Silly Saturday: Kelp!

This happened on a day on Climping Beach, West Sussex, during the Land Art Course I was on at West Dean College

All that seaweed – couldn’t resist!

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Silly Saturday Shadows

I had such a wonderful week at West Dean and will share more of the process with the bench in another post, but today is Saturday and time for a bit of silliness!

Does my bum look big in this?

I had fun on the last morning (yesterday) walking around the grounds of West Dean College playing with the shadows in the early morning sun.

If you would like to see more of what I got up to you can visit my @rustnfound Instagram page.

Have you had an opportunity to be silly this week?

Choosing a place to Create

Land Art Course with Dan Lobb at West Dean.

As I was thinking about coming on the course I decided that my word for the week would be GRATITUDE. In the past, my life having its turbulent phases, when making and spiral, labyrinth or other ephemeral art in nature, I have often used it as a way of focussing the mind on a question, wish or invocation. Now as  I am in a calm and more peaceful time, it is time to acknowledge that and feel truly grateful.

On the first night here at West Dean, I was walking back to my car and was drawn to this bench. I tried to argue against using this as my focus as I had imagined working out in the gardens or woods in a much more aesthetically pleasing spot.

So I wandered around to find other places. Perhaps the dry stream bed in the ornametal  garden?

I could imagine filling the mud cracks with bright yellow leaves to look like gold in kintsugi art

Or could I be inspired by this fence, which had been altered by a fallen tree. Surely those roots would offer a suitable resting place for some ephemeral art.

(Edit: this is the tree that features in my next Post. the photos were taken on the very last morning, just before I drove home)

Or perhaps I could work in this area where there is a recently planted Tulip Tree

But the bench would not let me go. I realised my head was getting in the way of my intuition – so back to the bench …….

It has a memorial plaque to Jill Causer 1948 –  2017 and Joanna Elizabeth Causer 1980 – 2007. I asked at the college if they had any records Jill Causer but they didn’t. I realised she was 69 when she died – I am 69 and if I make it to November, I will not die aged 69 – something to be grateful for.

Joanna could have been Jill’s daughter, dying at the age of 27. I have not lost a child – another traumatic life experience I have been spared. It was becoming clear to me why this bench had called to me to celebrate Gratitude.

The grasses surrounding the tulip tree were also calling to me so I picked a bunch and took them back to the bench. Finding some feathers on the ground as I went.

As I was cutting the grass, it reminded me of my farming ancestors, making hay or harvesting the corn. I thought too of my Great Great Grandmother, Caroline Canterbury, who was a sailcloth weaver in Dorset in the mid 1800s.

So when I got to the bench, I wove the grasses through the back struts

The process had begun…..

 

 

 

 

Land Art at West Dean College

I am at West Dean College this week doing a Land Art course with Dan Lobb

There are four students including me

Top left is Dan, then C who has been to West Dean many times, bottom right is T an Architect from the US. He has flown over especially for this course and bottom left A, an installation artist.

On Friday evening we gathered for a presentation by Dan, of his work and examples from other ephemeral artists working with natural elememts, like Andy Goldsworthy and Chris Drury.

This is the view from the window where the group meets

As you can see, we are currently experiencing a drought in the UK

West Dean was established by Edward James, a friend of Salvador Dali, and is a fascinating, enriching place to be.

Note the carpet: Edward James’s wife was a ballet dancer and as she ran from the bathroom with wet feet, Edward noticed her footprints and wanted them immortalised in carpet design

The gardens are glorious

and there are so many fascinating details to notice

It promises to be a spectacularly creative week on so many levels – I am in heaven!

Silly Saturday

I met this guy on Branscombe Beach last weekend, any ideas what his name could be?

He looks like he might be emerging from his underground home to see who’s about.

I think he might be related to this chap who lives in the Lost Gardens of Heligan

I don’t know his name either.

Joining in with Cee’s Oddball Challenge

Turn

Oak tree turned into a sun dial by the evening sun

swirls like the ocean

running on the shore of your

imagination

 

The spiral made in my lawn this year has been thoroughly enjoyed by many – children always run around spirals – turning, turning, turning, always turning, always running, always laughing – it is a delight!

Easy to do – you cut the lawn on a high setting and then starting in the middle, mow outwards on a lower setting, keeping a gap of the mower width to your right or left, whichever way you are moving. I’d love to know if you give it a go.

I first cut a spiral back in 1999 and then came the Waves, and the Grid

What pattern would you create?

Just had to include this wonderful piece of graphic design:

I saw this on a site called ‘Trust Me I’m a Designer’. Clever don’t you think!

It’s your turn!

Leave a link to your photos in the comments so that we can all see what turns up this week. 😉

Joining in with Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge – his prompt words this week are: Ocean and Shore

and the One – a – Week Photo Challenge that Cathy and I have compiled for fun.

Dungeness on Tuesday

I’ve wanted to see Derek Jarman’s Garden for at least 15 years and on Tuesday, after a long drive across the bleak, flat marshes we found it more easily than I thought we might.

Although it is not as he made it (he died in 1994), it still has an aura, an atmosphere about it and the current owners have kept much of the basic structure of the garden.

It is not so isolated as I had imagined, and quite a walk from the sea……

First cut of the year

Yesterday was a perfect gardening day – no wind, no sun, just pleasant warm weather – the first time for months and months I was happy to garden all day – and I cut the grass for the first time – that must be a record – 21st May!!!

It put me in a pleasantly nostalgic mood, fondly remembering the garden I left in 2005. I had a large orchard and was able to mow a huge 7 circuit grass spiral

It was just wonderful to see the grasses grow and change throughout the seasons. I walked the spiral each morning for about 2 years.  Children nearly always ran into the centre and out again, shrieking with joy.

Andy Goldsworthy (one of my favourite artists) says the best way to observe change is to stay in the same place; and watching the grasses grow, in the spiral, and flower and go to seed and notice what bugs and beetles, birds and butterflies were attracted to the grasses at each stage, was a brilliant way to understand what he means.

Early morning dew:

January

Mid-summer party

I had a wonderful 10 years in West Dorset and it is the garden and the grass spiral I miss the most.

So when i moved to where I am now I mowed a spiral

It could be seen on Google Earth!

And on what seemed like the only warm day of that summer (2oo8), after the paddling pool was put away:

I could not resist a play myself

  Goodnight!