Nicholas Hedges

Art, Writing and Research

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Artwork
    • Selected Works
    • Galleries
      • Installations
        • Murder
        • The Woods, Breathing
        • The Woods, Breathing (Texts)
      • Photographs
        • The Trees
        • Shotover
        • Pillars of Snow
        • Places
        • Textures
        • Walk to work
        • Creatures
      • Photographic Installations
        • St. Giles Fair 1908
        • Cornmarket 1907
        • Headington Hill 1903
        • Queen Street 1897
        • Snow (details)
        • The Wall
      • Stitched Work
        • ‘Missded’ Tokens
        • ‘Missded’ 1 – Tokens
        • ‘Missded’ 2 – Tokens
        • ‘Missded’ 3 – Tokens
      • Miscellaneous
        • Remembered Visit to Birkenau
        • Somewhere Between Writing and Trees
        • Tracks
        • Portfolio
        • Posters for Exhibitions
        • T (Crosses)
        • Backdrops
        • Correspondence (details)
    • Continuing Themes
      • Missded
      • Lists
      • Heavy Water Sleep
      • The Trees
      • The Gentleman’s Servant
      • Fragment
      • Notebook
  • Blog
  • Exhibitions
    • The Space Beyond Us
    • Kaleidoscope
    • A Line Drawn in Water
    • A Line Drawn in Water (Blog)
    • Mine the Mountain 3
    • Mine the Mountain 2
    • The Woods, Breathing
    • Snow
    • Echo
    • Murder
    • The Tourist
    • Dreamcatcher
    • Mine the Mountain
    • M8
    • Umbilical Light
    • The Gate
    • Creatures
    • Residue
    • A visit to Auschwitz
  • Video
    • Look, trees exist
    • Look, trees exist (WWI postcard)
    • Videos from ‘A Line Drawn in Water’
  • Family History
  • About Me
  • Subscribe to Nicholas Hedges
  • Eliot Press

Lists

More entries on 'Lists'
DSC07879

Glimmerings: The War Poets, Paths and Folds

One of the nicest compliments I received during Friday's private view was '...these remind me of Siegfried Sassoon...'. The works in question were those images of imagined World War I landscapes painted onto folded paper, one of which I have ...
Bartlemas Chapel Excavation

The Material World

"What, then, is this material world? Of what does it consist?"So asks Tim Ingold, in his book, Being Alive, Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. It seems an obvious question, or rather, a question for which there is an obvious ...
Junk Shop Photograph

Moments

Following on from the completion of my text map (which I'm thinking of as a map of an individual rather than a place) I remembered this photograph which I bought in a junk shop, which seems, visually, to capture the ...
Map Work

Completed Map

Today, on a walk around Oxford, I completed my first text map which I began in Ampney Crucis about a month ago. Below is both the map and an image of the walks as recorded on my GPS (and then ...
Map Work

Map Work

I've almost completed my map of observations made during a number of walks over the past few weeks and am now looking to see how I can progress this line of work. The paper shown above has started to soften, ...
Return to England

Return to England

Since returning to England this morning after my residency in Australia, I've been looking at my notebook, and feel it's worthwhile putting the pages up on, in particular those relating to the walks I did. So reproduced with this blog ...
Lists and Bill Viola

Lists and Bill Viola

Whilst writing up some notes on making lists as a strategy, I thought again of the Bill Viola quote I mentioned in the last entry. The following is taken from what I wrote concerning lists, starting with an extract from ...
Diaries, Lists and Haiku

Diaries, Lists and Haiku

Last night I watched Chris Marker's film 'Sans Soleil' or 'Sunless', and having watched it, downloaded the text from the film. There was one passage in particular which interested me which was as follows:"He spoke to me of Sei Shonagon, ...
Day 12

Day 12

Today I walked the second walk in this series and made the following list of additional words:engines roarsirencigarettesightseeing bussunglassesman in a suitrefuse sacksred manpushchairspireglass domeChinese characterslook both waysdead endgreen wheelie binbarrierfamily walkgirl with a trolleymoundrucksackloud musiccar screechescameraparking ticketssmall windowstreeold railingsflag ...
Day 11

