Towards the end of April I visited the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire with my partner in the hope of seeing wild boar. I’ve written a simple piece about our search that is published today on Caught by the River. Soon I’ll put it on my writing website, From the Fields and Woods.
Here is a wild boar illustration, Summoning the Boar. (Yes, it features brambles once again!)
I’ve just completed my Journey Through the Forest altered book. I’ve made two or three versions of this before, but this latest version has the most layers. It features a girl, a deer, a fox, a badger and trees. Here are photos of some of the pages:
I’ve written a vignette of a story to accompany the book:
Above, a shimmering bowl of stars. Orion, looks on, while Sirius, the dog star, points the way. On this night of the full moon she is taking a journey, one soft footfall after another, the deer a few steps behind. The silvered path is cast with eerie shadow. She knows the trail, or thinks she does. An owl, silent on a perch in an old oak, watches. The forest darkness closes in.
I follow the dog star, she says, That must be the way.
The only way to the oaks her people planted.
Soon all the trees look the same and the path petters out.
Listen, say the trees in their secret, silent way. Listen.
So she stands still among root and fern, briar and dog violet on the softly trodden leaflitter. She turns towards the moon, a distant, knowing face in the blackness.
That’s it, she murmurs, I can hear.
The subtle moan of the boughs, the whisperings of the land all around her. She is not alone, no, she is no longer alone. The land, the trees, the sky, the moon are with her. She can find her way, with the deer a few steps behind.
Journeys through lands and forests serve as metaphors. I even include them in my little story The Memory Tree. There are journeys into the psyche and physical outward journeys. Sometimes a map composed of symbols is needed. I think like this when I am vaguely looking for something, something I may have lost, perhaps a part of myself I have lost. Who knows… Now I am wondering how I can create some sort of animation of the journey part of The Memory Tree story, something magical. Hopefully I’ll post more about this soon.
I am reminded of a small ‘magical’ exhibition I went to at Hove Museum in December, called Magical Wonderland. It was a collection of paper and card sculptures of traditional stories and fairy tales called The Story Cabinet and created by a group of artists called Fabula.
I like their miniature worlds within worlds within chests of drawers, wooden cabinets and suitcases. I like the use of cardboard and everyday materials, the use of words woven into the sculptures and the cardboard tree – The Wishing Tree – in particular. Better photos are on The Story Cabinet website.
During my visit to the museum I got talking to the curator. She said that she likes to display artwork that shows that it is made of everyday materials to inspire visitors to be creative. I’m looking forward to seeing what Fabula comes up with next and perhaps trying my hand at altered books that are more sculptural.
i’ve created a couple of little booklets. I always feel good when I can combine drawing with writing, especially nature writing.
Fox is a flash fiction story about an urban fox. The writing won me a prize a few years ago and was first published in Creative Future‘s Impossible Things anthology :) The story is based on a fox encounter I had on the streets of Brighton. I’ve added three illustrations to this six page, hand-bound, A6 booklet.
The other little booklet is Hare. This is a piece of creative non-fiction that originally appeared in the summer anthology of the Seasons series published by Elliot and Thompson in 2016. It is about the hares on Havergate Island, off the coast of Suffolk, that I saw when I volunteered there. I’ve added a pen and ink illustration to this seven page booklet.
…As evening slides into night, I put on my coat and head out into the street. The night is sepia and a sleepy half-moon rests its belly upon the chimney pots of the houses opposite…
From Fox
You can buy them in my Etsy shop and my shop on this website.
I’m always happy to see one of my pictures or pieces of writing in print. In the November issue of The Simple Things magazine I have a piece of nature writing, ‘Still’, about encountering a badger. It sits alongside pieces by good writers such as Tim Dee, Alys Fowler and Neil Ansell. It would have been nice if they’d sent me a copy of the magazine. Instead, I had to go and buy one. (There do seem to be a plethora of these cosy, classy, hyggey, crafty, lifestyle magazines around at the moment. Is it ‘our’ need for comfort and reassurance in these somewhat dark, unsettled times?)
The piece was originally published in the Autumn anthology as part of the Seasons series by Elliott and Thompson. I’m now in the process of making little, A6 illustrated books using some of my previously published writings. Here is an example I’ve titled, Into the Wood:
The last badger I encountered was in the scrubby area behind the cabin in France where I stayed in the summer. It nearly ran into me as I stood quietly waiting for nightjars; they have poor eyesight but a great sense of smell.
On the theme of badgers, I have a Two Badgers altered book currently available in my Etsy and website shop:
I’ve just created some little vignettes in pen and ink that I’ve sent to Avocet Gallery in Rye for their Christmas Fair. One of these is of a sleeping badger – pen and ink with a blue copper sky painted with acrylic metallic paint and ink. The others are of a hare, a nest, an owl and, of course, deer:
I love vignettes both in art and writing – moments captured! And I love the way Jay Griffiths describes a badger in her little book, “Twilight“:
“Then I see him touched by two light, day-streaked and night-stroked, a keyboard playing a twilight sonata in a minor key for the maligned creatures of twilight, the badgers themselves, the wolf, the hare and the bat – flittermouse in flights of arpeggios to catch moths. And owls.”
The murmuration over the West Pier in Brighton is fairly well known. Whenever I go down to see it in the autumn and winter, there is always a crowd of people. Nevertheless, I chose to write about it for this month’s Preston Pages and the other free magazines such as The Post and The 7 Directory.
