I’ve created a new zine/booklet titled ‘If You Are Lost You May Be Taken’. It’s different from my Night Wood booklet in some ways, although both have 16 highly detailed, illustrated pages of my pen and ink illustrations. It is an illustrated book version of a piece of writing that featured on the RTE Irish radio programme, Keynotes, a few years ago.
The piece was written as a sort of response to David Wagoner’s poem, Lost and loosely inspired by the myth of Daphne in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. I like to describe it as a strange, poetic tale from the forest, haunting and the stuff of dreams.
Pages from my If You Are Lost You May Be Taken zine.
The booklet/zine is now available to buy in my Etsy shop and soon on my website shop.
I have moved. I have moved town and I am now even closer to the sea. To chalk cliffs, gulls, pebbles, the coast. It doesn’t call me, I am here. I try to belong. Something tells me I should belong. It says I used to belong. Once I was a sea person dreaming of selkies – all water and flow, the rush of the tide, mudflats, sand prints, seaweed. I had a small vision of myself as one with the water, decked in weeds or a ship with open sails caught in a seaward breeze. I daydreamed of the sunken, the deep, of shipwrecks.
But now, I’m not sure. I waver in the winds of uncertainty. If I was once a sea person, I guess I still am, but I can’t quite access that part of me right now, even though I try.
I am here, witnessing. The sea is here, is there, the blue wash, the forever waters, so close. But I am awkward in its presence. Gleaming white rock looks at me as I shyly behold it. I should belong, chalk woman that I am. And yet my dreams are still with the trees, with the wild wanderings of woodland. I am missing the deep, wooded places, the deep, green, lush spaces in dappled sunlight. And deer.
The sea I once was, now I am the land, desired by earth, dust, the intimacy of vegetation, of leaves. I pine for the scent of chlorophyll, for the moment I notice a dronefly caught hovering in a shaft of sunlight, memories of fungal gloom, the wood at dusk.
And the sea – there – it washes on forever. How can one contain forever? How can one contain the sea…
And now I have a faint desire to refind that missing sea fragment of myself. I can contain the trees, the forest, in books; but I cannot contain, cannot fathom the sea.
It has returned – as ideas, desires, dreams often do in some future time. So often these dreams come once the desire has passed in my life and I have moved on and it doesn’t matter any more. Things happen so slowly. I fear to dream because in decades time the Summoning, the Reckoning, when dreams or desires become manifest. But oh, so late. I fear the wheels turn too slowly, planets circle too distantly and I barely cast a glance at a past desire, which is now just a cinder. I wish it wasn’t so – and yet, better that dreams come true, become manifest, than nightmares. I will not think of those.
Tonight is the day past the Dark Moon. I’ll cast my thoughts to a star studded sky hanging over my sea, as it is now my sea. It is here and it is there, so close. I am here and almost there with it, trying to piece together that fragment of me that has now past and is hidden, caught within the forests in my mind, but, hopefully, not lost.
At the end of June we went down to south Devon where we stayed at the truly lovely Hearth Retreat in their little Apple Wagon.
At the Apple Wagon
It was so peaceful, roaming the fields and woods I was in my element. I just happened to be reading The Lost Rainforests of Britain by Guy Shrubsole – as I am a lover of all rainforests – so it seemed a good idea to visit some temperate rainforest in East Dartmoor National Par, as mentioned in the book.
Temperate – or Atlantic/Celtic rainforest as it is also called – is characterised by trees, often sessile oaks, bearing all sorts of epiphytes – polypody ferns, lichens, mosses, pennywort. The trees literally drip with verdant epiphytic life. Like all rainforests they receive a lot of rainfall that creates rich, moist, tangled layers of lush vegetation that I find incredibly beautiful in dappled sunlight.
We’ve visited smaller patches of rainforest in Wales in the past, but this area in Devon struck me as being more extensive and rich. Nothing beats a river flowing and muttering over rocks in a forest. Here it’s the River Bovey.
