Artefacts of a year's work on show

As part of this year's degree shows at the University of Chester, the MA students' work can also be seen at the side. This display with more of my sketchbooks on the table behind is in the textiles room and there is a display of drawings and photographs in the hallway. The whole show is still open this week. 

'In other tongues', Symposium at Dartington Hall, Totnes

I participated in 'In other tongues', at Dartington Hall, Totnes. This was a symposium organised by Art.dot.earth. Researchers and artists from various fields congregated to exchange views on our ways to communicate with other creatures and nature. A very inspiring event! I got the chance to show my little video "Moving lines' in the Thursday night's video screening session. I participated in a workshop with Tatia Nichols-Arles and Patricia Brien, and in another workshop with Stuart Mugridge. 
Stuart Mugridge currently works on a PhD where he bases the production of text and language on the basis of the exhaustion component of the running experience! Well, that made for truly interesting conversations and Patricia and Tatia's workshop made us participate in a deep listening exercise. Both workshops were highly relevant to my practice. 
Many of the symposium's presentations pointed me in the direction to view my running/drawing practice under the header of 'gesture'....as an expression of inner events, as a response to things going on outside and to the relevance of metaphor in my work. 

Instruction for a running journey (and commenting about it later)

Planning a running journey, then, afterwards, referencing it. And planning for the next one. 

Paper territory

The making and unmaking of paper surfaces, re-using previous contexts and building a new one....feels like claiming territory, using it, with line, assembly techniques, the concept of a sketchbook.

Stay-at-studio workbook

This works well! I can use drawings, photographs and other bits an pieces from my carry-around-workbook and transfer them to this much larger book, where elements can congregate in new visual and material contexts. 

Sound of lines and skylark

The sound of vibrating lines, attached between fence, drystone wall and ground, and a skylark. 

Carry-around-workbook

For all those years, I have been searching for a way to have a sketch-book that allows me to take out the individual sheets to then transfer them to a larger book, where again the sheets can be assembled in varying contexts. Thanks to a friend, I have found out how I can make such a book and customise the punched sheets myself. 
This allows me to use the paper surfaces as a territory that forms, unforms and re-groups in different ways. Like a landscape that can become built and unbuilt. 

Field notes

I  found a way organising my field notes. There are two categories of text now, or 'words' that I bring back from my running journeys: There are 'side notes', and there are 'annotations'. 
The side notes are mainly thoughts of relevance for my ongoing practise. 
The 'annotations' are words which are more direct responses or expressions as they are generated by the running, the impressions, the being out there, and they may be disorganised, some people might call them 'poetic' (or not), they are disjointed....and often have to do with physical impressions, visual and audible ' impacts', anything that seems to 'come in' or wants to 'get out'. 

1 tone stream

As the last running journey of a small project, this one had the agenda of 'one tone stream'. 
During this run, I recorded a small section of sound (the sound of an opening and closing stile) and I carried it forward with me, to replay it further on during the run, to sound out in the next surrounding. I recorded this again, and moved on, to replay both previous sounds in the next location where I stopped. This led to an accumulation of sounds that got more and more eroded and overlaid by themselves and new ambient sounds. 

Carry bag

For each of my 5 runs, which formed a short term project called '5 mile sky', I took a paper bag on the hill with me, with a sharpie marker pen inside. The paper bag was folded and sewn out of newsprint that still had wax on it, as it had been previously used by another artist, Lindsey Piper, to soak off the excess wax off her batik textile surfaces. The wax made the newsprint material resistant to moisture, the sewn seams and folds gave it extra stability. I thought the pre-used material was a good choice of paper, because in the context of environment and natural landscape, all materials are pre-used. 
I also took with me 20 tent pegs, about 150 metres of stretchy rubber bands, a sound recorder and a small camera. 

2 turn thoughts

As the penultimate of 5 separate runs undertaken on different days and with each of their own agenda, this running journey asked for two thoughts to be used as they came to me, and to be made changers to the trajectory. The photograph shows the line construction made on the land, the accumulation of paper shows how I assembled experiences of all unfolding runs as part of the whole project. 

3 pace place

Moving at at three different paces, this was part of the third run that I undertook in the context of '5 mile sky', a five-run short project where I went on 5 different runs on 5 consecutive days, each run with their pre-described agenda. 
'Place' and how line installations might be able to describe it, was also part of the plan. 

4 minute surface

Land as surface and scribing....to focus on different aspects of surface, at 4 minute intervals. 
This was part of run two of five running journeys, each of which was undertaken at a separate day, with its own thematic agenda. 

People, lines, landscape

Some friends volunteered to come out with me onto the hills in weather that would be best described as a proper storm. The lines stretched between them oscillated in the wind and made furious sounds. I wonder in which way social features of interaction with people and land could become expressed with this method of line installations.

Circles

In the context of my many attempts to produce representations of running journeys with the medium of drawing, the circle seemed to be an ever recurring theme. Circles is what we do when we return to the start. It is what the sun does, what our live does, it marks a focus....endless possible meanings.....
I wonder if it is a general feature in Semiotics and Art History that one symbol is used by even the same artists, or scribes, though it means different things at different times.

5 mile sky

This was run one of a sequence of 5. The idea for this one was to focus on 'sky'. 
When I set up this stretchy-line drawing and then looked at it, the way it related to the horizon line and the sky, it made me wonder about the ancients' motivation to build and make stone circles and other material constructions in the environment. It appeared to me as a very  meaningful thing to do, to construct a drawing that visually corresponded to the sky, the horizon line, that connected me with the act of making to the surrounding environment. I wondered, if the willfull act of construction might have meant for ancients to gain a sense of control of the environment at whose mercy their lives depended. Or, if you can't control, you can at least 'communicate' which might create a feeling of control, at least....

Wall display: Alternative drawing arena?

This display was the result of a small project where I assembled the material artefacts and documents from five separate runs, undertaken on separate days. Each running journey had a particular, abstract focus. I thought such a project set-up might be a useful way to acquaint myself with the different aspects and features at play when undertaking and recording a sequence of running journeys. It raised essential question about how to design a project, what themes to focus on, how to present the find and documents and where is meaning being generated and carried. 

Here are the themes and titles of each run:

5 mile sky
4 minute surface
3 pace place
2 turn thoughts
1 tone stream