The first shoots of spring are poking through the soft earth and the sun is beginning to strengthen and the days starting to lengthen.
There really isn't a more special time of year, the air is different, the light is different, the feeling inside is different. I feel it in the pit of my stomach, like a tickle that brings a smile.
Despite our modern trappings, we are natural creatures at the mercy of natural cycles. You can hide from them behind dark glasses but the spring light will find its way around the sides of the frames. You can't ignore it, your insides want to do a jig. Unless it's raining of course, then you'll think "bloody winter, when is spring coming?!"
Well, here's my contribution for those with a sunny disposition and those without. A holly leaf sun clock, forever ticking as the cusp of a season is reached. As the globe tilts once again and our corner of the planet is bathed in lengthening light, the sun will awaken the earth and the waiting seeds within.
Well that's all very lyrical and all that, innit. But what of really clever and deep artistic things.
Art attempts to peel back the layers and reveal something unseen. I and a myriad of other artists are trying to uncover and answer all the important questions facing mankind:-
- Why will you spend ten minutes looking for the TV remote when it'll take you 10 seconds to get off your sorry arse and switch it over the old way?
- Why when someone says "say when" do we say 'when'?
- Why are lost things always in the last place you look?
- Why when the hoover won't suck something up do you pick it up and look at it, put it back on the floor and insist that it really does suck it up by running over it again and again?
- Why do we say things like "cor, the sun's really bright"?
- Why do all phone numbers in films start with 555?
I'll admit I am exhausted thinking about all these profundities. It's not all pretty leaves, sunshine and spring lambs in fields you know. It's bloody hard work and I am going stand here with my arms folded until you bloomin' well appreciate the hassles I have to go through.
Wibbly, wobbly, wibbly, wobbly (bear with me, that's a flashback TV effect, I'll have you know).
I went again to the David Nash exhibition, at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, this week. And inspiring is not the word. Such evident skill and life in his sculptures, I was absolutely enthralled. I feel like branching out into living sculptures. Watch this space.
I pondered on making something at the Sculpture Park, but didn't take anything with me so that I could. When we arrived at the car park I kicked myself, as the most amazing yellow and orange dogwood was growing between all the rows. The colours were so vibrant and strong that I immediately wanted to make something but couldn't. After re-experiencing the Underground Gallery and the texture and smell of the wood, the incredible sculpting skills of Mr Nash and a pounding heart and mind we stepped out into the fresh air to be greeted by warming sunshine. In front of us was a Holly tree, which for some reason was almost entirely yellow and pale green. With the sun shining through it, it was quite a sight and not one I had seen before. I just had to collect some of its leaves, to take home to use later.
On the day after that visit and a long day at work, I quickly made a circle from Dogwood, as mess about doodle and assembled twelve leaves onto its circumference, one for each hour of half a day. The sun was needed to finish it off so I waited until today to find it.
This wasn't the main thing I made today but as I needed to wait for the sun to make an appearance I took it along with me to photograph it. Sounds like an easy job but the clouds were not playing ball. The sun would only come out for two minutes, not long enough to set it up, point the camera in the right place and get a photo. Fortunately with more daylight to play with I had longer to get it in the can.
I am waiting to show you what else I made today, as I have left it at a popular beauty spot near Lancaster. It is easily visible from the road so I'll be interested to see if anyone chances upon it. That said, it being a beauty spot, it is also popular with people who like to leave drinks cans, smash bottles and create fires. So when I do go back there, myself, I expect it to have "Barry woz 'ere" scrawled across it or for it to wear a take away pizza box as a hat. After all, everyone's a critic.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Holly Leaf Sun Star
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The Magic Power of "Land Art Beard"
There I was minding my own business, playing around with circles of paper birch, only for JRT Pickle to emerge from behind a tree with a pile of frosted-up and clumped-together, forest-floor leaves.
Instantly embued with the eye of an artist/silliness of a five-year-old (delete as applicable), I immediately exclaimed "land art beard!" Like you do.
The wearing of a beard transforms the wearer's mind into that of a philosopher, expertly portrayed here by JRT Pickle's display of pondering. You can see in her eyes the weight of the world as she contemplates the universe's difficult and unanswered questions. If this photo was audible you would hear her utter a simple "errr-hmmmmmmm."
To witness the power of 'land art beard' was now not enough. To be in the presence of such an advanced thinker, left me with only one option. I would have to ponder from behind my own beard.
As I entered into a state of bliss, the world and my mind became one. Involuntary words spilled from my throat and I chanted "land art beard, land art beard, LAND ART BEARD!" As the ancient shamanic ritual took hold, 8 inches of bark beard descended from my chin.