Here is a photo of my article with an illustration, Murmuration 1 (not exactly an inspired title, but still!):
Apparently the illustration is on the cover of The 7 Directory :)
The original illustration has now sold along with another similar one, Murmuration 2. But I now have digital prints for sale in my website shop. They’ll be ready to go out next week if anyone’s interested.
I can’t help including a photo of the pier in the 1990s before it completely crumbled into the sea and later went up in flames, wonderfully derelict :)
The West Pier today:
Chris Watson did a great radio programme of sounds and memories of the West Pier, Ghost Roost, that really brings it to life. It’s well worth a listen.
Down holloway of bramble, thorny briar and teasel, to where the fabric of the world wares thin, she walks. Autumnal winds whip the bleached branches. Softly she sings her silent lament to the wind. Across the silent moor her echoing answer rings. Shadows creep up hillsides. In valleys mist gathers as she wanders through the encroaching dusk, She calls and waits, calls and waits. The hour is crow feather black and barn owl soft. A figure at the crag edge, she stands…
Samhain is a Celtic day when the veils between our world and the Otherworld are at their thinnest. It falls halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. I don’t usually recognise or celebrate Samhain or Halloween, but this year I feel a touch of magic as though I am at a threshold, ready to welcome in the gifts of darkness – reflection, imagination, story and mystery. For me these things come from ‘the other side’ or from another, deeper side of myself.
So I visualise a cloaked woman walking the land, walking through a thick, dark night. I watch her wander. I watch her roam the night. Night,… I have more to say about you,…soon.
I have recently been commissioned to make a Harry Potter altered book. I don’t know that much about the Harry Potter books and I’ve only ever seen Harry Potter films on flights, however, this seemed like a good challenge.
The suggested scene to illustrate was from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Chapter Five when Harry and Ron crash the Ford Anglia they are driving into the Whomping Willow in the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
I wanted to make the Whomping Willow the main feature and got caught up in the detail of branches and leaves:
It was fun overlayering the crashed car with the top layer:
I added an owl in the foreground and Hogwarts in the background against a starry sky:
Along with the Harry Potter altered book, I created another ‘Into the Beech Wood’ altered book as part of the same commission:
To accompany this I put together a little booklet with a piece of my writing called Time in the Beech Wood. I wrote it when staying in the Forest Cabin last year. I’ve wanted to do something with this piece for a while, so this seemed like a good opportunity. I played around with my World Tree and deer illustrations to create the cover in Photoshop:
(I think there’s a hint of cave painting or Cretan vase in the design!) I’ll add it to the book as a little gift.
Time of the deer,
Wind and swirling dream,
Heavy, brooding skies,
Amber light,
And the coming of night,
So early.I feel it in my bones,
I feel it in the river, swollen now with autumn rains.In the honey and copper forest,
Glimpsed in the woodland ride,
A presence drifts,
Scattering pennies to the earth,
The accepting, gathering, honest earth,
Where all the animals hide.I feel it in my bones,
I feel it in the river, swollen now with autumn rains.
Time of the deer,
Wind and swirling dream.
It was lovely receiving my copy of the new AEVA, Woman Earth Soul magazine in the post today. Formerly it was She Who Knows. AEVA means life, sound and voice. AEVA is different from your typical women’s magazine. It honours the beauty and wisdom in every woman and aims to empower, replenish and inspire it’s readers. It is full of wonderful words and beautiful art by women for women.
In this issue one of the themes is rivers. I have a few words on my relationship to rivers and a photo of me in the River Lot, France.
Rivers have been and still are important to me. My need for a river is sometimes a thirst and I do not visit rivers enough. I am a river person more than a sea person. The sea is too big, too overwhelming, too impersonal sometimes, but I need it as well. However, it is to freshwater I go and where I always feel welcome.
Below is a photo of the cover of AEVA showing women in a river :) How good is that!
Here is a spread of the article, ‘Entering the River’s Flow’:
You can get 10% off a year’s subscription with the code sharethelove8. See the AEVA website.
At my request I’ve received a wonderful bundle in the post, a series of poetry pamphlets created by poet, writer and artist James Roberts, who lives in Wales. Beautiful artwork and imagery accompany the poems. It is great to connect with other people creating with night, wood and river as inspirations.
James set up Night River Wood as “a space to explore the interaction between human creativity and our wild surroundings, particularly the qualities of hiddenness and mystery (night), creative flow (river), and communal growth (wood).”
Occasional poetry pamphlets are created and left ‘hidden in plain sight as pieces of inspiration’ in places to be found by passers-by. Then, it is hoped, the pamphlets will be placed elsewhere to reach more people.
James has also written some great essays. I first came across his writing in Zoomorphic journal with his piece, In the Eyes of a Wolf. It made an impression on me.
I think the poetry pamphlet idea is lovely and the project interesting. The poems are beautiful, thought provoking with a hint of the mysterious, elusive animals at the edges of our lives and psyches – owls, the last wolf, rooks. I’ll savour the poetry and then think carefully about where I’ll leave the pamphlets, or who I’ll give them to.
“… You enter the vanished wood last
where darkness prepares to idle through day,
iterleaved and understoreyed,
whisperingowl
owl
owl.”
Follow James Roberts on Twitter @nightriverwood.
