Monday 26 November 2012
River
Mon Nov 26
River
42
Mid life?
I had a lie in this morning; the thinking was that there must be some perks to running my own company. In half sleep, after a fantastic weekend of entertaining and 'Bristol time', my life seemed clear in front of me. I could see it, who I was and what I was doing. My life was like a river and I could picture myself in the middle.
A trickle of water gathering momentum, a little babble of youth collects into the fast bumping over stones leaving moorland flow. Fresh, clear, fast and freezing cold. Fierce, purposeful in it's downwards force. Crashing into rocks that would not move, tumbling, foaming, falling, and crashing again and again.
We fall into villages as becks and rolled up trousered children pick out our rock cleaners under tiny arches of stone. The land eases up and alone we slide away through woods, we make small cliffs and run over moss green rocks slithery smoothed by others, into towns. Past the concrete channels we breath out and widen, spread out collecting, reaching out as if for information as our peripheries tinkle bright lightly over pebbles and fish swim deep in our belly.
The momentum towards the sea is strong but we meander, the sky opens up, bees buz in our banks and fattening cows squidge down openings to suck still water with hot mouths.
Like retirement we join with others to form a wide, deep, powerful journey and quietly shift through cities. We can sense the salt and soon we are to feel the sand bottomed estuary. Eventually and inevitably we are lost in the deep blue forever sea.
Others have been partly gene whisked off by the wind to land on the moor, almost recognizable. But my river flows deep and rests with the echoing songs and hovering seathrough fish.
Monday 6 August 2012
Flight. Bristol.
I drove down early Friday morning, College Green was full of balloons. Strong but not quite bright light filled the space between the council house, the buildings on park street and the grand cathedral with its complicated stone, intricate behind the bulbous balloons, the heaving masses of colour.
Down park street again this morning, about the same time and through the window of the comparably dark buildings, a precession floats past. I stop and draw them as the sculpture in the studio this weekend wasn't quite right. The parade drifts past and I carry on driving, the sky opens up through the center and you can see all of them head towards the nearly now white sun, they are pale against it, more distant. I am navigating the city below, glimpses of them appear through buildings, but as I turn into the studio, they are away, just one straggler can be seen, bleached against the early eastern sky.
Theirs is the sea, the duvets of fields, the tiny sprawling towns, the fresh wind of their altitude. The land heats up for the day but they are cold faced, wide eyed. The first timers scared probably, just a bit of wicker under their feet, trying not to think of the landing which they don't tell you is apparently more of a crash.
Now the burners raw above their heads, they can see Bath, they can see the hills of Wales and now the raw stops, they hang in the comparative silence of freedom.
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Thursday 28 June 2012
En Plein Air
Outside, in nature, the surroundings make the decisions, the changing light, the ability to capture or respond to something, the fact that you bum has gone numb from sitting awkwardly for too long.
Ultimately though nature takes hold of you, wraps you up in the comfort of it's magnitude. Everything seems right. Its an intuitive response, its as if your brain is allowed to switch off and you are resting in a duvet of duck down. Yes you curse yourself for your lack of talent and wonder what you are doing but the overwhelming experience is one of love and respect for nature and for light.
Tamar 1, from upper bank |
In the studio the work is ideas based, it comes more from the head, often from the gut, always brutally honest, but it's always coming from you, inside. There is no comfort, no support it's just you on your own, all the time. When I am tired I complain about my business, that it's always up to me, the accounts, pr, deliveries etc but it is my business, my work so who else is going to do it for me! But I think this may be the route of my complaint. The work draws it all from me, if nature stepped in it wouldn't all be up to me, I would have the support, the company.
Detail of Tamar 2 |
I hardly remember anything from being young but I do remember my Grandfather explaining the ecosystem to me beside a lake in Norfolk, starting from the bugs in the mud. He was a farmer and nature came first. I always think that I want to be a farmer but it may be more about a respect for nature.
Tamar 2 |
Tamar 3 - drawn first |
It's the simplicity of responding directly to nature that I find comforting, restful, inspiring, direct and surprising, in a way that it was as if you were not present. Is that comfort too apparent in the work to make it 'good'. Is painting from life just glorified copying?
I recently tried not to cry in front of a Rembrandt painting, I felt the same sitting in front of the changing light on the river. The light was just getting better and better, the birds song more clear, more echoey as the evening stillness crept over. The lime green in the distance that had been dotted with white spots of sheep whose voices had earlier carried up the valley was turning pinky orange. Now the sound in the distance was a pigeons lulling call. At 8.45 a green bottomed boat with a red sail that could see the last of the evening sun sailed silently up the opposite bank of the estuary, about turned and went back towards the sea, the beauty of it made me feel insane.
Tamar 4 Central Detail |
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Tamar 4 |
I know this is how people work, they sketch and take photos in situe and then work them up in the studio but for me the pleasure is being there, to hear the water moving and then the birds flopping about in low tide and bumble bee floating past or the distant engine pooteling out to its mooring.
Tamar 4 Detail Right panel |
Looking out of the window in the morning the river had gone, just white, the dense oak tree was the only suggestion of there being something out there. I went down in the silence for a last look, the river was full. I couldn't sense whether the tide, like the mist was moving silently or the expanse of water was like me, resting, hanging, waiting until the next rush out.
for more sculptures about nature see also
http://www.carolpeace.com/detail.asp?tc=14&mc=15&sc=51&w=64
http://www.carolpeace.com/detail.asp?tc=13&mc=1&sc=7&w=55
http://carolpeace.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/spring.html
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