The transformation was nearly complete, my body spasmed, contorted and twisted until finally the fabled 'Finger of Wisdom' emerged from the centre of my chest! It completed the circuit as the 'Finger of Wisdom' joined up with bottom of the beard of bark. At that moment there was a powerful flash and then it went absolutely pitch dark.
Slowly the world began to return. Like a tiny bulb warming and glowing, until I find myself sitting here writing these words.
"Oh trees, all you big and little ones, dumpy, spiky, shapely and runty. Oh trees, with your tendency to litter up the place in autumn and to fall on people when it's windy. Oh trees, you are so big and great and tall and stuff and pretty good at growing conkers, Oh trees, you help us out with Christmas and with growing fruit and much more besides. Oh trees, you are all pretty cool and I thought you might want to know."
Made by Julia Brooklyn and Richard Shilling for the Land Art Connections January group theme "Tree - Honour"
Behold the "Finger of Wisdom"
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Melted Ice Imprint
What's art about if it isn't about learning something? Well I learnt something. Several things actually. Will I use what I've learnt to grow and become wiser? That seems unlikely. So what did I learn?
1) Ice is very cold.
2) Icy water feels even colder.
3) Even kneeling on ice might not spread your weight enough to prevent it cracking.
4) Don't ever admit to doing something stupid. Especially not on the internet. You'll never know who might read it.
I've resigned myself to the fact that I won't ever feel confident enough in my creativity to know what it is I will make ahead of time, and I won't know how, whatever it is, will turn out. It was never an issue when noone ever saw what I make but now, a little self doubt lurks in the back of my mind, that I must make something interesting otherwise I shouldn't have bothered. Often, as I wander around some wild place somewhere (no not a bar in Blackpool on a Saturday night), I am thinking about future land art projects and the potential of different places. But always lurking there is the thought that it better be good when I get round to doing it.
On the face of it, this voice at the back of the room would seem to be a help, always encouraging me to try harder. But the weird thing is, this voice actually seems to be a hindrance. There is a subtle but important difference between "it better be good" and "I wonder if it'll be any good?"
When I listen to those words it seems to be an extra burden, a burden that makes it harder to tap into any creativity. I have no idea what creativity actually is, where it lives or how it operates. But what I do know is that you can plug into it directly if you would just relax and go with the flow. A sense of expectation of how something should be, how it ought to be, if only you tried hard enough is not where it's at. I think this is what I love about land art. As I start, the distractions, the so called "encouraging" voices just fade away and all that matters is the moment. And when enough moments join together, I often end up exactly where I wanted to be had I been thinking about it in the first place. I've said it before but it seems it is a hard lesson to learn. It's about the doing. The thinking, the planning, the expectations. None of this really helps.
So I set off, the frost crunching under my feet and doubting/encouraging voices in my head struggling to help me think of what I could do. I went to a small pool of dark water and tried to chop out some ice. Fun though that was, it didn't inspire me, so I continued to trudge up the hill. On the slopes either side of me, camo jacketed plonkers with shotguns and dogs attempted to shoot, stupid and inbred pheasants. A fitting challenge for the Saturday shotgun warriors. We haven't quite gone to the lengths of fencing in animals for rich (and fat) obnoxious clients to shoot but it isn't far off.
Now don't get me wrong, I am not hypocritical enough to suggest that shooting is completely wrong. I could only occupy the moral highground if I didn't eat industrially farmed animals and didn't ignore the fact that I couldn't kill, what I eat, myself. But I do wonder at the mentality of people who shoot animals for a hobby, as a way to relax, to let off steam on a Saturday morning. Does it make you feel manly to outwit a pheasant with a bunch of beaters, dogs and high powered weaponry? Is it simply target practice and honing a skill?
I always wonder whether they have something missing in their lives and their neuroses drive them to show off, inaudibly shouting "look at me, look at me, LOOK AT ME! I'm really, really important! I demand your attention!" Because what seems to be common amongst this activities is noise. Lots of it and the seemingly willfull need to pee off as many people as possible. Especially people who like peace and quiet!
How many examples can you think of? Here's a few for starters: riding big, powerful motorbikes around country lanes in the summer, riding jet skis across lakes and off shore, off roading on green lanes and shooting things for fun. Why oh why do all these things have to be so loud? And why do you have to do them in beautiful and quiet places and spoil the peace and quiet for so many others? Are you so lacking in empathy that you have no idea how you are spoiling it for everyone else? Or do you have a pathological need to take over places and claim them as yours to make up for your inadaquecies? I think this is one of the biggest splits in our species. The sensitive and the not sensitive. The noisy and the quiet. The considerate and inconsiderate.
So the soundtrack to my sculpturing went like this "hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" As the beaters flushed the doomed birds from the undergrowth and "KABOOM! KABOOM!" as another pheasant bit the dust. I expect that if I ever go mad that that will be the soundtrack to my insanity too. I wanted to stand on a rock and shout out "shut the hell up you noisy idiots!" to try and get rid of my frustrated feeling. But I don't think they were going to see the error of their ways so I went back to what I was doing with the frustrated feeling still present.
