I took the smallest leaf so as not to adversely affect it. Each had a different green hue reflecting each tree's age and maturity.
This was all going swimmingly well. Merrily pinning everything together with a light wind, this wasn't going to take too long to complete. Or so I thought.
The dull, leaden skies were joined by towering storm clouds and the wind started to whip up. I needed to get on with this and be quick or else the elements would undo all the meticulous effort. I took one long stem of grass and attempted to pin each frame along it's length.
The first one went on fine, the second one fell apart almost immediately. And then, much like someone sawing through a branch that they are sitting on, I chopped through the grass stem and dropped two of the frames onto the floor disloding all the thorns. Curses!
The process of making the really ephemeral sculptures is like paddling down a gentle wide river. Everything starts off calmly but then mountain walls start to constrict the river and it becomes less wide and gathers speed and power, soon the current has taken hold of you and you have reached the point of no return. You either paddle on hoping you will reach the end or abandon all hope.
Well of course that is a bit over-dramatic but the analogy holds. In the final stages of making something very fragile there is a critical point when everything gets assembled together. Any over-zealousness can send you into a spiral when some small part breaks and your attempt to fix that part destroys another and on it snowballs. The luck is in getting it all to hold together long enough to capture it's most vital moment and that is often just before it collapses completely.
And so this is how it was with this. As I tried to fix each of them to the long stem things started to fall apart. Swearing under my breath and cursing myself again with the oft repeated words "why do I have to make everything so damn fragile? I must be mad!" Yet I keep on doing it again and again. Despite the stress of funnelling down the gorge towards the rapids when you do make it to the other side with everthing intact and that vital moment is captured then you can feel justly satisfied.
Finally I had everything ready and set up my camera and started to click away, the leaden skies were still with us, no chances of the sun appearing. As I clicked away I noticed that I had made a fundamental mistake. The right hand leaf was set against something the same colour and without any contrast it was going to disappear into the background. All that effort and I am not going to be happy with the pictures. :-(
And then... A small parting in the cloud above me revealed the sun and all at once the leaves became illuminated. The only clear part of the sky was where the sun shone through and now the right hand leaves glowed and separated from the background. I have mentioned my lucky timing before and here it was.
The sun shined on me and my leaves once again.
Ps. There is a little more story with the other photo.
My partner, despite being a talented land artist herself, is often roped in to help me when I make something -normally to guard my camera equipment. Fortunately she is patient and good natured or else she would have given me a black eye long ago.
A fly on the wall (or a bee on a flower) observing us would have a good chuckle or else call the men in white coats.
There I was sprawled on the floor trying to peer through the viewfinder whilst dog walkers and passers-by gawped at us wondering what we were up to. It is alright for me, see, because I am busy concentrating on what I am doing while she has to stand there like a lemon like she is my guardian looking after me on day release from the "clinic".
After one volley of photos I positioned myself to stand up.
"Arrggh, careful!" she yelped.
"What?!" I snapped expecting to put my hand in some dog ****.
"There's a bee!"
"Where?" I said.
"There!" She replied.
"Where?!" I repeated.
"THERE!!!" She repeated again.
"But I am not putting my hand there!" I retorted.
"Well I didn't know that did I?" was her answer.
"Well you made me jump by shouting" I said.
"Well I can't help that can I, what about the bee?"
And on we went for a little longer in that high pitched and getting higher way that bickering couples only reserve for each other. Just picture the scene.
A strange sculpture being photographed by a loony laying prone on the ground whilst his care assistant exclaims in a high pitched voice "watch out for the bee!" (I hope you are repeating this to yourself in a suitably high pitched voice) only for the loony to shout back in a equally high pitched voice "what bee, what bee, WHAT BEE?!!"
It is just as well she loves me.
Unfortunately I didn't manage to get the whole high-pitched episode on video so I won't be able to ever play you the silliness ever! Honest! ;-)
Friday, June 26, 2009
More Booky Loveliness!
I am sure you are getting bored with me now but my excitement level just hasn't diminished!
I wanted to share a bit more excitable booky loveliness with you whether you want me too or not!
Well I can't stop looking at it so I am going to make you look too!
Mmmm glossy pages!
I spotted a couple of errors in the first version of the book I uploaded. I made it unavailable, fixed it and uploaded a new version. Everthing is perfect now and available here:- Land Art by Richard Shilling.
