Birch Bark Squares in the Sky

Birch Bark Squares in the Sky, originally uploaded by escher....

When you make too many things in a day lots of things happen that would fit well into the story but you run out of time and inclination to write them down. I never know where my stories will meander to when I start writing it, just like my art it is an intuitive process that just comes out in one go.

Today was a day for translucency. Obviously I rejoice in sun loving leaves but I want to discover what other materials in nature are translucent too.

My girlfriend suggested bark and said that if it was thin enough the light would shine through but being a know-all and big head I dismissed it out of hand. But of course she was right, in my quest to learn new things I had already decided what I knew before I had bothered to look. How typical of so much of our everyday existence. It's so easy to make your mind up without even trying or finding out and along with it comes the feeling of righteousness which is odd because without experience how would you know you were correct at all.

Whilst I was collecting some baby sycamore seeds, their hues ranging from lime-green to pink to red, she found a silver birch tree with slivers of parchment-paper bark, so we gathered some and held it up to the light. The sun shone through to reveal shades of brown and orange, different shades depending on how thick the layers were. You could peel off each layer like a cell thick three-ply tissue and the texture was just wonderful underneath my fingertips and I will have to learn more about this fascinating material.

I created small oblongs and framed them with grass. Each straight stick of reed was cut with no plan to create natural -noughts and crosses- frames so I decided to pin them all together into a grid. Each new step lead to the next, I had no idea where each new one would lead me.

I finished making it by lunchtime and I needed the sun to be lower to get its picture so I stored it out of the elements and went on to create something new. But, just before I did that and in case it didn't last all that long I positioned it against the sky and tooks its picture anyway...