Nicholas Hedges

Art, Writing and Research

Acorns

by

In my work I have always been interested in the past and how we can empathise with those who lived long before us. I like to think about how we access the past and how we build a picture of the long lost world as best as we can. We might start with a fragment of pottery, a detail in an old photograph, a piece of writing, a coin – it could be anything; but we often start with a fragment.

With that fragment, we can then build outwards within our imaginations, trying to experience the world from which the fragment is estranged. We can try to hear it, feel our way around it, see movement as if it’s now and, as I’ve written before, one of the best ways to do that is through the natural landscape. After all, those who lived in the past would have known what it is to walk in the natural world.

We experience a wood in much the same way as someone a hundred, two hundred or five hundred years ago. Yes, their experience would be different in that they would know the natural world differently, but they would see the trees moving in the wind, see the sun make shadows on the ground, see the clouds, the sky, feel the rain and so on. We might not be able to experience a town or city as they would but we can better know a wood as they would have known it.

I have been doing a lot of work in woods lately, painting shadows cast by the leaves of the trees and I like the idea that trees themselves start off as seeds, and that from these small beginnings they grow, reaching out into the world around them. Seeds and trees are therefore a good metaphor for how I try and experience the past. Starting off small and growing up and out to feel my way into a world that no longer exists.

With the shadow work I’ve been doing, the shadows are like the traces of the past – the fragments. With them, we can try and imagine the trees which cast them, building out to picture the sun, the sky, the clouds, birds and all the other trees in the wood.

The wood therefore represents the past; a world in which we might find ourselves walking, experiencing it as best we can like those who lived before us. We start with a seed and planting it within our imaginations, we allow it to grow into another world.

Thinking about I might represent this pictorially, I’ve recently been looking at scrolls and have come up with some ideas of how I might create some work using the format, using the shadow calligraphy I’ve been creating in the woods.

Scrolls are very precise objects – almost ceremonial. They have a form that is both rolled and unrolled and this is something which interests me as regards my work on empathy and the past. The rolled scroll is like our beginning – our fragment, our seed or acorn. It’s like that first bit of knowledge which once untied we begin to unroll. And as we unroll, it’s as if the acorn is growing, reaching out as it begins to build the world of the past.

I love this idea of unrolling. In my Goethean observation, I noted the following in the final phase:

The solidity and tightness of the rolled state – the past hidden.
The untying.
The unrolling and revelation.
The fragility and expanse of the unrolled state – the past revealed.
Then as now.
Delineated.
Breathing.
Defined.
Sounds.
The re-rolling and hiding.
Quiet.
Ceremony and calmness.
Past and present as one.

I can add to that – growing. The scroll is the tree rising up and putting out its branches while putting down its roots into the ground. I like the idea that as the scroll unrolls, it somehow keeps expanding.

One of the things I’ve been looking at is how I can use the scroll’s background. Rather than just using a piece of material, can I use that material as a canvas somehow?

Quite a while ago I was looking at the backdrops used in studio portraits of World War I soldiers (see ‘Backdrops‘, . ‘ WWI Backdrops‘, ‘Backdrops (Odilon Redon)‘, ‘The Past in Pastoral‘) and so I thought that I could use these backdrops as a background for a scroll. The image below is something I did several years ago where I isolated the backdrop in the postcard.

The following is how it might work as a scroll, complete with a character painted in the woods.

The studio backdrop is something in front of which people would have stood to have their picture taken. Those people have long gone and we – or whoever is looking at the scroll – are standing in their place. The painted character is that which I painted in a real wood and represents a moment – ‘now’. When I imagine a past event, I am trying to imagine someone who lived at the time. In a sense, our imaginations are like a theatre where we assemble this moment, complete with backdrop, props, actors and maybe even a script. The idea of the backdrop works very nicely with this.

Scroll Work

by

I’ve been looking at ways of developing work with scrolls and in particular, how to utilise the background of the scroll to compliment the character (the main focus of the artwork).

It was whilst looking through some old family photographs that I found one of my grandparents, taken at Shotover in 1952. This is the wood where I have been spending time recently, painting the characters for use in the scrolls.

