I've just come in from a late evening wander up the valley, raising moths with every footfall and, for the first time in months, feeling the familiar squish of damp ground underfoot instead of bone jarring, cracked earth. I went down to the beck and stood knee deep in the water for ages (a regular post migraine activity) gazing up at the mountain who was looking benign and majestic in the warm evening light. I squiggle toes in the slippery pebbles and clamber about on the bank where the rocks are warm still and the bracken prematurely tinted with Autumn; almost tempted to go back for a tent so that I can sleep next to the water. On the way home I stop to talk to my favourite tree thinking how precious it is to be able to do this, being alone in such a beautiful place momentarily lets me be the child I still am inside since there's nothing about to show me I'm actually a small 51 year old woman acting like a lunatic talking to trees and wallowing about in the beck dressed in pants and a hoodie. Something about this summer's heatwave has me reliving childhood memories of golden barefoot summers in the 70's, just as it's revealing ancient earthworks, drowned villages and lost gardens. This is the summer they will talk about for years to come.As ever I started writing a blog post in May and have had to scrap the whole thing because so much has happened in the mean time. A proper summer for the first time in 4 years and the generous loan of a Canadian canoe has meant we've felt extra lucky to be living in the Lake District - what we lack in financial security or a packed social life has to some degree, been balanced out by the priceless joy of a clandestine night on Wild Cat Island, a picnic supper on Ullswater ( even though we canoed double the distance because we forgot to pack the gas for the tiny miniature stove and had to go back!) or an afternoon gliding about in the swimming "pots" of Borrowdale.[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkim5cBgSW9/?taken-by=witchmountain[/embed]I've just returned from my weekend at Art in the Pen in Thirsk where we all nearly melted in the cattle market under the sweltering North Yorkshire sun! This year I didn't do so well ( many people said sales were down on previous years) but I think I enjoyed myself more. My pen neighbour Hannah Sawtell was particularly lovely and we had good chats about politics, future directions and the joys/trials of parenthood/cat caring/empty nests. I fell in love with several of her prints but the one I had to have included a quote from a favourite REM song and someone looking slightly uncertain on the edge of a moonlit pool ...[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/BaBckyog10F/?taken-by=hannahjainesawtell[/embed]We did a little artist swap which sadly is the only way I can own the art I love at the moment. I sometimes feel like such a hypocrite going on about #JustaCard all the time and then leaving the "pens" of people whose work I've admired for years without buying anything but it really would have been madness to spend the small profit I'd made because that will be needed to pay for the materials and costs of the next event. It really is hand to mouth sometimes and times are hard for many of the creative people I met. Rupert had helped me set up and take down my pen and commented afterwards that he really felt for those who hadn't done so well "...they all work so hard, they're all makers and they make the world a better place." The overriding feeling was positive though, despite the heat, the farmyard aromas, the slow sales and all. The visitors were all enthusiastic and full of praise and the other artists full of camaraderie and humour; I love the concept of artists taking over the cattle market for a weekend and replacing the animal s**t with things of beauty, it makes me smile for so many reasons !
... As usual it's taken me an age to write half of what I wanted say and its now tomorrow! I've just been into Keswick to post out some orders, including some of the cyanotype workshop kits I've put together, and got side tracked by a rarely open antiquarian bookshop. I came away with an armful of old Observer guides and intend to spend this evening identifying "Grasses and Sedges" on the fell side with a spot of bilberry picking if the birds haven't eaten them all ( my car is always covered in purple bird poo at this time of year). The rest of the week will be busy with lovely bookshop days and a cyanotype workshop for Cumbria Printmakers in Shap where we have an exhibition until Sunday.And so the summer speeds along and it's been a good year for the roses.
I've been stitching and printing like mad for all the exhibitions I'm taking part in; much of the new work features stitched roses on cyanotype still lives and the elusive dream of a home with roses around the door . The next event will be Craftsmen at the Priory in the Dacre Hall at Lanercost. I visited last week and it's a seriously beautiful part of Cumbria, right on Hadrian's Wall. I do feel very honoured to be one of the core group's invited guests especially as this is the 40th anniversary of the exhibition. It opens on August 8th with a preview evening including a 10% discount. Here's your invitation...
Now I must go and learn some new plant names, write a newsletter and organise the things I've unpacked and piled in the middle of the floor after Art in the Pen. I want to write more often, I will try, it's often the World that makes me silent- why add to the noise when there are important things to be said, by people better able to say them. Will you read if I keep writing? I hope so.