So what was a I doing I hear you ask?
A bank of fog was sliding in from the south, leaving the tips of the mountains poking through the sea of moisture. Unusually for an inversion, a layer of cloud lay above us too (me and the mountains) and gradually the temperature began to warm.
On another small dark pool I begun to lay out sections of frosted bracken, to make a pattern on the ice. When I leant back I noticed I had left hand prints where my body heat had melted the surface and I liked them and decided to do something along those lines instead. On all fours, I kneeled on the ice, positioning my hands to make prints in the surface, when suddenly cracks spread across the surface like fractured glass and I was about to become more acquainted with this medium than I originally planned. I had one of those Wiley Coyote moments like when he ran over the cliffs edge, only to be found pedalling in mid air. Just for a splity second gravity did not grab me and then all at once the icey water and me became intimate. I managed to extricate myself after immersing only one leg and fortunately I was wearing two pairs of trousers for warmth and had some spare socks, so pretty quickly I was dry again. I smirked to myself at being such a fool but soon found that the broken ice was fantastically clear and square edged so my foolishness had served a purpose and revealed to me the beauty of this ice.
I took a section and rounded the edges before trying to melt my hand print into it. I could only manage a little at a time before I had to rewarm my hand, so I challenged myself to count to fifty before I would put on a glove to warm up, only to try and melt some more for another count to fifty.
As the handprint begun to form I started to think about how I would be able to photograph it. The imprint was like a ghost, difficult to pin down, like a fleeting image in the corner of your eye. I put the ice back in the water but the image disappeared so I went searching for another way.
I found a slab with thick frost on it, so I melted another handprint onto it and placed the ice on top, in an effort to put a black background behind the imprint. This didn't work either. I then picked some holly berries thinking that I would squish them up and fill in the mould but that was also a failure. And then it dawned on me, bubbles underwater are very bright, especially against the dark, peaty water!
I went back to the little pool and to its twin with the unbroken ice. I put my handprint on top of it, face down so that air would be trapped and then started to ladle (I didn't actually use a ladle - who carries around a ladle?!) water from the broken pool onto the ice of the intact one. Soon effect was working and I had learnt something new about contrast and ice.
After taking some more pictures of it set against the sky, I collected my gear and head off downhill. The cretins were still shooting at anything that moved and the irritation at the noisy buggers still dwelled in the pit of my stomach.
At the bottom of the hill I sat and watched two Buzzards sitting in adjacent trees, one of which kept calling and flying to the other one, perhaps with spring on her mind. For a few minutes I watched transfixed and thought what magnificent creatures they were. As I set off again towards home I noticed that the feeling in my stomach had gone and a few quiet moments observing the wonder of nature had calmed and comforted me. That is all that is required for peace. An open mind and a moment to fill it. Perhaps the Saturday shotgunners should try it one day. They might actually like it and discover that there is another way.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Winter Solstice Sentinel - Moonrise
Here's the past week condensed. Just add water (preferably ice), leave to stand for a minute, stir and serve.
So the cold snap continues, although it is due to end in the next 24 hours and it has allowed me to do more with ice than I have before.
Apart from last year, the last ten winters have been mild with only a couple of cold ones in the previous twenty. Before that we supposedly had proper winters, those that we like to trot out whenever someone, who wasn't old enough to remember them, comments on how cold it is. "Cold? This isn't cold lad, I remember when winters were winters, and we only had one pair of shoes between the whole street. We had to break the ice in the loo when we needed the toilet. Etc etc etc."
Well, that deal is off. This winter is a proper one and seems to be breaking records all over this country and elsewhere too.
How I remember those winters, though, may not be entirely accurate. I remember the snow being deeper than we get now. And I remember the snow being around for months with no gaps. But then again I remember Christmas day taking 9 months, like a full gestation period of extreme tension to arrive, after breaking up from school for the holidays. And I guess the snow was deeper then as my wellies were only half the height of what I have today. It's the same with the mystery of the ever decreasing Wagon Wheel. Have they really got smaller? Or did they seem bigger thirty years ago because my head was smaller?
Winter Solstice Sentinel - Moonrise
So where am I going with all this? Boy, you do ask some difficult questions.
Our perceptions certainly change over time, as we get older, as we age, change and develop. Christmas now arrives at lightning speed, without the nailbitingly slow anticipation but then without much of the magic either. Although that lost magic has been replaced ten fold by everything I see around me outside in the world. Well not replaced exactly. Maintained from when I started to walk.
I've come to realise, and perhaps this is the same for us all, that the things I do for fun become anchor points for my life.