Taking the photograph of my grandparents, I had the idea of using that as the background image, with two of the characters painted in the woods (see image above) positioned on top. The result was, for me, unexpectedly moving.

I’ve always been interested in the idea of the ‘nowness’ of a past event, and how, when we look, for example, at a photograph from the distant past, we can find details that help articulate that sense of now. For me, in the photograph of my grandparents, it’s the shadows at the top of the tree trunk. They point to the space beyond the edges of the photo – the sun, the sky, the canopy of the trees etc. and that sense of ‘now’ is further articulated by the characters painted on top, after all, they are themselves tracings of shadows painted at a particular moment in time.

Goethean Observation: Japanese Scroll

by

The process of 'Goethean Observation'

Introduction

There are many different interpretations of the Geothean (a method of observing as described by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)) method, but the one I prefer to use is that described by Iris Brook in her paper, “Goethean Science as a Way to Read Landscape,” which is, basically, as follows:

1. exact sense perception [bare facts: perception]
2. exact sensorial fantasy [time-life of object: imagination]
3. seeing in beholding [heartfelt getting to know – inspiration]
4. being one with the object [intuition]

1. Exact Sense Perception [Perception]

Now the observer attempt to approach the object from a clearer, more objective standpoint.. This stage was called by Goethe, exact sense perception and is characterised by a detailed observation of all the ‘bare facts’ of the phenomenon that are available to our ordinary senses. It is an attempt to see what is present with as little personal judgement and evaluation as possible.

An example of trying to let the facts speak for themselves from Goethe’s own work is his extraordinarily detailed observations of colour phenomena. Rather than draw hypotheses or work from a theory his investigations involve colour as experienced by himself, as used by artists, as created by dyers, as used symbolically, as seen in animals and plants and so on.

For the student attempting to carry out this stage with their own phenomenon, drawing can be a useful tool, because in drawing our attention is brought to previously unnoticed detail or patterns.

Another tool used is to ignore some knowledge, for example the names of things… Attempting to find another word to describe the part you are indicating to someone else often leads to a looking again.”

2. Exact Sensorial Fantasy [imagination]

“The second stage of looking at the phenomenon is what Goethe called ‘exact sensorial fantasy’ (Exact sinnliche Phantasie). An aspect of this activity is to perceive the time-life of the phenomenon, that is to see the phenomenon in time. This means no longer seeing the thing in an objective frozen present as prompted by the first stage, but as a thing with history. That history can be drawn from the phenomenon with the use of an imaginative faculty that cultivates temporal and physical relationships…

The shift between the two modes of seeing is a small one, but the world does look very different when seen in a state of flux.

In this phase the imagination can be used as a tool to vary what is seen and attempt to imagine it otherwise. The obvious link to the phenomenology here is with the use of free imaginative variation. First suggested by Husserl, this is a means of deriving the essence of a phenomenon by pushing the eidos of the thing beyond what can be imagined. The second stage could be seen as a training of the imaginative faculty in two directions: firstly to free up the imagination and then to constrain it within the realms of what is possible for the phenomenon being studied.”

3. Seeing in Beholding [Inspiration]

The first two stages of Goethean method could be characterised as an engagement with the phenomena, first by seeing its outer static appearance objectively and then by experiencing something of its inner processes. In the third stage one attempts to still active perception to allow the thing to express itself through the observer. We attempt to step outside of what has gone before and make space for the thing to articulate in its own way.

The detailed information is somehow transcended, but just as exact sensorial fantasy requires exact sense perception to anchor its dream-like activity, seeing in beholding needs the content and the preparation of the other two stages if the researcher is to articulate the thing. Goethe terms the changes necessary to our everyday consciousness as the development of ‘new organs of perception’.

To experience the being of a phenomenon requires a human gesture of ‘self-disspation’. This effort is a holding back of our own activity – a form of receptive attentiveness that offers the phenomenon a chance to express its own gesture.”

4. Being One with the Object [Intuition]

“The first three stages of the Goethean method involve different activities and ways of thinking and these could be characterised as first using perception to see the form, second using imagination to perceive its mutability, and, third, inviting inspiration to reveal the gesture. The fourth stage uses intuition both to combine and go beyond the previous stages.

