Reflecting and Creating

 

Christopher Jelley, telling the Salt Way Tale in situ. 

Creating a Storywalk and Reflecting in a Journal, or two... 

 I feel like I really am at the end now. I have started writing on the last page of (possibly) my last Reflective Journal. This feels like a pivotal moment.

Photos showing some pages from my many Reflective Journals

Reflective Journals, of which I have many, are notebooks, which as students we are encouraged to produce to record the research that is undertaken on the MA course. I have found that they are invaluable as tools to remind me of where I have come from in terms of my exploration of design ideas and give me a direction to focus on and pursue. Of course I could go and buy another sketchbook and start a new one, but it feels like this is the point at which I now slow down and stop.

I have found that writing it all out, sticking in articles/photocopies etc all in one place has really helped my research process. I can follow my train of thought easily.

I need to write a fairly short critical paper on my project, finalise preparation for the MA show and yet still think ahead, enough to see where this MA could take me.

 I feel the final project, which has focussed on The Salt Way in Whitstable, can be seen as a generic model for other paths which when revealed, create a valuable connection between people and land. I have visions of working with this route and many others around the country encouraging people to explore their local area. I want to see people who may not have been aware of their local heritage, especially that of trade routes, to feel proud and connected to the place in which they live.

I think the idea of rediscovering the history of local commodities and the distribution of this distinctive local product via trade routes is fascinating. The routes will still be there in most areas, but temporarily lost ‘on the ground’ and in people’s consciousness. I believe that to reinvigorate the path through gentle publicity using layers of visible and virtual interventions is my aim now. I want to improve on the design process that I have used during this research period and create a formula that has integrity and which can be applied to specific paths around the country, perhaps starting with all the Salt ways.

The starting point for the Storywalk created for the Salt Way.

Earlier this week, Christopher Jelley and I walked the section of the Salt Way over which he will produce a Storywalk. It was very hot. I showed him the route ‘on the ground’, as his only knowledge of it before was from my research paper, emails and Google maps. We drove to Blean and parked up in the shade and initially explored the church and graveyard. The heat of the day was intense as we walked along the Salt Way, but we were still able to focus on the job in hand and get some loose ends of the story tied up and yet start unravelling some others.

As we walked together in the evening sun we were treated to beautiful views from the Salt Way.

After a day or two, (luckily Chris and his family had come to stay with us for a week), he had woven the story together, creating an evocative ‘taster’ of a Storywalk for me. This can be used to promote what he does in Kent, as he mainly works in the West Country.

Yesterday, he put all the information into the Storywalk ‘engine’ that he uses, geo-located the chapters to site-specific story zones and got the story ready to go. That evening, after a trip to the beach hut and a swim in the sea, (his family were down on holiday after all), we all ventured back up to Blean church and ‘did’ the Storywalk together. This inaugural walk was filmed and more still photos were taken to add to this blog, our memories and the Storywalk itself, when it expands.

The sun created a stunning 'skydog',(scientific name parhelion), in these clouds.

I hope to be able to obtain funding to pay Chris to complete this Storywalk and create others along the route. His Storywalk along the Salt Way is the virtual intervention that I knew would complete the way-marking formula that I have designed for the MA. I wanted it to be invisible on the ground yet way-mark the route in a distinctive, creative form. These interventions could be layered on to many varied distance sections along the route. The Storywalks are accessed on mobile devices such as smart-phones and i-pads which I hope will encourage another type of user, a tech-familiar walker. The Storywalks will become a destination in their own way and leave only a trace in the memory of the walker, not on the ground. The experience will allow them to share the story out loud with their family and friends as they read the text and see the images provided at each chapter, which is triggered to open as the device is carried into another Storywalk ‘zone’ along the route.

Chris normally incorporates an activity into the story that the users can enjoy. This, in other stories in other places, has included making clocks out of found objects along the route, creating fairy charms to open gates and ringing a hidden bell in a tree. Only Time will tell what he has in store for the Salt Way!