Someone ordered a soft cover copy. If you are reading this can you please contact me? You can leave a comment here or you will find my email address on my profile. I think the copy you ordered is the old one and your order may not go through. I took it offline because I didn't want any one to end up with a copy with a small error in it. I want you to be happy with your purchase. I am really sorry for the hassle. But if you would like a better copy then reorder what is there now, as that is fixed. Or drop me a line and I will sort it out. But thanks for your interest and what ever you decide to do.
Anyway, I'm off to read my copy to death!
Richard
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Land Art Book
Woo hoo! The first copy of my first book has just arrived, I am so happy! Is it a bit weird to be this excited? Hmm I am not sure but there you go!
My hands were shaking when I first opened it and it was everything I wished it to be. I put so many hours into researching how best to do it, how best to process the photographs, the layout, the words and the end result is spot on. I got the photos dead right, nice and sharp, colourful and just the right brightness. How chuffed am I?! It is a bit surreal to see your own photographs in a book when you have spent so many hours gawping at the coffee table books of Andy Goldsworthy and other artists.
I am probably going to have to make a carrying case for it made from sticks, leaves and thorns so I can take it everywhere with me and I expect I will keep it under my pillow too. Unhealthy obsession, doctor? Me? Never!
You can find my book for sale here :- Land Art by Richard Shilling.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Beacon Fell Cairns
Beacon Fell Cairns, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.
This a film of the two cairns I made at Beacon Fell Country Park near Preston in Lancashire, the second was remade from the remains of the first.
Editing this footage brought back memories. I remember it was lightly snowing that day when I finished the acorn cairn. It took two days to build as I had to spend hours carrying the stone from a dilapidated wall. I remember how it was extremely precarious and sat on the soft forest floor of compacted needles I could move the whole thing in unison to and fro with very little effort. It was in perfect equilibrium but I knew it wouldn't last long. The stone was very uneven which meant it was quite difficult to get it to balance with its overhanging shape.
Oh and the other thing I remembered was to be careful of walking into trees while filming and walking in a circle or else you look like an idiot with a red lump on your forehead.
When I returned a few weeks later to see if it was still there (no not the lump on my forehead) I wasn't surprised to find that it had toppled. Whether it's demise was due to an earthquake, human assistance or depression and loneliness I will never know. And I don't know how long it had remained standing either.
But still even though it had collapsed the hard work of carrying the stone was done so I needed to make something a little more gravity/child/passer-by-who-gives-it-a-push resistant.
I drew out the circle for the base of the pyramid and completed the second cairn in a day. I was amazed when I finished as I had judged the size of the base perfectly (complete fluke) that meant that I used up all the rock from the first cairn and needed no more to complete it. I haven't been back to see it since but I suspect it has gone the way of its predecessor.
The original still shots are here:- Acorn cairn, Pyramid Cairn.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Ice Snow Sandwich Towers Film
Ice Snow Sandwich Towers Film, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.
It is very hot and humid here today so what does everyone like on a hot day? An argument? Sand in your sandwiches? Sun burn? No an ice cream of course! And I have made three just for you.
Apologies about the wind noise on this clip but my camera likes to ham it up and make everything sound like there is thunder.
The main thing I learnt when making this is that low winter sunshine lights up ice in quite a beautiful way but also that you will cast a shadow and if you don't notice and then move then it is pretty obvious where you have been standing. In the first section where my shadow tries to muscle in - it is the Cumbrian fells in the background with a fresh blanket of snow and Lancaster, Morecambe and Heysham down below.
The stacks are made from alternating layers of frozen snow and sheets of ice.
This video doesn't do justice to the quality of the light, it is easier to portray with the control that a still camera give you. I hope it comes across in this, this and this
Monday, June 22, 2009
Experimental Grass Wheel
After spending some of the day in a meadow full of wild flowers and grasses yesterday I became fascinated by the rich variety of seed heads of the grasses, the hues ranging from purple to gold, brown, red and green and I knew then that the next thing I would make would be with grasses.
Land art is like mountaineering. No really it is. Just like it. Exactly the same, no difference whatsoever.
Climbing a mountain is all about the climbing itself and not the summit. Yet you need the summit to aim for to give you the experience of climbing towards it. But the destination is nothing without the journey.
Land art is just the same, without the sculpture that you want to make there is no journey of discovery on the way. This is what this sculpture is all about. I wanted to learn about grasses. Not their latin names and which ones are related to other ones. No, I wanted to feel them, look at them, compare them with each other, search for them, admire their colours and see how many varieties I could find. I wanted to try and understand what wild grasses grow around here and find out how beautiful they are.