Being one with the object in this fourth stage allows the human ability to conceptualise to serve the thing: we lend it this human capacity. When the phenomenon being explored does not have the ability to think, it is the most participatory part of Goethean observation.

Our ability to think creatively and to initiate future action is the faculty being used here and thus the dangers of abstract creation not tied to the phenomenon are great.

Being one with the object allows an appreciation of the content or meaning of the form as well as the form itself… At this stage of the process of Goethean observation it is acknowledged that the phenomenon is at its least independent of human reason.”

1

The object is long, perhaps two feet in length. It is off-white in colour and comprises a rod around which a white material is wrapped, bound with a pale gold braid. The object feels nice to hold; it has a nice weight with a texture that is both smooth and rough to the touch. The gold braid is attached to a wooden, half-moon shaped rod of wood around which the top of the scroll is fixed. The braid is wrapped around the circumference of the scroll and as I unwind it, the scroll seems almost to relax. Once unfastened, I begin to unroll the scroll from the top and at once I’m presented with the dark turquoise material patterned with small flowers in gold. It’s a little difficult in the artificial light to be sure of the exact colours. This section of material extends about 18 inches as I continue to unroll it, whereupon it meets another section of material which, centred on the turquoise backing, extends 3/4 of the width of the scroll. It is just over an inch high and again comprises a pattern of flowers, again in gold, but with a cream coloured background. 

As I continue to unroll the scroll I see that this small section of material sits at the top of a section of paper on which the characters of the scroll are painted. The first character extends about 12 inches, comprising four distinct sections of brush work. Obviously I can’t read what it says, and as I unroll the scroll down further, smaller characters appear on the left next to a slightly larger one. Underneath these three smaller characters is a red, printed icon. Underneath the larger character beside these three small characters are two more larger ones. As I continue to unroll the scroll, the paper section ends with another small strip of material matching the one at the top but narrower. The dark turquoise material extends beneath this another 10 inches and as I continue to unroll I reach the bottom where the scroll is wrapped around the heavier, ivory coloured rod. There’s a lovely, defined feel to this action, where the end is reached.

Looking at the characters, I can see that they obviously have meaning, that they are painted with an obvious purpose. I can see where the ink is heavier and where it has bled into the paper and also where the brush is dryer. Here I notice the ink is streaked. Even though I cannot read what it says, I can read the gesture of the calligrapher as he or she moves down the paper. As I look at the characters, I can see that along with the gold flowers patterning the dark background there are also flowers in a darker, turquoise colour. The gold of the two strips at the top and the bottom of the paper part of the scroll match the hanging braid at the top of the scroll which in turn picks out the gold flowers of the background giving the whole scroll a sense of unity. Overall the scroll is just over 1m 60cm in length and just over 45cm wide

2

The scroll obviously comprises different parts; the backing material and strips of fabric, the wooden rod at the top, the plastic one at the bottom, the gold braid for tying and hanging and of course the paper section with on which the characters have been written. I can imagine the mind of the calligrapher, how as they wrote these characters, they might have sounded the words in their head. I can almost hear the sound of their thinking along with that of the brush being dipped in the ink and then scraped across the paper. To someone who doesn’t read that language, these words are mute, but because of that I can almost hear their sound in the mind of the calligrapher, perhaps because mine is quiet. I read the scroll by following the gestures. The words become a language of the moment in which they were made.

The sound of the brush on the paper is different where the density of the ink is different. I can almost hear the fullness of the brush touching the surface of the paper and as the ink is released from the brush into the paper and as the brush loses the ink I can hear the sound of the brush change from a slide to scrape, like rolling waves, falling to scrape on the shingle of the beach. I can also read the pauses between the characters where the calligrapher loads the brush once more with ink to make the second character. Here , the sounds of the place in which the words were painted find a way in. Again, there is the same change from the full sound of the loaded brush to the scrape of the ink as it’s lost. 

The parts where the brush is dry, where I can hear it scrape across the paper, is where I can see the gesture of the artist most clearly. 

