“Walking was an essential component of our work. There was music. There were rich silences. Times of deep listening, experiential drawing and the gathering of “gorgeous nothings”…spontaneous poetry noted while wandering as well as performances of aleatory poetry created by reading together.”
Is this Heaven? This is Australian artist India Flint talking about the first of some masterclasses she held this year in Newburgh, a village on the banks of the River Tay (Scotland). It was a site-specific four-day intensive focussing on “… the deep experience of place through immersion in this very particular tidal riparian landscape.” She explains,
“i work
on a rural property
at the end of a dirt road
dusty in summer, muddy in the rainy season
dyeing the things that i make
with leaves that i gather from the paddocks
in a cauldron over a fire fed with twigs
small twigs burn bright.”
I’ve been exploring textile art and dyeing and blundering and stumbling around (poetically!) looking for signposts. Lo and behold I’ve ‘acquired’ by the grace of God or serendipity/synchronicity – or pure accident if you don’t adhere to the God principle – a new studio – at the end of a dirt road, dusty in summer, muddy in the rainy season – connecting me again with wild nature and re-confirming to me – via emotion – that this is where I ought to be, and to be creating.
India Flint: www.indiaflint.com
Enjoy!
Ann
I don’t know how we can or why we do doubt what it is we’re supposed to do.
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I wish for that certainty! But then, I don’t, too … 🙂 I love your painting in progress. Landscape bustling with life and anthropomorphic (for me). Thanks for sharing.
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Animals keep popping up in the painting. There was this huge head of a bird and various other animal forms. Love it. Recently a face of a little girl (that I know) popped up. Thanks for the visit.
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I should visit more often. 🙂
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