Nicholas Hedges

Art, Writing and Research

Now In The Past Of An Unreal Place

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The image below is one of the extended backdrops I’ve created using early 20th century studio portraits.

It has, I think, a connection with other recent work (below) which I’ve been making using graphite powder and oil, not only in its look, but also in the fact these images are both unreal landscapes. The image above is a portion of a studio backdrop which has been extended in Photoshop. That below was arrived at through manipulation of oil and graphite.

The third image below is a screenshot from a video I made called ‘The Gone Forest‘. Again there are similarities between this work and the images above, not only in its look, but also in what it shows.

It’s part of a landscape, one which once existed, but which is now a part of the past. In essence, this landscape is unreal in that it no longer exists; it isn’t a place we can go to except, as in the case of the images above, within our imaginations.

This fourth image is one of numerous shadows I have painted in woodlands using Chinese brushes and ink. It is like part of a lost language; a word created and written in the moment, describing that moment. In effect it represents what was ‘now’; the nowness of a lost moment.

Given the fact these look like Chinese/Japanese writing, I looked at using scrolls as a medium; incorporating both the painted image using oil and graphite as well as one of the characters painted in the woods.

Return to Graphite

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I used to work quite a bit with oil and graphite and have, in the last few days, returned to this medium. So far the results have been very encouraging, despite being without a studio and so having to work in the garden.

As well as sticking with oil and graphite, I have also begun experimenting with adding pastel; just white in these cases, but again I like the results, particularly the way the pastel mixes with the oiled paper to create texture.

Following on from these, I then started looking at how this approach could be used with the recent scroll work I’ve been doing. Again, the result has been encouraging. The image below is very much a prototype, but I can see the potential.

Genius

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I was recently gifted David Whyte’s beautiful book ‘Consolations’ by a friend in which, for the word genius, he writes:

‘Genius is, by its original definition, something we already possess. Genius is best understood in its foundational and ancient sense, describing the specific underlying quality of a given place, as in the Latin genius loci, the spirit of a place; it describes a form of meeting, of air and land and trees, perhaps a hillside, a cliff edge, a flowing stream or a bridge across a river. It is the conversation of elements that makes a place incarnate, fully itself. It is the breeze on our skin, the particular freshness and odours of the water, or of the mountain or the sky in a given, actual geographical realm. You could go to many other places in the world with a cliff edge, a stream, a bridge, but it would not have the particular spirit or characteristic, the ambiance or the climate of this particular meeting place.

By virtue of its latitudes and longitudes, its prevailing winds, the aroma and colour of its vegetation, and the way a certain angle of the sun catches it in the cool early morning, it is a unique confluence, existing nowhere else on earth. If the genius of place is the meeting place of all the elements that make it up, then, in the same way, human genius lies in the geography of the body and its conversation with the world.

The human body constitutes a live geography, as does the spirit and the identity that abides within it.

To live one’s genius might be to dwell easily at the crossing point where all the elements of our life and our inheritance join and make a meeting. We might think of ourselves as each like a created geography, a confluence of inherited flows. Each one of us has a unique signature, inherited from our ancestors, our landscape, our language, and alongside it a half-hidden geology of our life as it has been lived: memories, hurts, triumphs and stories that have not yet been fully told. Each one of us is also a changing seasonal weather front, and what blows through us is made up not only of the gifts and heartbreaks of our own growing but also of our ancestors and the stories consciously and unconsciously passed to us about their lives.‘

I was really struck by this beautiful passage, not least in relation to my own work and, in particular, the shadow calligraphy I have been painting in woods. In particular, the passage regarding our ancestors really struck a chord. ‘Each one of us has a unique signature, inherited from our ancestors, our landscape, our language, and alongside it a half-hidden geology of our life as it has been lived: memories, hurts, triumphs and stories that have not yet been fully told. Each one of us is also a changing seasonal weather front, and what blows through us is made up not only of the gifts and heartbreaks of our own growing but also of our ancestors and the stories consciously and unconsciously passed to us about their lives.‘

The scrolls I am preparing to make in particular resonate with David Whyte’s words, being as they are pictures from my childhood, including my grandmother’s garden.

The characters of each scroll could be that unique signature, not only of the present moment but also of our ancestors. It combines, which I always love, the idea of now and the past. It is, as David Whyte says, our language; the text of our story and the story of our ancestors too.

Komorebi

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I discovered a lovely Japanese word today which describes the very things I’ve been painting and filming in the woods. Komorebi 木漏れ日 (pronounced kō-mō-leh-bē), means, literally, ‘sunlight leaking through trees’ and describes the rays of light dappling through the leaves of trees and casting shadows on the forest floor.

The fact that I’ve been painting these shadows as characters which themselves resemble Japanese characters makes this word even more fitting.

Scroll Work

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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

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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.”

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Reimagining The Past

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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.

Rinsho

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After my last post I watched a video by calligrapher Tomoko Kawao in which she mentions the practice of Rinsho, where the calligrapher copies the work of ancient masters in order to enhance their own skills.

From what I have gleaned, Rinsho is not about crating the exact copy of given masterpiece but rather, it’s about the energy, spirit, dynamics, writing style, proportions, line characteristics, and so on. Rinsho is about copying the emotions, the mental state, the attitude, and the mood, that a given masterpiece comprises (see: http://www.ryuurui.com/blog/the-proper-way-to-study-chinese-japanese-calligraphy).

This interests me as regards the works I have made recently, such as the image below:

Having made this original image (and many others like it) at a particular moment in time, I’d been wondering whether I could do more with it. The practice of Rinsho gave me the answer.

Much of my work is about reimagining a past moment by trying to see that moment as it was when it was ‘now’. We can never know of course what a past moment was really like, but by understanding what makes the present moment for us ‘present’ we can use that knowledge to find our way back in time, at least just a little.

Copying the images I made – in the style of a calligrapher copying the work of an ancient master – seems to me to reflect this idea. As it says above, it’s not abut making a faithful copy (we can never go back in time) but using our experience to see something of the ‘energy, spirit, dynamics, writing style, proportions, line characteristics, and so on’. It’s about ‘copying’ the emotions, the mental state, the attitude, and the mood.

I have therefore started to use these original sketches as texts and to copy them, not to produce an exact copy, but to get a sense of that moment when they were first made.

Shadow Calligraphy

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On Saturday, whilst at Shotover with the kids, I took some time – whilst they were climbing trees – to paint some of the shadows cast by the trees. I started working with shadows like these back in 2017 and have recently started exploring this idea again. Below are some examples from my sketchbook made on Saturday.

The Gone Forest

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Two years ago I shot some video at Shotover Country Park (see ‘Writing Shadows’) and finally, this weekend, I had the chance to edit the clips together to make a piece entitled ‘The Gone Forest’. The piece is something viewers can dip in and out of rather than sit through from beginning to end, and while it is a finished piece, there are lots of other ways I want to explore using these clips.

For now, here is the video:

Tokens and Shadows

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A while ago I made some sketches at Shotover Wood, tracing shadows with ink.

Thinking back to these and with regards the work I’m currently making, I looked again at these sketches and applied the idea of the quick, gestural painting to the patterns. The shadow paintings, like the related video work, were themselves about absence, of time passing, something being there (the woods at a specific time) and now being absent (revealed only through their shadows). This seemed to chime with the idea of the fabric tokens as also being about absence.

© Nicholas Hedges 2024