A tangle of ferns, mosses and trees with the river just visible below.
When we returned home I decided to work on another rainforest altered book, but this time of a temperate rainforest. I’ve featured an otter – they visit the River Bovey – a couple of stoats, a pied flycatcher and a jay among the ferns, moss, lichen and rocks.
Temperate Rainforest Altered Book
Once again forests feature in my art. Like the author, Jay Griffiths, forests and woods make me happy. Temperate Rainforest Altered Book is available in my Etsy shop and in my website shop.
Twilight seeps through old, gnarled trees. The quiet is broken by a whisper as sparks of flame ignite; there is a fire aglow deep in the forest this night of the full moon, this night of the Dragon Moon.
Listen. What do you hear?
– A baying of hunting dogs far off; the muffled hoot of an owl; the plaintive sigh of a sleeping tree as it slumbers deep in time, ready to awaken, ready to rouse, ready… but not quite.
Wait, while the moon hangs potent and heavy, casting indigo shadows over the castle ruins, something else stirs. On to a mound of rocks climbs an old man, silvered hair and beard shimmering in the light of moon and flame, a whizened wizard of a man.
It is happening.
Suddenly the flames roll into a ball of fire and into the flames the old man raises his arms. In a powerful explosion of light, he brings forth a great dragon from out of the ether, broad as comet, sinewy as snake, as vociferous as any monstrous beast of night. This is the beast of the full moon, unleashed. This is it. This is it. A cry resounds throughout the forest. The awakening has begun…
An altered book commission now off to its new home.
To start the year I’ve added a few new items to my Etsy shop and website shop. First is another papercut concertina card, In the Hedge:
In the Hedge Concertina CardIn the Hedge Concertina Card – backIn the Hedge Concertina Card – frontIn the Hedge Concertina Card – back
I love crouching down and looking into hedges. Often I see birds skulking among an interwoven tangle of branches and leaves of various species. I love leafy detail :) To capture this view I papercut two holes in the card that frame a dunnock’s nest. Dunnocks choose to nest quite close to the ground and are often found in gardens.
When our resident fox visited our garden during daylight hours, we would sometimes find it curled up and tucked beneath a cotoneaster bush. I decided to put a sleeping fox on the back of this new card along with a magpie. It’s interesting that magpies have a special relationship with foxes, often following them about, possibly to benefit from any morsels disturbed by a foraging fox.
I have a few new sepia wildlife cards using images from my Into the Woods calendar. They can be bought separately or as a set of five.
Sepia Wildlife 5-Card Pack
Finally I have a couple of new prints including Night Vigil, which is also a C6 sized greetings card.
Night Vigil A4 Print
I recently listed a new altered book, but it sold very soon after listing. Anyway, here is a photo of Still Deer Moon, that has gone to a new home:
Still Deer Moon altered book
I’m working on a small altered sketchbook that I’ll write about soon. I have ideas for more… meanwhile,
I mentioned in a previous post that I was painting a mural in the shed at the bottom of our garden. Kevin erected the shed in September last year with salvaged wood and an old shed/treehouse given by a friend.
Laying the shed foundation
Kevin making shed base
Half the shed finished
Kevin finishing shed
This spring I set about painting a rainforest mural inside.
My rainforest is a dream forest based on a Central/South American rainforest as it features a jaguar, anteater, toucan, parrot, heliconia flowers and a hummingbird. It also features a Spirit Guardian, a blue woman emerging from the leaves, one of my blue women. I had intended to continue painting a rainforest scene fading into night, but when I found out we may need to move house, I decided to leave it as it is.
My neighbour downstairs said it reminded him of childhood hideaways. Child like or not, it became my little retreat for a while. It was like being in a birdhide listening to the robins that visited for food and fed from my palm, the tits and the resident blackbirds singing from an elder close by while squirrels busied themselves overhead, quite oblivious of me.