I have a pretty large record collection as I used to DJ at raves, clubs and parties in the '90's and just recently I've been recording my vinyl onto my computer and relistening to a whole load I've not listended to for twenty years. It's brought back many memories of when I first heard or played a particular record. Anchor points aplenty.
After my DJ'ing exploits I got into the outdoors: walking, exploring, trekking and climbing with lots of trips to mountain ranges the world over. There were many sublime, intense and unforgettable experiences. Yet more anchor points.
And now it is land art. When I think back to what I have created, I can remember each day, each sculpture, how the day felt, what I saw, experience and learnt. Anchor points amore.
And yet the stuff in between? The working, the snoozing, the watching TV. The driving from A to B, the time on the internet, the dreaming of being and doing something else. These all fade soon after the event. These things are not my life, not me, not remembered. And yet? They probably make up the majority of my time alive.
How many questions does this raise? So many, so many...
Can you experience those anchor points without the drudge in between? Can your whole life be anchors, or is it just too much hard work for every one of us who isn't a maverick or an extreme character. The trouble is real life is the thing that is happening while you try and work out these answers. There are no rehearsals.
Winter Solstice Sentinel - Sunrise
And so this past week I have been anchored.
I made this sculpture on the day before Christmas Eve and it took a week to prepare. Each night I created six ice discs and in the morning stacked them with layers of snow in between. I would leave each stack to freeze and begin on the next set of six discs. Over the next five nights I ended up with thirty discs made into five ice/snow stacks. One lunchtime I walked to a favourite spot of mine where I knew large icicles grew. In fact the place where I got the icicles for
this and this.
After this long cold snap, the icicles were more plentiful and larger than I have seen them before, so I took one of the longest, finest and most elegant and set about cementing it to a disc with slush for glue.
Each night that I was outside doing this, the air was cold and clear. The sky was a deep, navy blue with pin pricks of sparkling light, the planets and stars perfectly positioned as if never changing and from behind the bank of trees in front of me, the moon would rise turning the navy blue to royal.
I had in mind the Land Art Connections theme for December - Past, Present and Future, or, at least in hindsight I realised that what I was making spanned the winter solstice and how it connected this season to the next. As the shortest day is reached the days begin to lengthen once again and spring seems not so far away.
The more land art I do the more entranced and enchanted with change, cycles and the interconnectedness of all things, I become. Everything seems to be a wave. As daylight hits the bottom of the curve it bounces back up again to life and colour aplenty, until the top of the wave sends it back down again. These things can be seen everywhere in nature. This cold snap is to do with another cycle, a cycle of the movement of the air over the North Atlantic.
If it wasn't for this cold air and this regular cycle I couldn't have made this sculpture. It wouldn't have been below freezing all day and my discs would have melted. It wouldn't have been cold enough at night to completely freeze the discs and to stick ice to ice in time for the morning. If the cold snap wasn't consistent and long lasting I wouldn't have managed to make thirty discs and it wouldn't be as tall.
I've long wondered whether artists are aware of the concept they are trying to convey before they embark on creating something. I cannot speak for others but for me it comes out after the fact as though the simple act of creation opens the mind. I am fully prepared to learn something and have something deep within revealed, when I stand in front of another artist's work. That, to me, seems to be the formula:
- Artist comes up with idea
- Artist creates something with meaning
- Audience views art
- Mind is stimulated
- Meaning is revealed
But it seems it is much, much more complex than that.
Winter Solstice Sentinel - Sunrise
I am discovering that when I create something I am as much the audience as I am the artist. Only after I have created something do I look back and see what meaning is there, it is not with conscious effort that I put the meaning into it and yet I find it after the fact. Does that mean there is actually any meaning if I don't put it in with conscious effort? Gawd only knows, but it fascinates me nonetheless.
And there was more meaning in this to be discovered yet.
Winter Solstice Sentinel - Collapsed
I took the five barrels of snow and ice to a frozen tarn high up on a moor and stacked them up until it was about six foot tall. Lastly I place the final disc with its unicorn horn on top. The moon was once again rising, first very large and foreshortened as it breached the horizon, gradually lessening as it tracked across the sky. The sentinel stood tall and the sharp icicle pointed directly towards the moon as though connected to the heavenly body. I took pictures before pouring water over it, in the hope it might freeze more solidly overnight. I set off home and a Little Owl spooked from the road perhaps looking for moisture from the gritted road surface.
Before dawn I returned to witness the sunrise after the moonrise hours before. Like a series of interconnected lights, each disc lit up orange one by one as the first of the sun's rays pierced each disc in turn, until finally it was illuminated from top to bottom. It was quite a sight to see. It had developed a quirky lean, much like the tower of Pisa but still remained frozen in place. I was surprised but very pleased that I got to witness it again at sunrise. I left it again hoping to see it intact once more for the sunset.