So off I went searching and a-wandering and found dozens of different grasses. Certainly more than I expected and each one with quite different seed heads. I found how some had different forms, how some showed several different colours during different stages and how pretty they are. Mown grass just isn't the same.
The construction of this was very difficult, dropping it a couple of times didn't help and things fell off over and over. Finally I set it up for the shot the very second that the sun dropped behind a cloud only to return when it had gone behind a tree. it just wasn't going to happen today. I am not at all happy with this picture or the sculpture, the light wasn't right and having dropped it a few more times whilst setting up and losing several pieces, the symmetry being ruined and it generally looking quite tatty it just didn't work. The background isn't right, it isn't bold or precise enough and it is slightly annoying me looking at it. I missed the perfect light by one minute and to add insult to inury I stood in some dog ****! But other than that I quite like it!
I am posting this to record my thoughts on what happened but this was certainly an experiment and nowhere near the finished article. But I hope if I can bring to fruition the idea today's searching has brought me to then it will be well worth it. Let's hope.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Cow Parsley Frond Cross
I am not sure about the Iron Cross look that I ended up with but it is a good example of how the material constrains and conspires to shape the end result.
First I made the circle in the usual way. This consists of swearing, snapping thorns, sticking thorns into ends of fingers and yelping and exclaiming "why did I say these were easy to make?" They are easy to make when everything goes well but when the stick starts to split, the thorns snap and when you have stabbed yourself more than ten times then easy is not really an apt description. It really isn't much fun making your finger tips into pin cushions.
Then I went looking for the purple cow parsley leaves. Whilst out running a couple of weeks ago I saw these leaves and was amazed at how purple they were. I just had to do something with them. Today as I walked along my running route my heart sank as I thought I had left it too long. The plants by the side of the track were dying and the purple colour had gone and the leaves had wilted quite a lot. But I persevered and eventually found more and more intact purple fronds - none of them as good as the first ones I found but that was all there was. as I walked back to my starting point I chuckled to myself as there were purple leaves all along where I thought they had died. Just shows that with whatever I make I have to get my eye in before I can see most of what is there. My senses are not switched on until I have spent some time in the environment looking for things.
I sorted through what I had collected and my original idea of attaching the leaves so that the pointed end would point outwards wasn't going to work, instead I would have to point them inwards. Also I would need to divide the circle into segments so that I could support each frond. Once I had attached the grass sticks I sorted through the leaves again and could only find four that were the right size to fit into a segment.
All these factors meant that the iron cross shape was what I ended up with. Dividing the circle to support the leaves, pointing them inwards rather than outwards and only finding four that were suitable. I suspect that I would have found more suitable leaves if I had searched last week but I didn't so this sculpture, as always, is a representation of my vision for an idea combined with what nature had offered up. Both my idea and what the material allowed me to do conspired to produce the end result. I learnt about a new colour, what techniques I needed to employ and some about the lifecycle of cow parsley. More land art lessons learnt.
So where does this leave me? The fronds were not uniform and neat enough, the colours not strong enough despite having seen stronger purple a week earlier and the sun wouldn't come out so I could display the colour more vibrantly. My next attempt may have to be next year when they grow again but what I have learnt means I have stepped onto the first rung of the ladder with this material and this idea, and next time I will improve and refine and understand a little more about what I am doing and the sculpture should be more striking. This is what land art is all about.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Waterfall Triangles
When I woke up this morning I felt singularly uninspired. The stroll I took first thing to look at what nature was growing didn't improve my mood. I did witness, however, the dog owner who lets his dogs **** all over the place without clearing it up that I mentioned last week. He's one of those people who drives away from his home then lets his dogs out to crap in someone elses back yard (not literally) then they get straight back in the car to drive home again. I suspect he might have to give up on his little scheme quite soon.
I've been wanting to move away from the leaves and light series and explore some new materials and ideas. Despite all this being just something I do for my own satisfaction I do feel some, I guess self-imposed, pressure. I don't really know where the ideas come from and I am fearful that one day they will dry up, especially if I had hit on something good with the leaf series but I cannot repeat that formula with something new. I guess we all think a little too much about things sometimes.
Yesterday I collected some very tall grasses and started to play around making 3d shapes - pyramids, diamonds, cubes - and lacking inspiration I though I would combine them with coloured leaves. At this point my doubting thoughts increased and I thought to myself "is this art? Just repeating the same formula isnt art, what new things am I learning? what new things am I discovering about nature?"