Once made the paper would be cut to size and mounted on the material. Was the material chosen specifically for this text? Does it add to the meaning? That I can’t say, but I like the contrast between the precision of the background (the straight edges of the material) and the fluidity of the brush work. Where I can hear the sound of the brush work I can almost hear the sound of the scissors cutting the straight edges of the material, the strips and the paper. 

As I roll the scroll back up, it’s as if the scroll is rolling itself, as if it has spoken long enough and needs to rest again. As I roll, I’m aware of the change where the dark material and the text changes to the off-white reverse of the backing material. This plain, off-white material is silent, unlike its interior, where the pattern and the text have spoken. I can just see the text through the material as I roll it, whispering as it’s gradually rolled away. 

Did the scroll hang anywhere or was it always rolled up? Was it gift for someone? Did the text have any significant meaning for whoever gave it or received it?

Having rolled the scroll up its full length, it is once more the coiled scroll. I pick it up and I’m aware of the difference between the rolled scroll (quiet, portable, weighted) and the unrolled scroll (which speaks in the sounds both of it making and its meaning) which is light and different to hold.

There are then two very different states of the scroll and as I coil the braid around it, I feel as if I’m in control, whereas when it’s unrolled, I tread around it very carefully. In its unrolled state it is fragile but large, in contrast to its rolled state.

Having rolled the scroll up and tied the braid, it’s as if I am silencing the scroll for a while, knowing that it will speak again. It certainly feels like it has a life of its own and is waiting to be awakened.

3

Rolled up it’s silent, but is thinking – it has something to say; it’s as if the actions and the thoughts of the calligrapher are contained within; as if the moment of its making is waiting to be sounded with its unwinding.  As I loosen the braids the scroll breathes. There is a sense of ceremony, waiting for that moment to be revealed in this moment, as if the moment contained within will become one with the moment in which we, ourselves, are contained. 

As I unroll the scroll, it’s as if the scroll is taking a breath, as if the pattern is an intake of breath ready to speak that which is on the paper. 

As I continue to unroll, it begins to speak. The painted brushstrokes are words of a language, not only in the sense of one spoken by a particular group of people, but the language of the moment in which it was made, the ambient sounds, the brush work on the paper. 

The backing is the breath. 

As it remains in its unrolled state, it breathes. It is a thing all of its own. That moment in time delineated by the sound by the fluid brushstrokes and the precision of the material in which it is framed. As long as it’s open, unrolled, the moment of its making plays in the present.

4

The solidity and tightness of the rolled state – the past hidden.
The untying.
The unrolling and revelation.
The fragility and expanse of the unrolled state – the past revealed.
Then as now.
Delineated.
Breathing.
Defined.
Sounds.
The re-rolling and hiding.
Quiet.
Ceremony and calmness.
Past and present as one.

Mistakes

by

I like it when I make mistakes, or, as in the case of this painting, it wasn’t going the way I thought it would. I’d stuck some inked leaves on the canvas as per a recent painting with the aim of introducing some colour, but having done so, the canvas looked a mess and wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do. So, I took my palette knife and scraped it across the surface of the canvas, removing all the leaves and some of the pain and what was left I really liked.

The leaves reminded me of fossilised feathers which is in keeping with the general theme of my work. The colours too reminded me of classical greek ceramics as in the image below.

As with some other recent paintings, I decided to add some flashes of green to the leaves which also worked really well.

The Leaf Is Singing Still

by

A music work in progress the title of which comes from Mary Oliver:

“What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story and you are somewhere in it and it will never end until all ends.
Take your busy heart to the art museum and the chamber of commerce but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you were a child is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four, and the leaf is singing still.”

Past Present

by

After completing a recent painting (see below), I wondered whether to add colour as per the initial idea, but I liked the painting as it was and was concerned about spoiling it. The consensus among friends was to leave it as it was – which I did.

A Past Present 1 - oil and leaves on canvas

Instead, I decided to create some much small works to see how the addition of colour would work and the following small canvases were the result. I do like the addition of colour as it reflects the idea of the mind trying to animate a relic of the past in order to imagine the object as it was in a time long since passed. Looking at the blackened leaves (representing the shadows of the leaves acquiring form) becoming green with the sky behind, I think this process is well articulated. I will now work these up to larger canvases.