With trepidation I returned at 3pm to find it had collapsed. The sun had melted its icy bonds and Pisa could lean no more. I stacked up what was left so that I could see the light play across the discs, as the sun dropped behind the horizon. I have to say the hastily erected sculpture, made from the remains, did not have an appealing look. I toyed with entitling it "Christmas Phallus" but I don't think I could avoid accusations of schoolboy humour, even if I pretended that I was trying to remark on both Christian and Pagan symbology!
Winter Solstice Sentinel - Sunset
Despite its collapse and the hope of seeing it properly for sunset, the most intense part was still to be experienced. As I stood and watched the sun sink down below the frosty horizon, I was overcome with a feeling of vertigo, of tipping backwards, spinning and falling. I know it is obvious to us all that the sun does not rise or set in reality but appears to, as our planet spins. But in this moment instead of knowing that truth, I felt it, deep within the whole of my body.
As the sun disappeared I felt the earth tipping backwards, turning away from the stationary sun. The overpowering vertigo made me feel the rotation of the earth so much more vividly than I have ever before. It was quite strange and intense.
Land art is all these things. It isn't just using nature's materials to create something. It uses natures's cycles and patterns and flows to cast its magic touch on whatever you try to create. Without a week of temperatures constantly below zero, it wouldn't have been possible. Made across the winter solstice, it connected one year of seasons with the next. Early evening moonrise meant that it had time to freeze before dawn so that its lean would not mean its demise, at least not until the sun had melted it slightly. And combination of all these things allowed me to feel something I already knew. As to feel something is so much more powerful than to know it.
And now I feel the rotation of the earth and how I am connected to it a little more than I did before.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Autumn Beech Leaf Curtain - After a Month
So it seems, even though our climate is warming we still have weather, and we are sure getting some in the UK at the moment. I saw a long term forecast in November and it said December would be colder than average, whilst January and February will be warmer. Unfortunately I am feeling pretty lazy at the mo' so I have not been making the most of the cold to get out and make something. Instead I'm enjoying getting out of bed late and spending all day eating mince pies. Nice work if you can get it.
Anyway back to the weather. It is normally quite mild where I live, as on the west coast we are warmed by the atlantic. It was the coldest I'd seen it here, a few weeks ago, at minus 6 celcius. Nothing in the great scheme of things but if it is that cold here then eleswhere it will be really, really cold. Today it's been -2 all day so far, and I've not seen that before here either.
So is it climate or is it simply weather? Apparently El Nina is having an affect and I wonder whether ash from the Icelandic volcano (I won't try and spell it) is cooling the temperatures over Europe? Even in my little brain there seem to be so many different variables when it comes to modelling our atmosphere and what it may drop upon us. It just brings it home to me even more, how something impossible to predict and understand could push it all out of sync and we might make this place uninhabitable for ourselves, let alone the polution and greed and waste we so palpably do understand and can predict and the affect that is having. I always scoff when I hear the phrase "save the planet." Let's face it if we weren't here at all, the planet would look after itself. We don't want to save the planet, we want to save ourselves.
All this cold weather is not seducing me away from the mince pies though, although I did spend an hour walking around a tree creating a giant spiral in the snow, it was perhaps 100m across, fun but not very photogenic so there's no permanent record after the snow has melted.
So I really should be making the most of the low temperatures. When I was on form making winter sculptures last year, I craved really low temperatures so I could get ice to stick to ice but it wasn't ever cold enough. I am trying to build up a head of steam though, but I do have the feeling once I get into first gear (I'm currently in neutral) that there may be a thaw.
Still the choice is mine and land art and how I try to live my life are the same. It's all about going with the flow. When I create something I use what I find, I am guided by the elements and the temperature, the light and location all play a part. You cannot force it to be something that it isn't. It is the same for each and every one of us. It is always best to follow the line of least resistance. To listen to how you feel inside and accept it as good advice. If you want to run around like a loon then do so! If you want to hibernate surrounded by a circular wall of mince pies then so be it!
So I don't mind feeling lazy, it is just the way it is. When will it change? Perhaps never!
Anyway it is pretty obvious that there isn't much snow and ice in this picture. This was taken before the winter properly arrived.
What the eagle eyed among you may realise is, this is actually this. I'd brought it home and left it in the garden and it had survived heavy rain, frost and gales for 27 days. It had blown around the garden quite a bit and I found it in a heap in one corner . All I wanted to do was recycle the thorns, that is why kept it and I was a bit taken aback to find it nearly intact. So I repaired it as best I could and went looking for a little, low winter sunshine.