Making and Doing

A photo from the earlier 'Fullmoon Solstice Saltway Ritualstic Walk' that evolved into a comfortable sitting-in-a-circle-around-a-fire 'event'.

(I love this archetypal image.)

To Do Lists

This episode is mostly about doing. I have been busy putting together the basics for my show to be held at the UCA Canterbury Campus, (week starting the 19^th of August.) So my lists are full of ‘do this’ and ‘do that’, with a timescale alongside which is either mostly ‘do-able’, or done! When I am in this mindset, I feel there is nothing better than being able to tick, physically or mentally, the job done once it is written on a list. I have been known to add recent, unplanned-for tasks to the lower part of an existing list, just so that I can tick them off!

An experimental plaster of paris model, shown sitting in the copper bowl which was used in the 'Fullmoon' event, just to show its scale.

I started off this week making an experimental plaster of paris model. This is part of my ‘to do’ list, to create 3 scaled models of my site-specific way-markers. I made a mould out of an empty Tetrapak carton, poured the mixture in and then as it started to dry, I imprinted a large circle on its surface using a plastic lid. I then used a small plastic ball to create the central depression, which depending on which model I am working on will represent two elements. The first will represent a clay vessel in which the seawater was gathered/harvested. The second will represent a copper bowl to symbolise a fire that would have been lit to create salt through the process of evaporation.

I worked on the outer edges of the circle imprinting grass heads and other organic matter to create a surface that could link with one of the actual sites in the landscape on the Saltway.

When the plaster was completely dry and I had stopped playing, I turned the mould over and out slipped the model. It reminded me of my Plastercast and Shakermaker childhood and felt very productive. But the crisp clean model that I wanted was not to be found, it looked like an early O-level preparation project, but what I did discover was that the underside of the model was perfect. Perfect as anything that could have been made out of a Tetrapak anyhow. The crease of the box was perceptible, it bore the traces of what it once was and I had an idea. The idea was to recognise that as my project looks at how we leave traces in the landscape, this is how I could create my model. I shall endeavour to create a scaled down negative of my model in the landscape and then take a mould from it. I don’t know quite how I shall do this but it feels like it is the right way to go about it.

The first paper stencil I used was for the colour blue. These stencils add up to create a chalk pavement way-marker.

Another element of the project that needed to be done before the show was to create a way-marker that can be put on the path itself to guide walkers through urban areas. My initial idea was for the marker to be sprayed on but this felt like a form of meaningless graffiti so I chose to use coloured chalks to give the path a transient ‘outing’. This approach means that if I choose to run any guided walks in the future, the start, middle and end parts within the urban environment could be temporarily way-marked.

These photos show the stencil for the colour green and the completed design. 

Working like this reminded me of another childhood favorite- Mary Poppins and the chalk drawings that Bert/Dick Van Dyke made. More information can be found here. 

Yesterday I created paper stencils for this. I quite enjoy breaking down an image into components; it is a method that is required when I have produced screenprints in the past.

The graphic I have designed for the Saltway incorporates three circles. These represent the three site-specific way-markers that I aim to create along the route. There will be two distinct versions of the ‘brand image’. The first one will be used for standard way-markers used along the route to literally point people in the right direction and this version will also be used for the surface chalked type.

The other version will be more of a ‘brand identity ‘stamp’. This one I will use on my business cards and the A5 booklet that I aim to produce which will be a psycho-geographical account of a specific section of the Saltway.

This photograph shows the comparison between my coloured paper design and the finished pavement graphic. Here it maybe easier to see the three circles as being representative of seawater collection, evaporation and saltcake production. 

So, lots to do and lots to make in a relatively short space of time. I haven’t mentioned the scaled section I want to make of the whole route, the film of the Storywalk taking place, the personalised map of the area and an accompanying aerial photograph…

In the meantime I will continue to look at my to do lists and my timescale and continue to add ‘done’ tasks to them so that I can happily tick them off!

The finished chalk design with shaky handwriting. This obviously needs to be improved upon, but I like the 'raw' feeling of it.

I have just found this link to a much more technological approach. I love this potentially subversive element of chalking on public surfaces.