Recent Reading: Swallows and Amazons - A Ransome, Sweet Caress - William Boyd , 16 Trees of the Somme- Lars Mytting, The Gloaming - Kirsty Logan Rotherweird - Andrew Caldecott (audio book) , 21st Century Yokle - Tom Cox (audio book)
Cinnamon toast and a large mug of tea by the stove are my fuel for this bit of writing. It's the last day of British Summer Time and at 4pm the fading light means I'm allowed to indulge my bear like nature doesn't it? My nest is cozy; everything outside is leaning slightly to the right, to North, shaped by the prevailing wind that funnels down this valley. Leaves race past and collect in drifts or scratch at the window like Catherine Earnshaw's ghost. I made myself go outside though, before building my den and I galloped down the valley in my clumpy boots with unbrushed hair, chased by swirling mist that poured through the gap on Robinson like milk. I should have taken a picture for you , I wish I could have painted it. Yesterday by contrast, was a day of such sparkling champagne light that it hardly seems like the same country !
Rupert is on an adventure in the Himalayas so I'm having to be extra self- motivated when it comes to my own outdoor adventures. Yesterday was easy, I packed a picnic, flask of strong coffee, my wetsuit and a sketchbook and set off to Scales Hill, Crummock Water because I'm greedy and I wanted Autumn trees, smooth swimmable water and mountain views ( all without having to walk uphill with a heavy rucksack). I walked and looked and breathed and braved a tiny dip (longer getting in and out of the wetsuit than in the water). I swam in little circles, using fallen leaves floating on the glassy surface as my markers, edging away from the shallows and trying not to think of the Great Deep; I wanted to float on my back to watch the clouds but October lake water in the ears isn't nice and after the cold water hives thing at Rydal in the "summer" I'm very careful. After my swim I sat on the pebbly beach eating sandwiches, looking across at the boat house with Grasmoor looking enormous behind it and wondered if I would ever dare swim that far; then feeling that I should be less hard on myself because I may not be a long distance swimmer or a Himalayan adventurer but after all I have been up Grasmoor the hard way and been brave enough to get in to a bottomless lake, on my own in October.Walking back to the car through the woods I suddenly thought, look at me, in all my outdoor gear, what's happened?! Who am I? And then I saw my shadow and it was ok because as you can see, I'm actually still a bear...
Things have started to feel good in the work department, dare I say that? The exhibition n Grasmere was disappointingly quiet but I sold a print and made some good contacts, while the Exhibition in Shetland at Bonhoga Gallery ( part of Shetland Arts) has already resulted in sales and lots of lovely comments online. The gallery is really beautiful and I'd never seen my work displayed so well... in that it was given space and light and not lost amongst all the other work, I felt like a real artist ( in times like these most independent shops and galleries need to use all their available wall and display space to maximise potential sales, so space, as in all things, is a luxury). It is interesting that almost all my online sales and commissions recently have come from Scotland and the Islands in particular; perhaps my love of the idea of North, however vague, really does come out in the work somehow?
The gallery staff at Bonhoga took this photograph of a hare lamp which made me very happy because I'd never actually seen one illuminated before and it does have an etherial, wintery feel to it whilst still feeling warm and cozy.
I've also been having some wonderful days in the bookshop in Grasmere; filling in on odd days and trying to avoid buying ALL the books. They are long days, especially with the drive, but so unlike any other work I've done in retail. Being in Grasmere there are some parts of it that are fairly unique, such as the customers wanting to know the best route up Helvellyn on a wet, foggy day, but there is a joy in solving a mystery for the person who says " I don't know the title or the author but..." or seeing all the kids during half term so keen to read real books, even in an age of Tablets and Kindles. Still, my book addiction needs to be controlled; I felt so guilty about spending money on a beautiful new Moomin book when the car needed fixing, that I didn't unwrap it for a week. Anyway, the Library is now doing well out of me too and after agonising for ages I've chosen to listen to Phillip Pullman's "The Book of Dust" on Audible rather than buying the hardback book. It will keep me company in the quiet house.
Now it is 6pm and the sky has changed through shades of bruise, made pastel by the low mist. There must have been a great sunset somewhere higher up but here it reminded me of paint water- I had to leave you for a moment to stand on the doorstep in the eerie warm wind. Anyway, it's taken me two hours to cobble this together, not counting the bits when I got up to put a log on the stove or put some supper in the oven. It's time to draw the curtains against the night.