And therein lies the secret that was hidden from my conciousness this morning. There aren't any discoveries to make in the thinking or the planning or indeed the worrying. Instead you need to just "do" (I haven't been talking to Yoda honestly) and so I did. I sat down with these grasses and some thorns and just got absorbed in making all sorts of little things.
I tried and tried to make little diamonds with coloured leaf windows but it was just far too difficult. I had neither the skill nor the patience to get it right. But all the while the land art lessons you often receive when exploring a new material started to seep around the edges. For several hours I learned about these grasses, their structure and form, their pliability and what they lent themselves to be made into just by playing around with them without expectation.
And so I remembered that this is what it is all about. By trying to make things you learn many new aspects about the plant and what you can do with it. Its like a tandem race. The material shows you what you can do with it and constrains what it is possible to make and then your artistic imagination catches up and you reach a point where knowledge of the material combines into making something new that both expresses the properties of that material, what you have learnt about it and your idea for an artistic representation of all those things.
I am always saying that the material itself and how it behaves influences the final result. It isn't just that the sculpture is made out of the material it is more than that. This is going to sound really arty-farty and when I used to read this stuff when other people spouted it I thought it was total guff. But I've never been to art school or been indoctrinated to be airy-fairy, I am a computer programmer after all who studied science at school! But it really does feel like a symbiotic relationship creates each sculpture. The material, environment and nature have an influence, I have an influence and they combine to achieve the finished result. But it is more than just using the material itself. It is as though the influence nature exhibits I am aware of at the time but I don't or indeed can't control it and each material and environment that I work in and with provides a different experience. It's really hard to explain but I hope some of what I am getting at comes across. It honestly feels like nature behaves in a sentient way and influences what I am doing. Of course I realise that I am anthropomorphising nature and that isn't what is really happening. I am just trying to convey that that is how it feels and the meditative quality of getting to know a natural material in that way can be very satifying and enlightening. I think that is why I am drawn back again and again to make something new. The little discoveries it brings me to are very interesting to me and touch me deeply but in a way that is hard to express. That said that isn't always the case and sometimes it's just for fun. Perhaps these words are reflecting my current introspective mood but what I have grown to love about art is that the whole world of emotion I can feel is present in my experiences making art. I have never in my life before understood that this may be what art is all about when you experience it in this way. It has certainly quite a interesing process whatever is happening at the time.
These triangles are made from that grass I researched this morning and are the culmination of everything I have learnt.
One thing I haven't managed to learn yet is that the midges are still out in force and if you stand knee deep in a stream for a couple of hours that you will get bitten a lot. My partner and I are now covered in red blotches and we look like we have chicken pox. But was it worth it? I think so. I am not sure if my partner agrees. If you made it this far then you'll pleased to know that my arty-farty nonsense normally doesn't last too long and eventually the funny little kid that lives inside me will return. (Multiple personality disorder comes and goes).
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Oak Frost Circle Film
Oak Frost Circle Film, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.
This is another film showing a sculpture being made. You have to listen to it with the sound up or else you won't get the full "I need to go to the toilet" effect because of the sound of running water.
Ok so it isn't the most exciting film you will ever see but I hope it gives you the sense of how fussy you have to be make it look right. And therein lies a common challenge with land art but also an area of great interest to me.
Often the environment, the temperature, the atmospheric conditions change. The materials can behave differently, the wind can blow things away, the sun moves so you have to be in the right place at the right time to illuminate something.
So the experience of making something is not simply limited to finding the materials and constructing it, you have to change tack as conditions vary but these changes are also incorporated into the work itself. As well as understanding the materials you need to understand the environment too.
There are many layers to nature that can be revealed through making land art.
I started to make this circle when it was very cold and very foggy. You can see just towards the end of the making section of the footage that the sun started to break through and was hitting the centre of the sculpture with the risk that the frost would start to melt. Knowing I still had a few hours of work left to complete it I cursed where I decided to make it. Nowadays I make mental notes of where the sun is at different times of the day. It's thoughts such as these that deepen my knowledge of nature and mean more aspects of her are incorporated into what I make.
Fortunately the sun went in again and I completed it with the frost unaffacted.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
3 Colour Tear Drop
I was going to call this "Traffic Lights for Dog Owners Who Don't Clear Up Their Dog's ****" but I didn't think it was a very snappy title.
There is a cut through next to a stream where I have been doing bits and pieces of land art recently and there is new dog **** right in the middle of the path every day. I am amazed at the laziness of some people especially when they must walk their dog through there themselves and therefore probably don't want to walk in it either. The other national sport that is also a local speciality is picking your dog's mess up in a plastic bag then throwing that bag in a hedge/tree/river/pond. How exceptionally dim is that? I expect they think they are doing the right thing by picking it up but then sealing it in a plastic bag and throwing it in a tree is really going to get rid of it isn't it? It would be better off left on the ground to rot away. Still people as dim as that make the rest of us look good right?