I watched as a branch cast a shadow across the leaves, drifting across the whole thing as our planet spun on its axis, like a windscreen wiper in hyper-slow. Everything is a cycle. Some quick, some slow. Everything is interconnected. Snow events, laziness, mince pies, enthusiasm and autumn leaves faded to brown in winter. Where something ends, something begins. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Tornado Cairn
I watched a fascinating TV program, the other day, about illusions, the inner workings of the brain and perceptual psychology.
I've seen plenty of optical illusions before but presented here were also auditory and touch illusions too. There was even something about the development of wholy new senses.
Since I was small I've been fascinated by perception and would ponder to myself about riddles like "how do you know what colours others see?" We use language as a way of communicating an idea, thought or feeling from one person to another. But in order to do that you need to reach an agreement on what those words mean. Through education and reinforcement from the moment you are born everyone is telling you how the world is. We must start off as a relative open book but everyone we come in contact with teaches us the shared world view of our culture. This is a table, that is a chair, this is how to behave, that isn't acceptable and so on.
Whenever any of us encounter a baby we get eye contact and talk to them. First of all with simple language (cue silly baby voice) 'hello baby, hello baby!' - "you are a cute one, aren't you? Yes!" Every person an infant comes in contact with is reinforcing how the world is, taking a mass of jumbled, interconnected neurons and weaving them into a map that describes the world as we know it. It happens to us and now we do it to others, its how we keep our culture and community together.
So when I see red I have no idea whether you will see blue but call it red. Agreement was reached when you were young that the word red is used when you see a particular colour so that we can communicate and agree regardless of what you actually "see" in your mind. But then perhaps that is the crux of it. How much of what we believe, know and see is our culture that is taught to us and how much is actual reality? Well , we perceive a very narrow part of the electromagnetic spectrum and in quite a narrow way too. Blue or red light isn't actually blue or red, it is made up of photons travelling at extremely high speeds but our visual cortexes see red and blue and we have designed words for these perceptions so that we can agree on what they are. It is this agreement that is reality, it is all of us reinforcing what we agree and what we perceive, through talking and education and learning. That is what our reality actually is.
Some people think that babies actually have a much wider perception than we have and that through this constant reinforcing, that perception is gradually narrowed until they see the world as it has been described to you.
I read somewhere once, about the differences between western and eastern culture and how important language is. Western languages are very object based but Chinese, for instance, is much more about actions and events. This colours how we see the world. Westerners predominately understand the world as made up of things, whereas the Chinese see it as movements from one state to another.
I don't know how true that is, as I am a product of my western upbringing. I can't step out of my worldview to see how others see things but the concept is fascinating nonetheless.
So on this TV programme, I watched, there was this blind guy who loved riding his bike. He had been blind from birth and quite remarkably he had developed the ability to echo locate. He would use his tongue to send out a flurry of clicks and bounce them off things just like a bat or a dolphin. He had honed this skill so he could cycle around and not crash into anything. He said that his brain created a picture in his head and he could 'see' where he was going.
At a university they devised an experiment where they created a belt that would detect the direction of north and give you a little nudge in your midriff whereever it was pointing. After a few weeks of wearing the belt volunteers brains had adpated to use this information, without being aware of how it was happening, to navigate blindfold around a maze.
So it seems the brain can adapt to new types of sensory input, and it uses this information to create models of the world outside without us having to try.
A clip was shown where someone said the word "bah." After seeing him say this the moving image was replaced with the same person saying "fah" but the audio continued to be "bah" but whilst you are watching him speak it sounds like "fah", as soon as you close your eyes (and am not seeing him say "fah" anymore) then you hear "bah" again. It seems your eyes override what you hear with what you see. It is called the McGurk effect. Look it up on Youtube to see what I mean.
They asked the question "is seeing believing?" And the answer came back as "you don't believe what you see, in fact, you see what you believe."
Only 10% of what our brains receive through the eyes makes up what we see. The other 90% is made up of other parts of our brain which are creating a model of what we think the world to be. Illusions fool us because we are unable to get past What is in our heads, how we believe the world to be. The 10% of optical information that reaches us is just that, a small part of what we think we see. So an illusion cannot override what we believe the world to be. Even when we know how an illusion works we are still unable to stop seeing that illusion.
When we dream we can create fantastical worlds and universes full of life and colour and mythical creatures. Every bit as real to us, as our wakeful world, when we are in the midst of the dream. This is that 90% of our visual brain creating a world just for us. There is no light passing through our eyes and yet the world is as rich and as complex as when we are awake.
So where do we get our wakeful world from? Well I come back to my starting point, how that world is described to us by everyone we encounter whilst we are infants.
Belief is a very powerful thing. We are quite convinced that how we see the world is actually how the world is. But with the brain filling in so many of the gaps how can it be. And yet without our strong belief we would likely be insane, unable to piece together our perceptions into a world that it is possible to live in. This strong belief is something we all share, it is just the details of what we believe that leads us to differ.