Traversal and Trace

Large clay imprinted circle created as part of my first ritualistic walk for an event in the Whitstable Biennale, September 2012.

Imprint-

to produce (a mark or pattern) on a surface by pressure.

As the deadline looms for my MA final project, written paper and show I have found I am frequently in a state of general confusion. I wanted to write this blog earlier this week but I couldn't think exactly what to write about as there seems to be so much information collated over 2 years, now needing to be compiled into both a limited time-scale and final presentation.

I have been able to negotiate this confusion by revisiting my research paper and looking back over my reflective journals. In this way I have seen where I have come from and what direction I was heading to next.

There is a chapter in my research paper titled 'Traversal and Trace' which looks at how we move by walking, discovering our environment at a human pace and what traces we leave in the landscape as we pass through.

Earlier prefabrication of the clay circle in my studio, showing the imprinted decoration made using natural objects found on 'The Street', Whitstable. 

Deliberately leaving traces of our existence is possibly one of the things that we as humans want to do, it proves that 'we were here', it can be seen as our legacy. This can be seen in the micro occupations of early Beaker people, for example, who decorated their pottery with imprints of cord, comb, twigs etc to the macro occupations of the Romans, such as the super straight Stone Street in Kent.

I have studied two artists that have opposing views on leaving a trace. Richard long creates evidence of being in the landscape, for example an early piece of his art was called 'a line made by walking', which was just that. A photograph of it can be seen here. www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/long-a-line-made-by-walking-p07149

Hamish Fulton is another artist who walks in the landscape but he wants to 'leave no trace'. His art is based on the experience of the walk itself. Which can only be imagined by the viewer, his post-walk artworks are often large-scale graphic text interpretations of that experience. He recently had a wonderful exhibition at The Turner Contemporary. Here is a link to that.

www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/hamish-fulton

I have struggled throughout my project with the notion of how to physically way-mark the Salt Way and yet gently tread on the earth, 'leaving no trace'. Hopefully, by creating a series of 'earth kind' site specific artworks to act as way-markers and producing a digital site specific 'Storywalk' along a section of the route, this will become a creative solution to that earlier

dilemma.

 

A psycho-geographical recording of an earlier project within the MA. I am recording a walk in a number of different ways. Looking back, even here I am fascinated by traces and imprints, creating a collection of rubbings of suburban surfaces!  

So, now I need to leave this blog and get on with some preparation for my MA show. I want to create three models of my site specific artworks, to scale. In keeping with my interest in mark and imprint making in the environment I have decided I will experiment with Plaster of Paris. Using this as a fairly thick base for each model I will endeavor to imprint the surface. I hope to be able to use glass and copper too hopefully creating three beautiful precious looking objects. So watch this space, I am hoping that the actual action of moving forward with my project in a physical way will put any general confusion in my head into order!  

   

Weaving a Tale

A beautiful, intricate birds nest found on the grass in Blean churchyard.

 (...woven by a beak!)

The Salt-way Tales, a start...

My MA final project is about revealing the Salt Way as a significant trading route of the past and a place which we can still visit today to reconnect with the landscape around us.

I want people to find and explore the route easily. I have looked at how to mark the way by various means. There are two ways that I shall do this through a way-marking system. The first one is to place a series of site specific artworks along a section of the route that celebrate the process of salt-making itself. The second series of way-markers are of a more standard design.

Another way to encourage users to the path is to create a 'Storywalk', this is a means of engaging people with the path and their immediate environment by producing a story that is geo-located to a specific walk. This 'site-specific digital tale' can be viewed on a hand held device such as a smart phone or I-Pad.

Luckily, I know an award winning storyteller who has created a system himself to do this and is willing to help me.

I like the idea that this is another layering of meaning onto the landscape, but is produced without physically putting anything 'on the ground'. It leaves no trace in the landscape, only creating a memory path of the experience in the users imagination. Christopher Jelley lives in Somerset and is busy working on various Storywalk projects at a time. Find out more at Storywalks

I have sent over the bare bones of my Storywalk idea to him. The walk starts at Blean Church, just over halfway between Whitstable and Canterbury.

