The doing of things for their own sake

When I stayed in the woods I started a little personal project.. something I’ll likely never show anyone, just for me.. a little bit of performative dance responding to the shapes of the trees. I’ve just seen these exquisite photos by Louis Fleckenstein (thanks to @sardonicus.eu who posts wonderful stuff over on Bluesky) I’m never as original as I think I am.

Behold this joyousness..

(I’ll share these in lieu of my own, because like I say, just for me.)

Not that I was especially striving for originality. I will continue with my project. It was more about the doing of it than the results anyway. I’m not a very performative person day to day, but when I’m on my own, or hyper-focused on what i’m doing, yes. And sometimes often I have no shame, quite happy to seemingly make a fool of myself in order to do what I want to do. The woods were pretty quiet at that time in the morning, but there was this same old guy who seemed to be always coming up the path just as I was climbing out of the underbrush. So, probably the only person who will ever see what I did that day.

This is the sort of thing I have been revelling in lately, this idea of doing things for their own sake. Since I’ve been spending less and less time online, and particularly since detaching myself from instagram and twitter, there’s no longer this insane pressure to share everything I do. I’ve been able to work and explore new ideas and experiment and do stupid things for no reason knowing that I do not have to show anyone any of this stuff. It’s mine. It doesn’t matter. It totally matters. It exists without needing to be applauded or commented on. It gives me time to look at it properly and not have to decide yet whether or not I like it.

It’s pretty nice. I recommend it.

More Louis Fleckenstein over here.. https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/103KCX by the way

Ghost flowers

Took the Pinsta out again, down to the garden of the gallery where I work. These are unevenly developed, yes, and the chemicals were tired and the flowers were blowing about in the wind and I like all of that.

How I spent my time alone in the woods

Last week I went alone to a cabin in the woods. Two precious evenings spent tending the fire, looking out the windows, listening to CDs, listening to the birds, reading, watching the light fade behind the trees, waking with the light, and one long long day to be outside on my own, to walk, to split wood, and to try out my new pinhole camera.

I lost track of time, but I also recorded time. Kept a diary. Here you go.

Wednesday 10th April

18:55 - I arrived here at 4pm. I have already cooked and eaten my dinner. (pasta, mushrooms, chilli pesto, plenty of cheese) I had a sturdy fire going but I’m letting it go down a bit as it’s got very warm in here. Drinking margaritas from a tin cup. I can hear the woods. Birds. A woodpecker. Gentle spatter of rain. The light is starting to fade.
From my two corner windows, from the bed, I can see trees. Five silver birches. And plenty of others. In front of the cabin the ground drops away, and beyond the treeline is a field, bright in the last of the light. Inside the cabin, the bed takes up the whole of one end. The wood stove next to it, a table to my right, a small kitchen counter. The bathroom takes up the other end. There is a CD player, a lantern, a bag of firewood. It’s nice not having a lot of things around me. I’ve hidden my own things under the bed. I have already washed up and tidied the kitchen. I have finished my margarita and am wondering if I will have another. If I should listen to a CD, or read a book, or just sit and look out the window.

19:16 - Decided to put on a CD. Decided to listen to what was already in the machine - The Beatles “Let It Be, Outtake Highlights”. I think maybe now is the time I will get into the Beatles.

19:51 - I did not get into the Beatles. I am now listening to the birds: blackbird, wren, robin.

19:57 - Now listening to the best of REM

20:16 - It is nearly dark. It is basically, dark.

21:20 - Ready for bed. I have a cup of tea and am about to read. “Checkout 19” by Claire-Louise Bennett. And then I will sleep.

Thursday

07:30 - Awake and up trying to get a fire going. The kindling is still damp. I’ve got a cup of tea and a pack of chocolate digestives.

09:30 - I’ve been drinking tea outside on the porch, speaking to R on the phone, and now I am dressed and ready and going for a walk.

09:35 - My phone needs charging, and I need my phone for the map so I don’t get lost, so I’m not going yet. Splitting wood for tonight’s kindling instead.

10:30 - Went for a walk. I walked to Hammer Pond, and around to the other side. I’ve seen the monastery, saw the weir, overhead power lines glitching in the water, buddhas in the trees, a wood anemone. I photographed every fork in the path and every gate, and distinctive tree to record the way back because I didn’t quite trust in the map and the phone signal, so now my photo stream is full of photos like this

and this

and this

and I did not get lost.

12:00 - Back at the cabin now, sitting outside, just had something to eat. Slice of bread, avocado, Double Decker. Getting a bit cold. Going to put my boots back on and set up the Pinsta I think.

17:48 - Back indoors now. Got a cup of tea and the fire going. I’ll make dinner in a bit. Spent the last five hours with the pinhole camera.

The path leading to the cabin

15 minute double self-portrait, if you can make it out, I’m there, leaning forward reading (“In Watermelon Sugar” again, again) and then also leaning back against the tree not reading, and listening to the birds.

15 minute self-portrait listening to “No Motion Picture” by Eberhard Weber. The exposure was 15 minutes, but the song is 19:38 long. My face is blurred because I couldn’t get my head comfortable resting against the tree trunk. Motion picture.

I have had a beautiful day.

My fire is going nicely. I will drink my tea and write some notes and then cook dinner. Same as last night. Might not bother with the mushrooms. Might bother.

I pratted about to Belle and Sebastian while the pasta cooked. I ate my dinner. I drank tea and read more of “Checkout 19” which is an excellent book. I wrote my diary. At some point I went to bed and slept soundly.