As I painted I couldn’t help but overhear my neighbours’ conversations and it was very pleasant hearing the woman next door singing a song that I recognised and later looked up; Erbarme Dich, mein Gott, JS Bach: St Matthew Passion.
Channelling my inner Rouseau – a postcard of Rouseau’s The DreamAnteater on the right-hand side on the inside of the shed.The left-hand side of the rainforest mural inside the shed.Shed mural showing the Spirit guardian of the Rainforest
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better”
Albert Einstein.
From the forests we came, to the forests we return.
When I went on holiday to Hvar back in September, I took few drawing materials with me, just a small sketchbook and my Art Pen. I made a few drawings and I’m wondering where they will take me:
Sketchbook – woodland nymph drawing.Sketchbook – The Earth is Dreaming.Sketchbook – Sleeping in the Forest
i’m thinking of creating a new booklet/zine that includes some of these images and more to be drawn. I want to journey into a dreamscape of mythical figures – nymphs, women of the woods, mystical beings – as I have been inspired by goddess myths in the past. I have Ovid’s Metamorphosis to dip into and I’m curious about the Ancient Greek mystery cults like the Eleusinian Mysteries. I’m also interested in exploring folktales and stories once again, perhaps creating one of my own.
I have loved the work of the artist Flora McLachlan for quite a while, her etchings, collagraphs and, more recently, her paintings. Some of her work reminds me of one of my favourite artists, Samuel Palmer – there’s often a crescent moon or moonlit shadows. I like the darkness, the dream-like quality and looseness of her style. So much about her work evokes night in all it’s ambiguity.
Cards, Under the Yew Tree and Moonrise by Flora McLachlan – in their cellophane wraping.
In her more recent paintings, I like her figures in the landscape – she becomes the figures in her paintings – or rather, her figures become representations of herself; she embeds herself in the lush landscape of her home country, Wales. To use her words:
“From the time when the undergrowth reached over my head, I have been fascinated yet at home in this weedy, sappy place, this path-frill, this edge-land. Among the stems are striped snails and jewelled insects, sharp shadows and sharp, green smells. Now I am only waist-deep in this greenness, I am half human half wild, a weedy mermaid; it’s a place of transformation, shape-shifting and wild imagination. I can enter this magical world at will, loop myself with goosegrass and move empowered through the dew of every morning.”
Perhaps my figures in the landscape are versions of myself, i’m not sure. What I have done is try to lose myself in the leafy greenness of my home place through movement, to feel at one with it. I have gestured and dialogued with birdsong. Here is a short video I made back in April:
I wondered about how I might see myself in the landscape. Where do I feel most at home? In what landscape do I belong? In the woods? It is not here in the rigid walls of the city. Or is it? When I lean out with feelers to connect with nature I confront walls and pavements, tarmac and SUVs.
Some of the drawings I’ve made since returning from holiday include three pen and ink pictures, Night Vigil, Goddess of the Harvest and If You Are Lost. I might include one of them in my new nature/myth booklet, but in the meantime they’ve been sent off to Obsidian Art for their Once Upon a Time exhibition:
If You Are Lost – pen and ink.Goddess of the Harvest – pen and ink. At the turn of the year, from summer into autumn.Night Vigil – pen and ink and watercolour pencil.
I have created a calendar of wildlife illustrations for 2023 called Into the Woods.
Into the Woods 2023 Calendar
The calendar features 12 highly detailed, sepia, pen and ink wildlife illustrations for the months of 2023, with an additional one for January 2024. Accompanying each illustration is a grid for each month for notes along with the phases of the new and full moons, but no public holidays. It is sized A4, opening to A3 when it is hung on the wall, with a punched hole for hanging.
Into the Woods 2023 Calendar
Included are pictures of badgers, nightjars, owls, deer, hares, otters, a kingfisher and a dipper, amongst other woodland animals. It is printed on high quality 200gsm paper and will be sent in a stiff, kraft envelope.