Scrolls

by

I’m going to be producing some scrolls using the shadow calligraphy I’ve created in the woods and having had a scroll made recently, I’ve been looking at how to take this further, using the whole scroll as an artwork, rather than acting simply as a framing device for the painted character.

To help with this I’ve been looking at buying a scroll and the image below shows three that I found for sale on eBay.

Looking at the material used in these, I was reminded of some work I did a while back using fragments of fabric which I then extended onto paper.

I like the idea of the backing for the painted ‘characters’ incorporating this idea of the fragment which would then extended into the body of the scroll support. This would itself support the idea behind the characters; that they are all that remains of a moment in the woods which we can interpret as a ‘word’, thereby returning, in our minds, to that lost moment in time. The pattern of the fragment in the support might be foliage which which would then be extended across entire support, echoing the idea of the moment being extended in our mind’s eye.

I think this idea would work well both with paper and fabric, so I shall be busy trying these out soon.

As Yet Untitled

by

I’ve started a new painting on an 80cm square canvas which takes the concept of shadows cast by trees in the woods by using actual leaves. These are first dipped in black ink to simulate the black ink brushstrokes of my other paintings – for example those I painted in situ at Shotover, then placed on the canvas painted with white oil paint.

I’m not sure where this will lead, but the idea behind the painting is that of re-imagining the past. Taking the idea of the shadow paintings, the shadows are then ‘re-imagined’ as actual leaves, still with the idea of simulating the same calligraphic style. I will now introduce colour into the work as the next phase of the re-imagining process is to imagine the actual leaves, trees and sky etc. How that will look… I don’t know as yet. One artist who does keep popping into my mind however is Cy Twombly.

Holes

by

Whilst painting in the woods at the weekend, I also used my shadows notebook, painting some of the shadows which invariably meant the pages stuck together as the ink dried.

I like the effect however and in particular the holes left by the ripping paper as I peeled the pages apart. They called to mind the exhibition I went to see recently at The Courtauld Gallery in London, featuring the charcoal portraits of Frank Auerbach.

These drawings were carried out over long periods of times, during which they were worked and reworked, causing the paper to rip which the artist would then mend. I loved seeing the rips and the mendings and wonder if I could do the same with my own shadow pieces, building up, in the process, a palimpsest of moments.

Scroll

by

The paintings I made at Shotover, using ink, rice paper and calligraphy brushes, are like written characters from an unknown language; a language which is created then lost the moment it is written down.

It is the language of the present, which comes and goes in the blink of an eye; a series of ‘nows’ renewed and discarded second by second (‘Forever is composed of nows’ – Emily Dickinson).

A friend of mine recently mounted one of these paintings as a scroll and, framed in this way, that sense of the paintings being part of a language is enhanced, causing the viewer to ask, not so much ‘what does it mean?’ (as an artwork), but rather, ‘what does it say?’ (as a word).

Because it is saying something. We just can’t read it.

The only way we can engage with it on that level – the only way we can read it, is by following the gesture of the marks themselves; following with our eyes the strokes of the brush – perhaps even going so far as to copy them onto paper. That way, we re-create, kinaesthetically, the moment, lost to time, in which they were made.

Whenever I’m in an historic place, whether a building or a part of the landscape, it’s my embodied imagination which helps bring me closer to the people who once walked and lived in those spaces. By tracing or copying the paths they took, I am able, in some small way, to connect with them.

The same is true of these works. The viewer can understand them only by following the marks; by recreating within their embodied imaginations the gestures I made as I painted them.

As I’ve said, the scroll confers on the marks the sense that they are part of a language. That the scroll is hung on a wall also tells us the marks are important, or at least worthy of display. Perhaps they are reminders that the present moment is important; that eventually, all our present moments will be reduced to this – however we live our lives; a single trace, like a fleeting shadow.

In terms of the paintings themselves, these marks are the tracings of shadows cast in a small part of the woods in which they were made. It is all that remains of me, my thoughts, my actions, the trees, the birds, the breeze, the light, the weather in that moment; everything that existed in that particular moment in time is reduced to his single character.

