Leaf Lightning

Leaf Lightning, originally uploaded by escher (waiting no longer).

Earlier this week I went for a stroll around the university campus as it is only a few minutes away. There were lots of new students arriving with demeanours ranging from shocked looking to abject excitement. I joined the latter group when some wonderful maples caught my eye as they were resplendent with all the colours of a New England fall. That isn't usual with the trees in this country and I could barely contain myself. However they were all just out of reach. Hmm I thought how am I going to get to them?

Right that second the director of facilities walked past busily texting on his mobile (a bit of a coincidence seeing as I have only met three people who work there and very handy as he is the one who can give me permission to collect leaves). I bounded over to him and excitedly exclaimed "is it okay if I get a ladder and collect some of these leaves?!"

I don't think he recognised me immediately and unsurprisingly he was a bit taken aback. "Err yes, no-one will mind, feel free." I guess dealing with students leaves you a little desensitized to mad behaviour.

I am not used to asking for permission to be eccentric nor having it granted and this made a nice change so I returned the next day with a ladder and a stick and began plucking down the colourful lovelies err I mean leaves.

I woke up this morning and the image of this sculpture lingered in my mind as it must have been the subject of my last dream. I've been dreaming about land art all week and I think I am back in the groove again.

When I arrived at the place I was going to make it I searched for a place to gather some peat. Everywhere I tried there was nothing but curled up millipedes and thick roots, this wasn't going to work. So I climbed over the dry stone wall and surveyed the side of the stream and found a good spot for nice wet and dark peat.

I piled what I collected onto several flat stones and balanced them on top of the wall and then I clambered back over to where I was going to make the peat canvas.

I used the maple leaves I collected from the Uni campus and sealed them in with more black mud and this is the result.

On the way home a black wild rabbit ran out in front of me. Is that some sort of omen? I know about black cats but I have never seen a black rabbit before but I think I will decide that it means that this wonderful spell of glorious weather is going to last at least a couple of weeks. Happy weekend all!