   Blean Churchyard looking out onto the Salt Way

It was here recently that I found on the grass a beautiful nest that had fallen from the tree above. My sons and I looked at the intricacy of the nest and wondered how birds could do this with their beaks. I would struggle to make anything half as lovely with my hands. The moss, sheeps wool, fine grasses, lichen, feathers and tiny twigs were woven round and around to form a tightly packed nest.

Detail of the nest

Looking back at my photos of this nest today as I was preparing the many photographs I had of the route to send Chris, I was struck by its beauty and the wonder of its creation.

As I sat at the computer trying to type Chris a basic explanation of my ideas for the Storywalk I recognised that this was how stories are made. A plan has to be made, 'ingredients' have to be found or discovered and then woven together to create a thing of wonder. Now when I think about the bare bones of my story, the plan is to bring a wise woman from Winchester along the Pilgrims way to Canterbury then up the Salt Way, past Blean church and out to the coast. The 'ingredients' include holy-water and salt!

 

An information board at the church. The church is dedicated to St. Cosmus and St. Damian, patrons saints of physicians and surgeons, (there are only 5 churches in the UK dedicated to these saints.)

Chris said he would work with my ideas and produce a story. I know he is an expert weaver of tales and hope that some of my ideas will inspire a tale that will be a joy to discover. 

  

  

Being Outside

We arrived in daylight and saw dusk. The lit lanterns, small fire and full moon became brighter as the darkness increased.

Being Outside

This is something that I long for, being outside of an evening allows me the chance to enjoy slow time, becoming more aware of the changes of light, birdsong and other details that are too often overlooked during busy days.

I have been asked to explain more about the ritualistic walk that I wrote about last week, so here are a few further details. The Salt Way which I intend to reveal as part of my MA, still exists on the ground and in text. On the ground it can be followed using a network of roads, byways, tracks and public footpaths. It is mentioned in various history books on the area and can be traced on maps. 

The procession up Golden Hill, Whitstable, along a well used public footpath was very simple. Nine people with lit lanterns walking slowly, about 3 foot apart carrying offerings to the 'Salt Way'. 

We all carried salt in the palm of one of our hands and then either flowers or sea-water in the other. The significance of this was to create a gesture that would 'wake-up' and celebrate The Salt Way, an ancient salt trading route that has been 'lost' to local knowledge, over the years.

It takes a conscious effort to walk slowly, the pace felt unfamiliar and awkward. We are so used to our fast pace of life that deep concentration was needed to slow down and feel the earth under our feet as we moved up the hill.

I wonder if any motorist on the nearby Thanet Way saw our procession and if they did, what did they think? It isn't anything that I have ever seen before. It must have been even stranger to witness the procession coming back down in the dark as we were still carrying our lit lanterns, the moon was full and the night was clear.

The participants wore hues of blue, green and red, colours representing the sea, the land and fire. The event was filmed for inclusion in my future MA show, it is a very beautiful, mellow film that picks up on the noise of the wind, the muffled voices, the whoosh of the passing cars and occasionally, snippets of the singing and toning which occurred, most unexpectedly.

The focal point of the evening was a third scale site-specific artwork that I had made earlier in the day. It acts as a way-marker on the route, being one of three that I have designed to encourage exploration and rediscovery of the process of salt-making and the path itself.

This specific way-marker celebrates the act of making salt by evaporation (heating saltwater in a clay vessel over an open  fire), it includes a handmade copper bowl sunk into the ground in which a small fire can be made. For this occasion the fire was 'fed' with dried lavender and salt which smelt wonderful. A small clay vessel made from London clay gathered from the seashore was placed on the fire and filled with sea-water. Blessings for the path were said and for all those who walked here long ago, each-other and all those who will walk here in the future.

The other two way-markers will complete the cycle of the salt making process. The first is symbolic of harvesting/gathering the sea-water and the last in the series celebrates the mould/form in which the salt was carried along the route in the past.