Buckenham Again

In they drift, from across the broad-bottomed Yare valley and beyond. My solid ground, their purview, my perspective partial. Is their rhythm in their influx, cause and effect that were I to look long enough I would perceive? I know the shape of things; the first opening chapters of aggregation, the caesuric interlude, the third phase of swirling, screaming biomass, the final act of downrush then all dusky, chattered coda.  But tonight, as ever, I doubt the completion of the story; tonight my fears say the narrative will be broken. I have ruined it with my clumsy stroll up the platform; I have come too late, gone too early, been an interloper. Exiled, I should not have come here.

But I cannot break this, nor yet can I impose sense on it, just be in it once again, now in sound, now in crepuscular drizzle. To see all would be to be wise of the sense of it, but to not see it does not mean there is none. Let it be. Let it always be. And breathe.

Lost and Found Exhibition

'Lost and Found' exhibition opened in Bath earlier tonight and I spent a terrific evening talking to interesting people about ideas, memory, collecting, totems and other things. Also talked about the collection of found specimens and the difficulties of their preservation and display, always great to talk to new people about ideas and I drove home trying to clarify what I am doing with my artwork, useful to draw a line sometimes and reflect. Thanks to everyone who came along and if you find yourself in or near Bath then please come and have a look. 44AD Gallery is just next to the Cathedral in the centre of town and the show is free and open until 4pm this Sunday.

Art Workshop - Casting Otter Tracks

Step in Stone - A great day running my art workshop at the Somerset Earth Science Centre, at Moons Hill Quarry, casting otter paw prints, looking at otter scat, getting shoes stuck in mud, casting natural history samples in clay and plaster and dismantling owl pellets - great fun had by all.

Step in Stone

Exploring this excavated landscape has for me been an exploration of the re-colonisation of this once industrial and now strangely lawless place. The exposed geology, and scattered remnants of man’s presence, in what is now a theatre for new activities and a sheltered refuge for emergent creatures and plants. The bones at the bottom of the cliff faces evidence of the sharp invasion of the wooded land, the sudden-ness of the missing earth. The tracks in the mud, the rusting artefacts, the plants reclaiming the beds of gravel and the echoing calls of the nesting crows and kestrels in this sunken lost world. I wander as a traveller looking for evidence of these stories, taking the emotional and biological temperature of this enclosed otherworld. Using the conventions of exploration and collection I mount miniature expeditions, over night camps and order and frame my finds with aesthetic taxonomy in an attempt to capture something of this place of echoes, both literal and metaphorical.

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More owl pellet village action - its all go here.

A terrific day at Ashcott Village Harvest Fair manning the 'What's in an owl pellet  - free stall' the children, and a surprising number of parents, really enjoy it once they learn it's owl pellets not owl poo. Many of the children enjoy the rubber gloves, hand jell and tweezers as much as the pellets, CSI Ashcott, but they all get amazingly good at identifying the bones. 'Is that a vole tibia, no no thats a mouse pelvis'. Great to see the young naturalists coming back to collect there beautifully arranged boards of glued bones later in the afternoon.

As I stood in the sunshine looking at the skies it is now also clear that we have lost the swallows for another year. The swifts left a month ago and now only the house martins remain, cutting their playful paths through the autumn insects and the less crowded and quieter airspace.

Drawing rabbit skull.

Drawing a rabbit skull as a thank-you to Bertie from School who dropped it off for me.

Bees, moths and crabs.

Enjoying beekeeping at the moment, so much to learn and I'm loving it. I know also have a children's bee suit so that the children can help me and get involved. The Ashcott Beerfest is taking up all of my time outside of work at the moment and as we enjoyed managing record crowds over the weekend Gary and I also spied a lot of moths drawn to the kitchen lights and this particularly beautiful elephant hawk moth. On a separate note, whilst shopping for children's shoes in Clarks Village I met a fishmonger on a temporary stall from whom I bought a spider crab, now pickling in formaldehyde in my shed. a beautiful specimen.