Reading: Hag Seed- Margaret Atwood Listening to: The Book of Dust - Phillip Pullman (unabridged version) and ( in the car) Blue Aeroplanes "Your Ages" , I've always loved this, it's a painting in words.."in ten years everything will bleach to primer and we'll lie in the light..."
These two pictures sum up last week as I prepared for my first big art fair, Art in the Pen, at Thirsk. I tried to work in the dark, gloomy cave of the house while the sun beckoned like a secret lover, through the lace bedspread, hung to keep out the bitey insects. Setting up outside I was driven back in by the glare or the wind or the fact that I looked like I'd been dip dyed upside down in a vat of pink from sunburn. The evenings of swimming were blissful though and I'm now slightly addicted to the well documented after effects of being in cold water; the silky cool feeling under the skin that contrasts with the warm surface and the release of endorphins that feels weirdly like the effects of ...hmmm, less "official" methods (which I neither admit to, endorse or condone) but were once described thus by American chemist Alexander Shulgin ... "I feel absolutely clean inside, and there is nothing but pure euphoria. The cleanliness, clarity, and marvellous feeling of solid inner strength continued… through the next day. I am overcome by the profundity of the experience." Obviously swimming is a much more healthy way of feeling "pure euphoria" and less likely to land you in jail; it really has helped lift my blue moods when my natural inclination would normally be to curl up and nest.
After an epic drive ( hot air blowers on full blast to stop the car overheating in the traffic jams) and still in recovery from a 3 day migraine ( brought on by dropping the settee on my foot during a mad hoovering session and not cured by standing for an hour, thigh deep in Scope Beck wearing just a t-shirt, hat and pants like a crazy old hobo) I made it to Thirsk and set up my pen (with lots of help from Rupert who'd been waiting there for hours).It was a fantastic, if unlikely, event. As if by magic the slightly grubby and smelly animal pens were transformed by an amazing group of artists and makers who not only produce fabulous work but also design the display solutions (not easy making a sheep pen that was awash with slurry hours earlier, look like a gallery), and work like mad to make it all look great. I didn't have much chance to look at everyone's stands as I was on my own but it was so good to meet Hester Cox in person at last (my heart is set on one of her prints one day) and I spent a virtual fortune on some the work I saw on other people's stands. My friend Sarah Ames wins my "resilience and tenacity" award for doing the whole thing on her own and driving all the way back home to Cockermouth every night! Sarah Robely wins "set design and catering "award because her stand was pristine and her lovely mum Shona, was there with home baked treats to feed to the 5,000. Bridget Wilkinson wins my "wow you're an inspiration" award because she was so helpful, is a good friend and is making it work! I've also got to thank the lovely Penny Hunt because she suggested I applied and her gorgeous work will be at the "Inspired by" gallery in Danby next week for her solo show, as well as Skipton Art in the Pen next month.
I walked alone across familiar fields that belonged to another lifetime and stood watching a small drama as the sun set and a pair of buzzards, disturbed by something not visible, called to each other and dipped and swooped with chattering, acrobatic swallows- rioting before bedtime.
And so, after catching up with as many people as I could and wishing with all my heart I could spend more time with them, I took a massive detour home to avoid a traffic jam which would have meant needing to steam my face again with the car heaters. A two hour journey took four but I saw some great landscapes as trundled back through Kirby Stephen, Kendal and the South Lakes. I actually found myself saying "hello" out loud when Blencathra finally popped in to view and for a treat we went to the pub for chips before an icy, dusk swim in the river to wash away the sin of fried food. A tent was pitched right beside the swimming hole, as I'd guessed it might be, so we lowered ourselves in to the dark water upstream, trying to gasp quietly at the shock and swam quickly and breathlessly past the campers, trying not to alarm them. It felt quite exciting and the mossy rocks were like carpeted steps under the water- I wouldn't like to be in water any faster though, it's deceptively hard to swim against even a gentle current and I do quite enough of that on dry land.
Now I'm going to tidy up the boxes still to be unpacked and see what I have left to take to Skipton on the 12th -13th of August and prepare for a workshop at Greystoke next week. Thanks again to everyone who made it a fun weekend. I have loads more to say but I'm having think first and anyway, it's time for coffee and baking a cake I think ;) 