This sculpture then was a land artists investigation into the meaning of dog ****. It was placed right above a pile of white dog poo and set exactly between two more piles several yards along the path in either direction. I did this to try and draw the viewers attention to how we interact with nature, how dog poo interacts with our environment and how we interact with the dog poo when you stand in it. Art really is such a deep and meaningful subject don't you think? What amazing revelations it can bring to you and with this "study of dog ****" I hope I have left you enlightened like only a good artist can! ;-) I think I'll probably deserve the Tuner Prize for such insight but I'll settle for the Nobel Prize for Art. I'm not fussy.
The redness of the copper beech is starting to fade now but yellows and greens are still prevalent everywhere. I was amazed how the tall grasses next to this spot have grown in a week and what I did actually learn today (I already knew about inconsiderate dog owners) is that the shrub that I get the sticks from to make the circles produces very long leafless branches right in the centre. When the lower branches are not near the sun the new growth grows long and straight so that it can reach the sunlight. These are what I used to make the arch and the teardrop as they lent themselves to that shape perfectly. I am tempted now to make some really big circles and hang them up somewhere.
Each new progression leads you on to more ideas along the same theme. It is interesting for me to see how the ideas evolve and how they culminate eventually into something new. All the while learning more about nature and the materials she provides. Finding the long branch growth was just such a discovery and that revelation meant it shaped what I made and how I made it. How the materials themselves help make the finished sculpture by constraining what you can do, how much of a certain colour there is, what shapes you can make from pliable material and so on is a big part of the interest to be found when doing land art.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
3 Colour Leaf Boxes
I guess I am supposed to write something funny now. I could tell you that I was attacked by a flock of chickens in an anti barbecue protest or that I encountered a sheep that had the same haircut as Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction but I would be telling lies. I could say that I found these boxes already made in the garden and that there is a new breed of super-slugs with designs on world domination and they are attempting to communicate with us by showing us their intelligence. 2001 has come to the mollusc world. "What are you doing snail?"
But you lot just aren't that gullible are you?
You see, the stories I tell - funny or not - are an accurate description of what happened when I was making something, I don't make them up and this morning nothing very funny actually happened. This was probably my own fault as I avoided going to the stream today as I just couldn't face the loss of blood that the savaging by the midges would result in. I think maybe I have lost all my commitment. How can I call my creations art if I won't take on a huge legion of insects? It is importantto suffer for one's art.
Anyway, I found these lovely spotted leaves this morning and just had to make something with them. They were thick and not very translucent so something not involving sunlight passing through would be in order. I've been thinking about making some more cubes so these leaves seemed perfect. There was no suffering involved, just a pleasant morning spent in the sunshine, humming to myself and making boxes. Maybe I should try it while clinging to a rock face? Would that then be art?
I assembled them and set them out on top of a small gritstone crag at Littledale. All of a sudden a sheep came up to investigate. You wouldn't believe it but it had an afro hair style (but with white wool) and looked just like Sam Jackson from Pulp Fiction! It was ever so funny, it really was, I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed until I wet myself, ha hah ha hah hahah, hah aha hhaha aha aaha haha (and breathe).
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Himalayan Rock Stack
Himalayan Rock Stack, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.
My favourite place in the world (apart from the North West of England) is Nepal. I've visited 7 times in the last 9 years, there is nowhere else quite like it. It is full of magic and wonder, soaring mountains and smiling charming people. To anyone who has not been you must, the experience will touch you deeply and you will make many friends there.
This film is a whirlwind tour of Kathmandu and the Annapurna Himalaya. The day after we crossed the Thorung La pass (5420m) I built a slate cairn to mark our passage. In the background you can see the spectacular village of Jharkot.
My heart belongs to Nepal and the Nepalis. I long to return.
Here is the still photo of the stack.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Spin-Spin Leaf Circle
This is a still shot from the film below. It's the film that really shows you what I was doing.
I have discovered that the answer to the question "am I mad" is most definitely yes.
The other day I found a new type of grass growing (to me anyway I assume it isn't a new species ;-)) that I hadn't seen before. The stems were very interesting as they were triangular in cross-section. I really wanted to make something with them. I've had an idea to make some sort of water sculpture using a waterfall for a while so I decided to make some chutes with the grass and build something to redirect the water.
