Some thoughts on nature ….

Mud sticking to boots, clogging up tread and weighing down my stride. Walking through the woods near my new home. Gets me thinking about me, my practice and the relationship I have with the land and the life around me. The creatures and the plants that share space, the weather that dictates and informs and the soil that nourishes and provides. The ecosystems that I invade with every footstep, altered with every twig moved and leaf upturned. Think too hard and I’d never leave the house for fear of the impact of my clumsy existence. But even then, walls, roof and furnishing don’t create a haven in which to move safely around harm and guilt free.  The best I can do is build knowledge, understanding and empathy for the world in which I dance and shout loud about its glorious intricacies, the little things that stop me in my tracks, with the people I meet and engage with during this hobby masquerading as work.

To the child who doesn’t want to get mud on their hands, share the wonders of mud and soil. Muddy hands are not dirty hands, they are nourished and thriving hands. Hands learning, exploring, building connections and experiencing, leading the way for our brains to fabricate our being. Shaping the people we will become and the future teachers we will be. Arming us with the knowledge we will pass on.  The mud more precious than gold, the nutrients for plants and trees, the same tress that give us the air we breathe. This feels particularly, poignant now more than ever, the rise of populism across the globe and a growing disconnection between humans and the natural world is spreading like a disease. Leaders greedy for power, land grabs for resources and minerals, communities fearing difference and change. The ‘never again’ ideological values of togetherness following the devastation of two world wars appears to be crumbling with every news bulleting and radio broadcast and yet the planet is still overwhelming populated by a majority people who don’t agree with this brutal vitriol or live life’s that fuel division or hatred. We don’t fear our neighbours or turn our backs on those in need. We are compassionate, empathetic with an in-built desire to make others feel better not worse. For the minute however, the power and influence, the loudest voice, backed by a tycoon media, sits within the court of those who do want to sow this network of division, spreading fear to fuel a personal agenda. An agenda of manipulation, of miss direction, denial and greed that infects all aspects of our lives if we let it, and let’s be frank it’s hard not to right now.  In a film trilogy analogy, we are in the middle of the grim second film, we are well and truly face planted in the middle of The Empire Strikes Back where things look bleaker than bleak with no hope. 

But… Nature stands as an obstacle, each spring, the blue bells fill the woodland floor, the birds collect, gather and create their nests with hope, cherry trees blossom and cover the floor with petals and at the transformation of winter into spring, as the air gets warmer, our hearts fill with a renewed joy for the world. Despite our actions, and let’s not shy away from the fact that we are letting the planet down, nature still does its thing. Allowing us to open our curtains to a blue sky after weeks of rain, feeling the warmth of the sun after, a hard winter, allowing us to be part of the journey no matter what we do to undermine it.  So where does this leave me? With an ever-growing determination to share the little stuff for one! The healing power of a walk in the woods, stopping to watch a spider spinning its web, a bee collecting pollen, to notice the first snow drops breaking ground in winter, to catch a falling leaf or to feel the sea lapping around ankles. To stop and listen, to breath in and absorb, to never forget that we are just another species of mammal at the end of the day, with no more importance than any other living creature on the planet. Small changes from the bottom up. For me this, appreciation of nature has somewhat evolved and entwined into my art practice, and the process of stopping and for a time, playing rearranging or creating with the gifts of a woodland or beach floor has become a career. The creation of ephemeral artworks, natural arrangements that begin the process of atrophy on completion is my walk in the woods. My injection of hope, my immunisation against the oncoming news story.  With each time spent, or creation created, art feels like it’s becoming less important and the shot of wellbeing I get from the experience ever more so.  But with the knowledge that this is now my job, I cannot totally lose sight of the artist in me.

The simple act of creating something that other will see and process, take pleasure from or turn their nose up at.

In recent years, as my work has tunnel visioned into an obsessive need to take myself off outside and create, I’ve developed a healthy dose of imposter syndrome about the term artist, and half-jokingly mock to anyone who will listen that I “just go outside and play”. Internally questioning a lack of critical thinking to develop thought provoking evocative works that challenge, shock and comment on society. But, no matter how I feel about the impact of my work, this thought process is nonsense, there I said it. The true (I’m trying to think of another word other than power, that’s the last thing I want) power (I failed) in my work is not the image that someone looks at, but the conversations I have with people when creating, the message I can share when working in a school, the little things I can convey to those who engage or even just the invitation to encourage someone else to stop for a minute and join me in a shared moment. That is real influence, artist as teacher or role model, changing people’s ways through experience and invitation.  So yes, I am an artist. Not trying to shock, or comment, just gently trying to encourage and nurture a deeper understanding and connection to the natural world, one stick, one leaf or one pebble at a time. Standing alongside nature’s defiance to the greed and power that infects our planet.