Friday

I woke at 6 and opened up the blinds and watched the trees for a while. Got the fire going and the kettle on, and started to pack. Got the place in order and went for a short walk, and spent the last of my time with the pinhole again. Then an hour left to get the last bits packed away and back in their places and then at 11, R came to collect me.

Rhythm practise

My loft//studio space now has a wonderful new drum kit majestically installed right next to my desk and I’ve found this is working out quite nicely.. because I’ll go up to play the drums and end up working on some art, or I’ll go up to work on some art and end up having a good practise session instead. My procrastination has been tricked! I went up yesterday to practise, and the typewriter was still out from something I was doing last week so I ended up doing some of this instead.

The Hum across the Fifth Continent

Yes, of course I have a thing about Dungeness. And a thing about pylons. I am a cliché.

But Dungeness is a truly special place. We stayed a few days for my birthday last year, and so got to spend a good time walking. One day we walked out into the shingle desert beyond the power station and the power lines, the silence and the sun beating down relentlessly intense. It was nice. We ate bread and cheese in the shade of the only tiny stand of trees out there, and wished we’d brought more water and some sunscreen.

So a few weeks ago I was having a very unproductive and frustratingly slow day in the studio, trying too hard and not really liking anything I was doing and really starting to question a lot of things. I was giving up, starting to pack up and then found a tetrapak plate I’d completely forgotten I’d made the day before, drawn from a photograph taken on that walk. I had half an hour to be cleared up and out of there but I wanted to see what it might look like. So I made two very hasty dirty prints on scrap paper, made without thought or any due care and attention to inky fingerprints, and this one came out like this and I like it.

Two group shows for winter

I will have work in two group shows in December…

Portal I is showing at Orleans House Gallery winter show running from 2 December 2023 until the 28 January 2024

And we are having an open studio christmas exhibition at Kew Art Studio, where I will be showing one of the stone prints from Exiled Souls, along with a new cyanotype piece and one of my polaroid emulsion lifts, 1st – 3rd December

Opening night for both is on Friday 1st December.

Sill trying

I have been working on this print on and off for the last few months. It’s proving tricky to get the exposure times right. And I’m not the most methodical person, so my experimenting is a bit slap-dash. I might be getting closer though..

ARCHIVIA at Edinburgh Short Film Festival

My husband Ross A Wilson’s film ARCHIVIA will be screening at the Edinburgh Short Film Festival on Saturday Oct 28th. I can not overstate how much I love this film – I worked as stills photographer and executive producer for this and the whole experience was pure deep topographical strangeness from start to finish. Combining archival footage from the National Library of Scotland with improvised performance by Jamie Robson, ARCHIVIA lets landscape drive narrative in an experimental film about industry's impact on memory and landscape.

ARCHIVIA website

Venue: Summerhall Edinburgh - Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Dates: Saturday, October 28, 2023 - 19:30

Dreams of Exiled Souls

Our group exhibition The Dreams of Exiled Souls opened this weekend. I was busy having too good a time and took disappointingly few photos.. so I also forgot to get any of me with my work but there is this one that Clare Archibald took where I’m considering the correct arrangement of things during the installation.

The private view on Friday went very nicely despite the incessant rain and it was so good to meet everyone. Many thanks to David at Chroma Editions for bringing together such a beautiful show and for inviting me to be part of it along with some really excellent people.

Links to the online places of the other artists..

Clare Archibald
Richard Baker
David Banning
Julian Hyde
Neil Jackson
Joanna Pocock
Iain Sharpe
Louise Smith
Isabella Streffen

The show runs until 4th November. If you’re in Kendal please go along and see it at Cross Lane Projects, Cross Lane, Kendal, LA9 5LB

Poster artwork and design by David Banning of Chroma Editions

Group Exhibition - October 2023

I'm very happy to have 5 pieces in this group show in Kendal, Cumbria in October.

“The Dreams of Exiled Souls brings together ten UK-based artists and writers to respond to conversations around fractured terrains in increasingly broken social, cultural and political systems. Visitors are encouraged to reconnect to everyday life by journeying into mystery, mythology and folklore.

Negotiating boundaries, artist pilgrimages, Covid lockdowns, landscapes and even the atmospheric sounds of Scottish rock band Mogwai, The Dreams of Exiled Souls questions the constraints placed on the ‘body politic’.

Curated by Chroma Editions, the exhibition centres on a lingering sense of loss and the awareness that everything will eventually be consigned to ‘an archive of memories.”

The Dreams of Exiled Souls runs from October 7th – November 4th at Cross Lane Projects

https://www.creativetourist.com/event/the-dreams-of-exiled-souls/

Experiments in cyanotype

My phone gave up the ghost last week. I cannot describe the overwhelming feeling of joy and relief when I saw that flashing glitching apple logo. I've had seven glorious days of freedom. No email, no text messages, no to do list reminders, no alarms, and no surprises. I've read so much. I've done my work. I've got so much work done.

Here's a quick and scrappy cyanotype from the end of a long day of experimenting. I've been working on another image for the last few weeks but it's taking longer than expected to get right and I was starting to get impatient so I did a quick test print of this negative instead just to see how it might come out. Took a guess at a 14 minute exposure. The highlights are a bit blown out, so I decided to stick it in a bath of tea.. All a bit slapdash, I think the tray might probably have had some soap in it which might explain these errant blue blotches. Which I kind of like. And the vertical stripes are from the print lying facedown on the bottom of the tray and not enough agitation. I guess they shouldn't be there either. But I like the glitches. And I really like the colour of the toning. Iron gall. I shall write a bit about the science and history behind that at some point.

Anyway. This is a rock from Rannoch Moor in Scotland floating above Lindisfarne, Holy Island in Northumberland.