Our belief feels so strong to us that we feel it is easily possible to get someone else to believe what we believe. "What I believe IS reality, so surely when I tell you about it you will see reality too?" But if what you believe is different to the person you are telling then there reality is different to yours and they think you are the one that has it wrong.
So much energy is expended in this world trying to convince others of the true reality of the world, whilst missing the fact that your reality is only what you believe. If we spent more time worrying about ourselves and not trying to put the world to rights then I think what we share would be a better place. The downfall of the human race is the "I am right" attitude, and the need to educate all others as to where they are going wrong.
Land art, for me, steps outside of all this. I simply sit down and make something without caring whether it is right or correct or is it how it should be. It just is.
Several times I have had it said to me, that a stack like this one is faked: stuck with glue, photoshopped or whatever. This says much more about the people that say that than it does about me. They are unable to believe something may be possible, their assumptions limit what they can achieve, they are held back by the limits they place around themselves. This is their reality, what they believe. Through this belief then that is what they see. A fake picture. But it strikes me that it is an issue of trust that colours everything they do, a sense of entitlement to attention from the world, leads them to assume that if someone achieves something then they must have cheated in some way. A sad way to be, I think. Isn't it much better to believe that anything may be possible? Even if that can't be the case, isn't life sweeter if you at least open your mind to the possibilities? How sad is your world if you have already decided what is and isn't possible before you have even tried? And yet this is the reality for many people.
I believe that everything that's worthwhile in the world should be about just being. Making something, taking a walk, tending to the garden or just watching clouds float by. If you put your energy into trying to convince the world that you have all the answers and if only they would listen a moment, then you could explain it to them and they would understand, then I think you are missing the point.
Which I guess is quite ironic, seeing as I am sitting here doing just that. But then I guess I am lucky that my upbringing allows me to try and see the magic in the world and not to believe that everyone is taking you for a ride and cheating you out of what you deserve. Or even more insiduously, not being a person who has already decided what is and isn't worthwhile to be spending your time doing without having even tried my hand at any of it.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
3 Ice Leaf Circles (3 Little Inuit in a Row)
3 Ice Leaf Circles (3 Little Inuit in a Row), originally uploaded by escher (hibernating)...but out of my cave.
I couldn't think of a decent title. But to me these look like three little Inuit, shoulders and heads sticking out of the snow. Faces peering from a fur-rimmed hood, protected from the icy elements.
What would you like to do on a fine winter's day?
Just recently (like the last few years) I've found it tough to get out of bed at anything like an early hour. I used to leave for work at six am and was always going out on some adventure or another at dawn. But these days the cosiness of my bed is hard to tear myself away from and now I have cotton wool between my ears. That probably was already the way, but the new batch is much fluffier and full of air than before.
So what's up? Laziness, age, hibernating tendencies, a phase or just enjoying my life? I have no idea. Will it pass? Perhaps, perhaps not. It seems we change throughout our lives and we never stay the same person. Maybe I'll be even more lazy in the future or start to get up at 4am every day.
The reason I am writing about this is because today was a good day. I've just had two mid-week days off and been very lazy. But I remarked to my partner earlier, that despite lazing about in bed all morning that we still got a lot done. She said that she had been thinking the same half an hour before. This was as we trudged back down the hill, rosey-cheeked and contented after a few hours skiing and sculpture making.
Yesterday we visited a place called Dallam Tower Park, walked though the snow, gazed across to the mountains plastered white with an arctic coat and watched the Fallow Deer shelter beneath the trees. Whilst children sledged the slopes, we fell silent as the meditation of a beautiful walk sunk through to our souls. It didn't matter that we didn't walk for too long, it felt timeless nonetheless and a bowl of tomato soup, bread and fresh basil was a fitting rejoinder.
Today we went back again and took skis, and leaf discs of ice. Whilst I carved circles from the snow, Julia zig-zagged down the slope with a big grin on her face.
When it began to snow quite heavily once again, skiied out and sculpture in the can, we headed home again for tea and chocolate biscuits (it is a hard life), happy and contented once again.
I guess the moral of this story is that I hate to waste a day doing nothing. But then again, I like doing nothing sometimes. But doing nowt, may leave you feeling guilty that you achieved nowt. So how enjoyable it is to get up late, have a leisurely breakfast, take your time and relax into the day. Only then to go out make a sculpture, ski the slopes and still return home early so that another relaxing evening can be squeezed in before work comes around once again.
Perhaps it's luck, perhaps the wintry conditions bring out my happy soul within, but when it feels right, having a lazy day where you achieve something just feels the best of all worlds. Now if only I could do that everyday. Now where did I put my lottery ticket?
3 Ice Leaf Circles (3 Little Inuit in a Row), originally uploaded by escher (hibernating)...but out of my cave.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Red Oak Ice Disc
Back out of my cave to see autumn touch winter.