It sounds mad, but I have noticed that there two sides to me, to my mindbody. My right side takes me forwards – I think of interacting with people, going into town, projects I’m working on, making progress, goals and bracing myself against The World. My left side is wordless. It reaches out to the environment, to the natural world and my niche within it, to feel embedded and belonging. My left side shrinks back from the harshness of The World. It takes me into the forests and into the hills.
I was very aware of this division in myself while away on holiday. It felt much more comfortable to hold back. I looked up at the hillside above the little village of Vrisnik, where we were staying on the Croatian island of Hvar, and thought, I’d like to be up there, not on the beach or in the town with other tourists. I needed nature connection, so I was very pleased when we discovered hiking trails up into the hills – trails free of dogs. The hills were waiting for me, so I followed my left side.
Start of walk – Hvar
We set off on a path bordered by dry stone walls patterned with lichens. It was very straightforward looking out for the red and white circles that were painted on the rocks at frequent intervals. With flashes of their mauve or red wings, grasshoppers sprang ahead of us, while the land crackled with cicada song and the scent of rosemary and lavendar infused the air. We caught the perfume of pine when we reached the trees, Aleppo pines, characteristic of Mediterranean woods or maquis.
Walking up the ridge to the face in the rock I called The Shape.
The landscape was green despite it being a very dry, karst landscape of limestone and dolomite with no surface water. Rainwater seeps through cracks, scouring out hollows and caves underground. On Hvar there is only one surface pool and that is temporary. It’s where Neolithic finds have been discovered; early man needed a supply of fresh water. Later, when we went looking for the pool on the lowland plain, it was alive with darter dragonflies.
The path zigzagged up the hillside. We were walking upwards on the north side of a ridge that stretches along the length of the island. The shade was welcome as the temperatures were in the high 20s C. The going was fairly easy and the views were lovely; we looked down on two villages, Vrisnik and Svirce. The town of Jelsa was also visible in the east. Finally we approached a giant bare rock with a hooked nose like the profile of an old man. I’m sure the rock has been given many names, but, rather unimaginatively, I called it The Shape. Soon we emerged at the top of the ridge beside The Shape into the sunshine and a mass of buzzing pines.
Looking down on Vrisnik beside The Shape.
It felt good to be up with just the sound of the breeze and the insects. We looked around for the next red and white circle to continue on the trail. Eventually we found it, but the route was no longer clear cut. It took some searching to find the next few markers as we made our way through trees and stony glades. Then they seemed to disappear altogether.
We doubled back a bit, looking at the trees and rocks for any signs of red paint. There seemed to be many path options through the rocks and scrub. Kevin had studied the paths on Open Street Map and tried to bring the web page up on his phone, but there was no signal. We wandered fruitlessly through a maze of pines and vegetation. The plants here are drought tolerant and tend to have spikes that scratched our legs as we waded through them. Still the grasshoppers zipped about. Kevin caught sight of a small snake disappearing into a hole. There were lizards too, small brown ones and a large one like a fluorescent green plastic toy. It hung about long enough for us to admire it. I kept seeing vivid green praying mantises on the path too. Each one kept still and turned its head to regard me defiantly. Such intelligent looking insects, it’s no wonder that they’re revered in certain cultures. The San people of the Kalahari believed that the praying mantis gave them fire and words. They see them as sort of Dream Bushmen.
Praying mantis – Mantis religiosa.
Then a large bird with a black and white tail took off with a bounding flight into the trees ahead of us – a hoopoe! That was exciting! I thought how good it would be to find a hoopoe feather. Not long after the sighting that is exactly what I did.
Hoopoe feather
Tin of finds
The air fuzzed with a sound. We looked up and saw a flock of bee-eaters flying overhead.