We headed up to Clougha to use the stream there that has lots of steps as it descends the hill. Its been very breezy today so it seemed a suitable plan.
Someone had not told the biting midges that it was windy. Midges don't like the wind and only like to come out when it is calm. At least that is what I thought. There seems to be a new type of super-midge that is windproof and they seem to have an awful lot of brothers and sisters, children and aunties and uncles and it seemed they had ALL come out for freshly cooked meat. And I was it.
So there I was standing in the stream rigging up a frankly, quite mad heath-robinson affair with sticks and struts, troughs and chutes. Not at all my style of land art and will require quite a bit more experimentation before I get it right but it still made me chuckle. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? It is all very well if you produce a beautiful photograph at the end but this thing? What purpose could it possibly serve? One persons comedy is anothers insanity and which someone would pick if they saw me covered in biting midges, cursing and swearing at the sods, hundreds of them up my nose and in my ears with me leaping out of the stream at regular intervals scratching at bites and squishing handfulls of them while rigging up a strange water diversion device. I am not sure the diagnosis would be good.
I said to my partner "if proof was needed then this is it, I really am mad!"
"You're mad?" she replied with a roll of the eyes. "What about me? How mad am I to be standing out here getting savaged by midges watching you make that mad contraption?! How do you persuade me to come and witness your mad schemes?"
It's a fair point well made.
Anyway I am not going to show you the heath-robinson water works, no matter how much you beg. Sulking will get you nowhere. Anyone who can prove that they have spent the last hour knee deep in water getting bitten by insects may be allowed a private viewing. The rest of you won't be up to it I am afraid. It's a tough game this land art stuff you know, I want you to be fully aware how much I dice with death for my art.
Just upstream of the water works was this pool with little eddies. My leaf circle fancied a little jaunt and I was happy to oblige.
This was made for the Land Art Connections Project on 7/6/09 June Theme "Water"
Spin-Spin Leaf Circle Film, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Building an Ice Cairn
Building an Ice Cairn, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.
Grim weather here today so I have spent all day in front of the computer (the whole working week was just not enough!) trying to get my book finally done.
I wish I had gone out and made something now but I suspect if I had done then being cold and wet with numb fingers would have convinced me that I wished I had stayed indoors.
Anyway here is a film from when I made this (other pictures 1, 2, 3). It was an interesting experience building it because its form was dictated by the conditions.
I started in it the evening before and the temperature meant that the ice was a cm thick and it was possible to extract it from the pond. I had forgotten a torch so when it got dark I had to go home expecting to return early the next day. When I got there before dawn the ice was now frozen solid to the ground and I couldn't retrieve any more. I had to complete it with frozen snow instead.
The way nature dictates and constrains what you can make is another aspect of land art that you find out about through the process of making things. I suspect that these factors are not obvious by looking at the resultant photo. But when you are making something you can't make exactly what you want and because of this you learn about how the temperature, the wind, the structures of the materials and so many more things dictate what you can do.
This is why I now don't plan what I will make. I used to write notes and come up with new ideas when I am not actually making something but these days I like to just turn up and see what the materials and conditions allow me to make and that way I learn even more about nature, feel even more connected to it and better reflect those things through the end result and photo. At least that is what I hope.
This a tribute to Andy goldsworthy's cones and to all you lovers of ice cream. (Hagen Dazs Pecan and Maple is my favourite ;-))
PS. The hills at the beginning are Snowdonia behind Blackpool. And I reposted this as I wasn't happy with the first one.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Frost Rock Balancing
Frost Rock Balancing, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.
I hope that this short film will give you an idea for how precarious some of these balances are and also an overly-prolonged view of my rear end.
It was a beautiful cold and clear, frosty morning and the slabs of stone were glistening white with hoar frost. What I was attempting to do was build a balance before the sun hit it and then photograph it as the sun first illuminated it before the frost melted. So I had a little pressure to get them upright before the sun hit them but also not too early so they had a chance to fall down before it did.
The first balance I tried consisted of three layers of slabs balanced on rounded pebbles all of which was to sit on top of a single rounded pebble sitting on the slab box. You can see what I was trying to do in the first frames. You will also see that I drop the top layer onto the box, make one of the legs swing round and generally make it quite unstable. I try again only to knock the whole thing over. The sun was gradually creeping up so I had to change tack.
I changed the design to this and got it standing just in time for the sunlight to hit it.
Although I have footage of my slipping over numerous times on the frosted slabs I am not going to show you it!
