In seeking to connect my outer and inner landscape, I wanted to explore processes that allowed me to physically make a connection with the landscape through my artwork by capturing it. Obviously poetry and photography are at the heart of this, but I have also experimented with a variety of other techniques. I have captured soundscapes of my walks, I have used thin pieces of copper to trace the landscape, I have used clay to take prints of the landscape and I have used charcoal to capture frottage style rubbings of the landscape. Inspired by the work of Jean Dubuffet, I experimented with grating/sieving material found on my walks onto water and capturing it on the surface of paper.
I was pleased with the constellation effect that these create but wanted to take this art brut idea further and experiment with unorthodox materials and processes. I often think of the Dubuffet quote “Look at what lies at your feet! A crack in the ground, sparkling gravel, a tuft of grass, some crushed debris offer equally worthy subjects for your applause and admiration.” ( Dubuffet, J Accessed at: https://www.moma.org/artists/1633-jean-dubuffet 5/7/25) At the same time as reading further about Dubuffet, I saw an exhibition by artist Peter Ward. His use of earth to create pigments was very inspiring. I read several of his books, as well as Caroline Ross’s book Found & Ground and decided to have a go. In a bid to educate myself a little more, I also took a short online course with Land Art Objective on making pigments.
I gathered soil from both Chanctonbury Ring and Bignor Hill. The soil was sifted, ground, dissolved and separated, left to dry in my greenhouse until it formed a cake, ground in a pestle and mortar and then mixed with gum arabic using a muller and Perspex sheet before pressing between sheets of natural paper.
I am pleased with the automatism, chance, abstract nature of these prints. I had to loosen up to let the shapes come from my unconscious. The more I relaxed and enjoyed the process, thinking about the places the earth came from, channelling the feelings that I associate with these paths, the more pleased I was with the results. I love the colour, it is reminiscent of the ink that I have used in my monoprints which makes these prints a pleasing part of the pamphlet. I also find the tactile, textural element deeply pleasing. There are grains of earth not completely removed by the grinding and sieving process that add a fantastic depth and quality to the images.
This has been an important step on this journey of self-discovery for me. I am noticing that I am becoming more confident with each new element – the risk taking becomes less nerve-wracking and bound by self-doubt but more exciting and bound by opportunities to realise a magical idea in my head into something tangible.
The moment that I opened the bag of carefully foraged earth from my walk on Chanctonbury Ring, the heady scent of soil transported me back to that place in the landscape but also in time. All of these events, the reading, the thinking, the making, the mediums, the poetry – they all lead to places that matter to me. To places that I have grown up in, to places that have shaped my life, places on an internal map that link my life experiences together. This pamphlet allows me to explore that and share it with people. It also allows me to connect with a creativity that has always been within me but I have been too frightened to share. Exploring my landscape, making a deeper connection with it, taking risks and exploring new mediums has allowed me to draw that creative aspect of myself out, to connect with myself and express my inner thoughts/feelings. It has been transformative in both what I have actually learnt (as in new skills), but also what I have learnt about myself.
Using the landscape itself as the medium to capture the landscape as a piece of artwork just makes sense. The process of foraging that medium, as a raw material, transforming it and allowing it to communicate the unconscious as a means of connecting my inner and outer landscapes – that is evidence of how risk taking and transformative learning has unlocked my artist self.
‘Poetry is music from the place we were born.’ (Antrobus, R. (2024) Signs, Music, epigraph).
‘You are not living on the earth, you are the earth.’ (Marcus, A in Ward. P (2024) Expressions of an Intimate Ecology, art.earth books, pg.6)