I haven’t titled these pieces, but I’m wondering whether, when I next go out to paint, I should make a note of a few words (as per the lists I’ve made when carrying out walking meditations) and use those. In that way, the viewer can perhaps use the gesture of the brush strokes to recreate the scene from which it was taken.

A Calligraphy of Shadows

by

Taking advantage of the beautiful, sunny weather today, I got up at the crack of dawn and drove over to Shotover Wood to collect some shadows. Armed with my drawing board, rice paper, calligraphy brushes and ink, I walked among the trees and bluebells and found a number of spots in which to paint undisturbed.

It really was just so beautiful to sit among the birdsong and paint for several hours and by the end of the session, I had painted 43 shadows which I was really pleased with.

Walking Meditation 2

by

Following on from my first walking meditation, I did another, again around Blenheim Park, the list from which is below.

Pheasants among the stubble
Red kit flies above them and calls above the trees
Lichen pocked trees
Mass covered stump
Vivid moss on the roots of a tree among the dead leaves of last year’s summer
Water trickling down the tarmac path
Steady patter of rain
A distant aeroplane
Birds calling high in the trees
Ducks rooting among the leaves and drinking the water as it runs down the hill
Vague tyre tracks picked out by water
Dogs barking in the distance
Sheep wool on the electric fence
Dozens of mole hills
The distant baa of a sheep
Patches of brighter sky among the otherwise grey
Two children cycle past me
The heavy breath of a jogger as she passes by
‘Private Property’
The sun getting brighter

The sky walks in the puddles beside me
The whole world drips around me
Cascades of branches
The call of a pheasant
Voices behind me
An aeroplane flies above, invisible in the clouds
An empty seat by the daffodils
‘This was her favourite walk’
Beautiful spots of lichen on the branches of a tree
Ripples from the rain upon the lake
The distant toot of the miniature train
A view of the palace between the trees
A family walk towards me
A hole in the moss
Dead branches writhe like Medusa’s head
So many shades of green on the ancient trees
The sun is quiet above the jagged tree
Fringes of stubborn leaves
The sweeping old wall
A breeze wraps itself around my face

Knowing We Are There

by

I was reading ‘Landmarks’ by Robert McFarlane last night and was struck by a quote from American author and essayist Barry Lopez:

“One must wait for the moment when the thing — the hill, the tarn, the lunette, the kiss tank, the caliche flat, the bajada – ceases to be a thing and becomes something that knows we are there.”

This wonderful quote reminds me of many others I have used extensively in my work, some of which you can read in the blog below.

Arrival/Departure

In particular that by Christopher Tilley who, in his book ‘The Materiality of Stone, Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology’, writes: “The trees ‘see’ the painter in a manner comparable to that in which the mirror ‘sees’ the painter: that is, the trees, like the mirror, let him become visible: they define a point of view on him which renders visible for him something that otherwise would remain invisible – his outside, his physiognomy, his carnal presence… The trees and mirror function as Other.”

That moment when a thing, like a tree, functions as ‘other’ is, I think, the same as the moment when, as Lopez puts it, the thing knows we are there. There is a connection, between us and the thing, which is much more than us simply seeing it. It is, in Goethean Observation, akin to the stage of ‘Seeing in Beholding’, characterised by the human gesture of ‘self-disspation’; the effort of holding back of our own activity – a form of receptive attentiveness that offers the phenomenon (the thing) a chance to express its own gesture.”

This is a sketch I made in my notebook when I read Lopez’s quote.

Looking at this image also reminds me of the Buddhist concept of interbeing, the deep interconnection we have with everything else around us, for example, the tree. The same can be true of things which existed centuries ago. Again I have used this example several times – a painting by Yu Jian entitled Mountain Village in Clearing Mist and a piece I wrote about it for a book.

