Landscape Art….. From ‘Emergence’ Magazine…..
by Bernie Bell - 09:47 on 23 August 2023
Landscape Art…
Following the development and ultimate fate of Bradford Spencer’s stone towers on the beach at Hinderayre this year, I remembered this television programme…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079ckkf
..and watched it again.
The first time I saw this programme I reacted against the ’Ash Dome’ as I saw it as torturing trees. This time, when James Fox mentioned that David Nash uses old techniques I thought – should I take against what he does, as he is only using the old methods for hedging? But …hedging was necessary – this tree-torture….. isn’t.
They even look tortured.
I connect this with the ‘work’ where a man simply walked a straight line again and again until it was a silvered path in the grass - fair enough - he’s doing no harm to anything.
I was reminded of when we used to live in Suffolk and our house backed on to a farm. One of the fields had a stile at the corner leading from the road. The idea was that you could then walk round that field, a few other fields, and you'd come to a point where you needed to cross the first field, to get to the stile again.
Each year when the farmer ploughed and sowed this field he then walked - over and over again - in a straight line from the stile to the opposite side where the path needed to cross the field to reach the stile again. He did this in a straight line - over and over again. So there was immediately a path. The hope was (and it worked) that folk would stick to the path and not wander willy-nilly across the field and damage his crop.
This path was made for a specific, practical purpose, but it had an interesting, pleasing effect too.
It looked even better when the crop had grown and, as the light is going in the evening, there’s something other-worldly about it.
It’s included in this walk…
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16338
The 'art' which was made in both these instances hearkens back to what was/is needed for life in the country.
Andy Goldsworthy is....Andy Goldsworthy.
The piece which was a rotten tree with a 'wall' built into it - I liked it when it fell, both times - there was a wonderful ripple of sound and movement as the stones tumbled. Particularly the final time when he nearly got to the top and it tumbled down - I thought it would be good if he left it exactly like that - the tree, the stone 'wall' as part of the tree ( almost as though the tree was becoming instantly fossilized), the stones around it which had fallen, and the ladder propped against it. It's up to him what he does with it - it's his work - but I liked how it tumbled, and I liked what was left.
He makes things and places them where he knows they will disappear, so I shouldn't imagine he minded it too much.
He puts a lot of his pieces in places where he knows they will be taken by the tide, eventually…..
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=15899
His sheepfold insertions put me in mind of Gunnie Moberg's aerial view of an X shaped shelter for sheep which means that they can shelter - whichever way the wind blows. And also her picture of the sheep fort in the sea at Rusk Holm - which no longer exists – it got washed away…
https://gunniemobergarchive.wordpress.com/
…..and this can also link with the Firestacks built by Julie Brook - a ring of stone, in the sea, which the sea engulfed, engulfing the flames at the same time. Elemental – the sea - the stone – the fire – the light – of the setting sun and the wood burning. Of all the places in James Fox programme, that’s the one I’d most like to see, to be there when it was happening.
Again - art echoing what was a practical necessity.
In relation to the cube in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park with a square hole in the roof opening onto the sky…James Fox quoted Ruskin, something along the lines of that there are places and things which people have to go to a lot of trouble to see – but the sky is there, for everyone.
A few years ago we made a pond in our garden. At first it was a hole lined with liner which we filled with water. This was a clear, still piece of water.
The earth held the water, the water held the sky, the sky was drawn down into the earth by the water. Magic.
And not only the sky, but the sun, and moon, and planets. And it rippled in the wind - cosmic waves….
https://theorkneynews.scot/2018/04/16/of-ponds-otters-planets/
Which brings me neatly to…..the two examples of the land reflecting the Universe……
The first one, constructed by Charles Jenks…..
https://www.jupiterartland.org/art/cells-of-life/
And then the Crawick Multiverse…..
We watched a recorded episode of ‘Ian Robertson Rambles’ in which while walking in Dumfries & Galloway, Ian visited Crawick Multiverse – not verse as in poetic verse – though the place is a form of poetry – verse as in many Universes – constellations, galaxies and the Milky Way are laid out across the land.
I can combine Andy Goldsworthy with Crawick Multiverse…
https://www.riddle.com/view/359598
Ian tells us that when this open-cast coal mine became defunct, the Duke of Buccleuch commissioned Charles Jencks to plan and produce the landscape – it’s a wonder. I’d love to go there - doubt if I will be able to - doubt if I’ll go off-island again but – Ian Robertson takes us to these places, even those of us who aren’t likely to go there in ‘reality’.
And – these places exist – that’s what matters. It’s one of the rare occasions when I can see some point in the aristocracy - when someone like the Duke of Buccleuch has the imagination, inspiration and interest in the common weal to use his land ownership and wealth to commission someone who also has imagination and inspiration - to produce such a place.
Looking at the plan – many echoes of ancient sites – stone rows & circles….. https://www.crawickmultiverse.co.uk/ . What might people make of this in 5,000 year’s time? If we’re still here…..
********************************************************************
From ‘Emergence’ Magazine….
“Ancestral Structures on
the Trailing Edge
by Lauret E. Savoy
Histories are enduring presences. No matter how deeply they are buried, they remain. In this week’s narrated essay, author Lauret E. Savoy meditates on the history of the Chesapeake region and the vestiges of collision and rupture that continue to mark its physical and cultural terrains. Surfacing ancient geological movements alongside the deliberate construction of race in colonial America, she considers the entwinement of tectonic and human histories—the ancestral structures that remain in plain sight and out of view.”
Available on
********************************************************************
Here’s one I made earlier…. https://theorkneynews.scot/2022/02/19/observations-on-reading-mountains-of-the-mind-by-robert-macfarlane/
Add your comment