Day 11

I've been looking at my work so far and have started to think about what I will have to show and how I will show it."The Smell of an English Summer 1916 (Fresh Cut Grass)"Deckchairs and GraphiteThis piece takes the ...
Day 10

Day 10

Finished priming the canvas and then painted a layer of Paynes Grey on top. Over this I'll rub some white before working in the graphite powder. Into this I'll then scratch the outlines of Loggan's 1675 map which I will ...
Day 9

Day 9

I received the canvas today and so made a start on priming it.I also walked my new route and made a list of objects, sounds etc. The full list is as follows:voicesa siren burstthe sunengine startsLeffezebra crossingfat stomachboarded windowsremnants of ...
Day 8

Day 8

Having consulted two maps (one a Google map, the other David Loggan's map of 1675), I finally planned a new route for my 'walking work' which is as follows:Gloucester GreenChain AlleyGeorge StreetWorcester StreetTidmarsh LaneSt. Thomas' StreetParadise StreetCastle StreetBulwarks LaneGeorge StreetGloucester ...
Day 7

Day 7

I decided to do a walk today, one which I would record in single words or very short phrases. I am interested in how we relate to single words and phrases when trying to picture a past experience, particularly of ...

The following passage is taken from ‘The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot’ by Robert Macfarlane. In a chapter on water he writes:

“The second thing to know about sea roads is that they are not arbitrary. There are optimal routes to sail across open sea, as there are optimal routes to walk across open land. Sea roads are determined by the shape of the coastline (they bend out to avoid headlands, they dip towards significant ports, archipelagos and skerry guards) as well as by marine phenomena. Surface currents, tidal streams and prevailing winds all offer limits and opportunities for sea travel between certain places…”

This reminded me of some work I did on my ancestor Stephen Hedges who was transported to Australia in 1828. In particular I thought about the route The Marquis of Hastings (the ship on which he sailed) took from Portsmouth to Port Jackson (Sydney) which I mapped using Google Earth and coordinates written down in a logbook by the ship’s surgeon, William Rae.

Macfarlane also writes:

“Such methods would have allowed early navigators to keep close to a desired track, and would have contributed over time to a shared memory map of the coastline and the best sea routes, kept and passed on as story and drawing…

Such knowledge became codified over time in the form of rudimentary charts and peripli, and then as route books in which sea paths were recorded as narratives and poems…

To Ian, traditional stories, like traditional songs, are closely kindred to the traditional seaways, in that they are highly contingent and yet broadly repeatable. ‘A song is different every time it’s sung,’ he told me, ‘and variations of wind, tide, vessel and crew mean that no voyage along a sea route will ever be the same.’ Each sea route, planned in the mind, exists first as anticipation, then as dissolving wake and then finally as logbook data. Each is ‘affected by isobars, / the stationing of satellites, recorded ephemera / hands on helms’. I liked that idea; it reminded me both of the Aboriginal Songlines, and of [Edward] Thomas’s vision of path as story, with each new walker adding a new note or plot-line to the way.”

One of the things I like about William Rae’s logbook of the journey aboard the Marquis of Hastings is the description of the weather. The world aboard a prison ship in 1828 is far removed from our experience, but we know weather and can therefore use his descriptions to bridge the gap between now and then; moving from – to use Macfarlane’s words – “logbook data” through “dissolving wake” and “anticipation,” all the way back to “planned in the mind.” The description of the weather therefore becomes a poem of sorts, echoing what Macfarlane writes above; how sea paths become narratives and poems, allowing me to step back into the mind of my ancestor.

Fresh Breeze. Mist and rain.
Strong Breeze. Cirro stratus. Horizon hazy.
Hard gale & raining. Heavy Sea.
Hard rain & Violent Squalls. Hail & rain.

Click here for a PDF transcript I made of the journey.

© Nicholas Hedges 2006-20

Subscribe
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2023 · Outreach Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in