We've had some really low temperatures (for around here) over the last week and the earliest, widespread snow since the mid-nineties. Quite a lot had been dumped on the east, but over here in the west it had only made it to the higher hills. I was hoping that the cold lasted until the weekend so that I could emerge from my cave and experience the changes associated with the freezing point of water. I was in luck but also, when I opened the curtains this morning, there was a dusting of snow on the ground here too.
I find it fascinating how we live in a thin sliver of conditions. On a blue planet clothed in the thinnest of atmospheres and neither too far nor too near to our warmth giving sun. We all need water to live and yet it must be at a temperature to be a liquid. We sit in the middle between our kettles and refrigerators, occupying a slender space where we neither boil nor freeze.
Water is such an interesting substance, with its very own unique properties. But even in a simple game of aesthetics, it too, has exquisite beauty. Clouds, glaciers, icebergs, rivers, oceans. What else can really be said.
And so when I began to think about ice sculptures last night it dawned on me how important the transience of nature (and perhaps everything) is to me and my art. I've still been making sculptures and writing stories at the same rate that I always have, but I haven't been publishing everything. But anything that I have held back to be published later loses its potency for me once the day has passed. The anticipation, the going, the doing, the photographing, the storytelling, the sharing. All those things go together to form my art and once the day I did it on has passed, I only look forward to the next sculpture.
All of this got me thinking, about what the attraction of ephemeral land art is. And ephemeral is the key word here.
I used to do a lot of climbing. I wasn't very good and I always was very scared but still I chased after some difficult challenges to see what I was capable of. Climbing is addictive and the reason is is how the whole of the rest of the world falls away when you are on the sharp end, trying to hold it together, as you make life or death decisions. Of course you take safety measures to ensure that you reduce the risk and everything is not really a life or death decision. But often that is exactly how it feels.
Many times I have been climbing something and I have reached a point where I can no longer go up, but also I couldn't down. With many other activities you could just give up, say I have had enough, and go home. But with climbing you are playing a game where that isn't always an option. Sometimes you have to have a word with yourself and do something that every sinew is telling you cannot. If you cannot then you just go to pieces which just lands you in even more trouble but with the stakes so high, you soon discover inner reserves and the will to use them.
This all might sound melodramatic but it is, in my opinion, the main reason why people go climbing. I often felt the presence of my imminent death on very easy climbs that others could climb with their hands in the pockets and wearing wellington boots. But to me it was the hardest thing in the world and how other people could tackle it didn't matter to me as I pondered what injuries I might receive if I were to fall off. But if you can keep it together in the midst of this fear, the corner you have backed yourself into will give you freedom, as you have no easy choices and if you did you'd always take the easy option. When the easy options are removed, life becomes more vibrant and clear and you feel like you are truly living.
Now don't get me wrong. Land art isn't exactly about life and death. Well of course it is all about nature's cycles but it is rare I have had to face the consequences of death when choosing between an oak or beech leaf. Fortunately I only have to worry about ladybirds and rabbits and not grizzly bears.
But this train of thought is leading me back to the transience of nature and of experience in particular.
I don't produce land art images. No, I have experiences out in nature. Observing and experiencing what I find, discovering new things and wondering at what else is out there. A finished photo is just a byproduct like oxygen emerging from a photosythesising leaf.
I love ephemeral land art. I want to experience what I experience as I make something. And once that is done the experience is over and I am happy just to leave it to decay.
Someone once said to me "don't you feel like it is waste putting so much effort into something that may last only a few minutes?"
It is not a chore to put yourself wholeheartedly into something you enjoy, to feel connected with it, experience its intensity and have nothing but the memory left afterwards. We all do just that with many things we love every single day.
I take pictures to remind me of the experience just like a holiday snap of the family eating ice creams on the beach. But without the photo the ice cream was still lovely and the sun strong on your face, your shoulders and back.
Unless of course your beach holiday is in Britain, then your ice cream wil be full of sand and replace the word 'sun' with wind.
All of life is really about experience, the here and now, what you see, what you feel and learn. So as I pondered what to do with the ice last night, I came to realise that I am inspired when the anticipation of doing something new and interesting comes along. It isn't about thinking how to create a new style of image, but simply seeing a new colour, a new leaf or a new ice crystal spread across the water's surface. When something like that has me excited, then it seems it leads to a nice, new sculpture. But it doesn't matter what then happens as all I am doing is waiting for the next thing, that has me thinking 'well, just what can I make with that?'
I wanted to do a timelapse of it melting, but it was too cold and stayed frozen even in the sun. But still I liked how the light changed, you can see that below.
Rowan Ice Disc Timelapse, originally uploaded by escher (hibernating)...but out of my cave.
