The mist reveals hundreds of draped spiders webs painting them translucent white. It diffuses the sun, gently scattering light over the pea fields, catching delicate green curls. The scent of the earth rises and joins the air. Single blades of grass seem etched into the hedgerow, defined in dewy shrouds. Birds become silhouettes the edge of every feather drawing a line against the veil.
Go at the end of the day. Not at the end of the light, but when everyone else journey’s home. Go and plant your feet in the sand, stand against the breeze with the grey gulls. Breath in the ocean, on your own, in gentle solitude. Step out of time, hold ancient weathered pottery in the palm of your hand. Harvest fragments of wood carved by the sea, fill your pockets with lost feathers. Follow scattered trails of birds footprints, forage in tumbling scribbles of seaweed.
Go at the start of the day, when everyone else is still sleeping. Fill your eyes with soft dawn light, or the blazing awakenings of the sun. Bathe in bird song, come eye to eye with raptors. Breath in the rising smell of the earth, of blossoming hedgerows. Be silent and distantly present, hold your breath to catch a glimpse of resting deer. Holding their gaze just for a moment. Glimpse sun catcher dewy golden threads of spider’s webs, while a ghost of the moon floats in the sky. Sail through soft shadows split by fresh light. Carry the wind, the mist, spring rain on your skin into the day.
There are places that feel comforting, full of memories of feelings and people passed. Moments remembered, imprints in the surface of time. New places that carry the soul of other houses, the energy of people I knew and loved. Echos of warmth in people, kindness, familiar connections, a sense of belonging and knowing. Warm laughter and soft voices in next room. Smells of cooking and coffee aromas, calm stillness, warm light. Glimpses of roof tiles and courtyards, fragments of birdsong. Cottage garden walls. Time to be still, to watch, absorb, be present. To feel welcome, allowed to rest for a while.
In the winter the dark can be clinging, damp and saturated. Light doesn’t cut through it, instead adding to the tonality of a monochrome landscape. Shapes drift into focus and recede into shadow. Glittering moisture permeates the air. Swimming, without buoyancy. The shape of a gliding owl blurs at the edges of its silhouette. Softy glowing statue like forms of deer emerge, then engulfed again in the mist. There is silence. Sharp cracks of a hoof on dry branches are sudden and close. Shadows deceive, sometimes flitting across my path. Anonymous and fleeting. The softly caustic air strips back my eyes and warm tears track along my cheeks. The air feels connected to the earth, bathing me in the landscape. In this time there is just my breathing, just my senses existing, observing. Instinctively I track the sky for light, no seeping dawn or lamplight from the moon. Everything at rest, held in-between.
Walking the tide line, eyes tracking the scattering of seaweed and driftwood. Tiny treasures present themselves. Churned up by the sea and caught in the sand, slipping from the fronds of surf. Fragments of crab shell, delicate dried whelk egg casings and scribbles of fishing line. Changing with the seasons, peppered with objects lost and discarded. The line changes with the tides and the weather. Sometimes a clear map along the shore, other days fragmented and broken. A peppered trail of whelks eggs, mermaids purses and honeycomb wood. Birds in the autumn migrate across the sea, flying in broken linear formations. They must lose some of their flock along the way along with the feathers shed into the water. Washed up along the shore tattered and stripped by the elements, broken structures clinging to their forms. Storms disrupt the line splaying it across the sand in ragged islands of sea vegetation. Scribbles of tangled grass, roots and fishing line. Ghostly white paper thin skeletal fish sit with polished remains of shells. Winding trails of foot prints emerge and fade, drawing journeys into the sand. The ebb and flow of souls along the fringes of the tide.
The ocean has always held a fascination for me. When things need putting into perspective I am drawn to the sea. Something so much vaster than me, older, perpetual, constant yet always changing. When I jump with giant waves it feels like flying, being lifted high in the swell. Then dropped back onto the stones in a shower of foam. The weight of the water, the feeling of being held, part of a mass. Looking out to the horizon across the water, never ending sky, uninterrupted. The sense of time is different, space, elements, light. Each visit is different, the landscape has shifted, reshaped. The sea has offered up new gifts, tiny treasures, lost and found, rediscovered. Tangles of fishing line with rusted weights torn away by the water. Fragments of metal, worn and sculpted, their identity eroded over time. Wood that once belonged, now abstracted by the elements. Shell particles and edges left behind, inner structures revealed. Brightly glowing rust, skeletal feathers, polished bones, ancient pebbles. Now when walking along the beach my family collect together, often handing me finds as gifts. Each object holds a story, a past life and a reminder of the day’s journey. All things pass, all things change, leaving only traces of evidence. Remnants of stories.
Artists are collectors, of sounds, sights, feelings, moments in time, experiences, colours, textures, words, images, materials, objects, dreams, journeys, processes, light, patterns, thoughts. They absorb the world and reflect it back, manipulating and reorganising their environment, re-shaping materials. Creativity can be channelled or constructed; the most astonishing outcomes can be a result of connections, intuition, channelling energy and allowing a process to happen. Intuition is an often misused word I think, it means allowing your consciousness to speak and listening without questioning. Trusting that your next decision comes from experience, there will be reasoning behind the urge. Pick up the fragment of pottery from the beach, without a need for purpose yet, draw or paint it, put it on a shelf, hold it I your hand. By interacting with the object it will speak to you, and trigger questions, suggest possibilities. What is it that drives us to re-create the world around us, either in detailed representation, or in mimicking processes in nature? By finding visual and physical metaphors. Communication? A desire to understand? Capturing transience, holding the constant change static in time, keeping a moment safe. Collecting it. Analysing and reconstructing to maybe unlock a mystery, answer a question, or just to be immersed in what is happening. Observing. Experiencing. We have a need for communication, sharing stories, ideas, concepts, emotions. Collective experience.
Living so close to the sea has kept us here in Suffolk for the last 13 summer’s! Being able have a holiday in one day, throw supplies into the boot of the car and the girls in the front on a whim feels like a dream. Having moved here from a busy suburb of Surrey, I still half expect to have time called and have to hand the keys back and head “home” to reality. That’s not to say life is always idyllic, but I am grateful for our situation in terms of geography. Now my eldest is beyond being bundled into the beach wagon the outings are smaller and even more spur of the moment. Lack of planning means lower stakes & simple days! Returning when we like and no guilt if we don’t spend the whole day, or change plans mid flow. Hair, toes, bags, ears, towels full of sand in the summer. Pockets full of driftwood, feathers, rusty treasures and shells in the winter. The garden and house are embellished with beach finds, each one a relic from a story of a day on the coast. A physical reminder of a place to hold in your hand, bringing back flashes of sounds, textures, images. Holding a sense of place and time.
Creative Life in Suffolk 