Clearing in the mist by Yu Jian

“This seemingly rapid work transported me to a time long gone. It revealed – much as with the Japanese haiku of Basho – an ancient and vanished moment, not so much through what it showed but how it was depicted. It was almost as if I could see the landscape before the painter himself. I could see the work as a whole (the landscape as a whole), but then, whilst picking through the gestures of the artist, evident enough in the brushstrokes, I could see the landscape as it was revealed. Yu Jian’s painting was not a painting of what was experienced, but rather the experiencing of what was experienced. It was almost as if the painting had become a painting, not of Yu Jian looking at the mountains, but of the mountain ‘seeing’ Yu Jian. It wasn’t the mountain that was made visible on the paper, but the artist himself – his presence at that moment. 800 years after his death, and Yu Jian was as good as sitting next to me. Or to put it another way, 800 years before I was born, I was as good as sitting next to him.“

Again we have the idea of the ‘thing’, in this case the mountain, seeing the artist, but in this instance, this is a moment from 800 years ago. We are not simply seeing the painting by Yu Jian, we are experiencing the moment when the painting ‘knows’ we are there and by proxy, experiencing the moment it was made.

A similar thing happened last week when I went to London and saw the sketches of JMW Turner at Tate Britain. I had walked around the gallery for a while ‘seeing’ the paintings, but on coming across these sketches, it was as if in Lopez’s words, the paintings also saw me.

It was like with the diagram in my notebook, where seeing becomes beholding and the arch rendered quickly with a few quick strokes, becomes something I can walk through.

Venice by Moonlight 1840

by

Yesterday I made my way to London to see the ‘Sargent and Fashion’ exhibition at Tate Britain which really is a fabulous show and well worth a visit.

I love Sargent’s work and have always had an interest in late 19th fashion, and love to see portrait with the actual dresses worn by the sitters displayed alongside. It’s utterly beguiling to look at the details and see them captured in brushstrokes over a hundred years ago; looking at the dress then at the canvas, just as that artist would have done.

I loved these photographs of Sargent painting a portrait. I love the blurred hands and face, signalling a sense of movement – of ‘nowness’ in the distant past.

But even though this was a fabulous show, the thing that captivated me most was in the Turner collection. Now, Turner was obviously a genius and although I love his more painterly works, I’m not such a fan of his earlier landscapes. What I love above all else are his watercolours and smaller works in chalk and gouache. And the works I loved the most were his 1840 scenes of Venice moonlight, two of which I’ve reproduced below.

It’s hard to put my finger on why these had such an impact. I think though, it’s the immediacy of the images. Standing in front of something painted almost 200 years ago, where the brushstrokes are so quick and fluid, one gets a sense of the moment it was made. In the image above, this is made the more so by the small patch of night sky seen through the arch.

The same is true of this image where the sky is so sketch and the figures are reduced almost to daubs.

Fragments and Additions

by

I’ve always been interested in the idea of fragments of the past and how, mentally, we add to them in order to create a view of that past. I did some work on this with some patches of fabric following a visit to the Foundling Museum in London (see Patterns Seeping and Patterns Seeping II).

Sometimes I have reversed the process to make fragments of work I have alreadymade. Again, the examples below (‘Missded’) were made in response to a visit I made to the Foundling Museum (see ‘Missded 1‘, ‘Missded 1 Stitched‘, ‘Missded 1 – A Framed Token‘).

Taking this idea, I’ve applied it to the ‘Shadow Calligraphy characters’ I’ve recently painted. I’m not suggesting for one minute the results make for good art, but I like the idea that a remnant of the past (the ‘character’) can be added to, just as when we try and imagine the past, we create the colours and sounds that went with the original fragment.

My choice of inks was extremely limited and these aren’t quite right, but it’s an idea I’ll continue to explore, as I have done with some oil paintings already.

Nana's Mountain

Reimagining The Past

by

This post follows on from one I wrote previously on ‘Rinsho’. Below are two painting I made in woods in my notebook.

With the art of Rinsho, the idea is to practice your calligraphy by copying, from books, that of the old masters. I like to think of the paintings made in the field, so to speak, as like those versions made by old masters and that copying them is like trying to reimagine a past event, where the body is trying to echo, through the gesture of painting, that of the original painter sitting in the woods; trying to imagine the trees, the sky, the sounds etc.

These are some of the copies I made of the characters above.

Walking Meditation 1

by

Blenheim Palace Park

I discovered this walk with my children at the weekend and so I returned today to do another walk, incorporating within that a walking meditation.

The idea of a walking meditation is to try and remain fully in the present, taking in everything that you see while not letting your mind wander. When you’re dealing with a difficult issue in your life and it’s one which seems to stop you thinking of anything else, then it’s a good way to let your mind breathe. It’s not a quick fix of course, but bit by bit, it should help reset your thoughts; especially if they are prone to going round and round a question that’s quite impossible to answer.

The list below comprises the things I noticed and chose to write down. There’s no particular reason why I chose these particular observations.

Walking meditation observations made at Blenheim Palace Park

Strong winds
Blue sky peppered with clouds
Ripples on the surface of the lake
The monument standing above the trees
Bright sun
Old dog
Dimpled mud at the edge of the grass
My shadow on the tarmac
The drone of a plane
Leaves blowing across the grass
Geese honking
A bird blows above like litter
Belly fulls of grey in the sky
Lichen on the old bridge
An old pollarded tree
Crows in the trees
A duck quacks
The trees talk
The sun reflected on the water
A bird runs from the bank
The raised roots on the path
Water gushing from a drain
Last year’s leaves still clinging on
Reeds like spears at the lake’s edge
The sun comes out and warms my face
Bright on the lake
The ground rises
Moss covered stump
Old leaves crunch beneath my feet
Beautiful birds then someone shouts up ahead
The sun returns
Shadows on the ground stretch to meet it
Suddenly warm as the wind drops
Gun shot, birds on the lake take flight
Mosquitoes in the sunlight like dust motes
Sun twinkling on the lake’s surface
Tentacled roots of a tree
Squelching underfoot
A helicopter flies past
A small waterfall gabbles as it flows
Graffiti covered tree
Brambles scribble themselves across the water’s edge
Reeds lie like logged trees in the water

Paw prints in the mud
The sky in a puddle
Beautiful colour water
Waves on the lake like a small sea
Two moorhens
Black fungus on a fallen log
A broken fence
A fallen tree on the opposite bank
The surface of the water, calm amongst the reeds, rippled without
A tree stands waiting to embrace
Two ducks with their heads in the water
Immense roots of a tree like the foot of a dinosaur
So quiet
Flies on the sheep dung
A feather in the grass
The winds picks up and blows away the siren
A small branch falls from a tree
A leaf skits across the tarmac
A pheasant runs away
I squint against the sun
Felled logs
Beautiful colours in a gap in a tree
A seat carved from an upended tree
Daffodils signalling Spring is on the way
Tyre tracks on the grass
Otherwordly trees
A fountain splashes water
Trees grow like an excess of time
Trees like creatures from the deep
The rings of an old stump
The sound of a power tool
Old leaves shiver on their branches
Slow rippled wood of the ancient oaks
A lost glove
An old wall follows the slopes
A crow flies with something in its beak
Patch of tarmac like a fossilised footprint
Ducks laugh ad planes drone
My shadow stretches before me
The call of a red kite
Jackdaws take flight

Mindful Walking I

by

One of the ways in which I have helped myself during recent low points has been the practice of mindful walking, where instead of walking as the mind spins around thinking on a problem, you try and focus on what you’re experiencing now, in the present. This stops the mind racing and connects you with the moment, allowing any despair and anxiety to take a back seat for a while.

Several years ago, when I was looking at ways of connecting with the ‘nowness’ of the past, I used walking as a method, making lists of things I was experiencing in the moment such as that below.

‘The splash of car tyres on the wet road’ – I can hear the sound in my mind as I read the text; the moment from over 15 years ago suddenly very present.

Reading these lines is a great way of connecting to the past, just as the act of making the lists – of mindful walking – is a great way to reconnect to the present, and to yourself. And by connecting with yourself, to be more embodied, allows you to better empathise with those in the past.

The video below, which I made as part of a Residency in Australia, was filmed in an old lockup. At the time it was meant to represent the idea of recalled everyday moments being a means of reaching from the present in order to reconnect with the past (the present being me, walking around the confines of the cell). Watching it now, I see how it could be interpreted differently, where walking and being mindful of the present, can help one to escape the prison of one’s suffering.

© Nicholas Hedges 2024