Noticing and appreciating wildlife was one thing, but we were lost. From the map in his memory, Kevin knew that a track ran along the valley between the ridge and a second line of hills. It wasn’t our path, but it would go somewhere. We decided to look out for it and before long, we could see a rough, stony trail. We made our way towards it and continued walking west. We were lost, but not lost. We didn’t quite know where we were going.
it’s not easy getting lost these days. You can still get lost in mountains and on moors. It seemed odd to be lost here. We had no real idea how far we were from any village. It was becoming increasingly unrealistic for us to try to retrace our steps, so we kept on walking along the track.
I couldn’t help thinking about the well-known poem, Lost, by David Wagoner,
Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers.
I have made this place around you…
What would it be like to spend the night out here? I started thinking along those lines. I’ve often wanted to do a sort of vision quest and to spend the night out alone. It would probably be a bit chilly – I had no jacket with me. The moon was waxing so there would be light – and there would be a big, clear sky, much clearer than at home, with the Milky Way spilling over us from north to south. The scops owl we’d heard faintly on previous nights would call a little closer perhaps. There were snakes, ants and mosquitoes; it wouldn’t be a comfortable night. I was concerned, but not as worried as I thought I might be. My desire to connect to nature was strong. It felt natural to be drawn down to sleep on the earth among the vegetation, to lean into nature, to bed down into it. Some archaic part of me, my inner animal, was preparing me and it felt OK. It didn’t seem too great a step to feel at home out there among the thorny scrub, the rocks, the Aleppo pines. Perhaps it was helped by the warmth of the land. I had a welcome sense of belonging, my left side was content.
We continued walking west along the track. An empty building appeared on our right and, then, the track took us through lavendar fields.The lavendar had already been harvested, but its scent was still in the air. Hvar is well known for its lavendar. We kept on going wondering how many miles we’d have to walk before reaching a village or road. We knew we were still walking away from our village, it was hot and our water was getting low.
Eventually after a few miles we came to a crossroad of paths and a sign post. One direction pointed to the village of Svirce, not so far from ours. Now, at least we knew which way to walk, and the path we followed took us north once again, back over a pass in the ridge. Soon we could see Svirce in the distance.
It took us some time to walk back to base. Despite being lost on the ridge and the extra miles we had walked we were glad of the adventure. Being lost like that isn’t so bad. I spent the evening pondering what it would have been like to do a night vision quest up on the top. I guess it’s different when you are prepared for it. That’s something for the future perhaps. I thought of the face of The Shape keeping vigil, watching. My left side was still leaning, I now had more of the hills in me.
I have a fascination for caves, as you may have seen from previous posts. Royston Cave in Hertfordshire has been on my radar for years. This year we were in the area and booked a tour to see the cave for ourselves.
Carving in Royston Cave.
Royston is a pretty, unassuming town, but it has a Roman road running through it as well as part of the Ichnield Way, an ancient track that runs from Wiltshire to Norfolk. Royston Cave is under the ground in the chalk where the two roads meet.
On the tour we descended steps and then followed a moderately steep passageway extending underground beneath the main road. Soon we found ourselves in a round chamber lit by wall lights. I could see engravings all around the lower part of the cave – faces, figures, crosses, birdlike fish, horses. Apparently the carvings are thought to be of the 14th century – medieval – and may be associated with the Knights Templar. In the 17th century a ten year old boy was instructed to descend into the man-made cave to see if there was any treasure in it. On further investigation the carvings were found.
On the walls, there are many religious depictions and symbols, but also some pagan imagery such as a shela-mi-gig. This shows that the carvings were made when pagan beliefs had not yet been totally obscured by Christianity.
Horse and Sheela na gig in Royston Cave.
Our guide started explaining what she knew about the carvings, starting with a St Christopher figure carrying someone on his shoulder (see the photo below on the left). There are other saints depicted, including Saint Catherine, shown holding a wheel as she was sacrificed on a burning wheel. Today people light Catherine wheels on Guy Fawks night to remember her.
St Christopher in Royston Cave
St Catherine in Royston Cave
To the left of St Christopher is a rectangle representing the tomb where Christ was buried, along with a hand and a bird-fish, possibly symbolising the Holy Spirit or risen Christ. There is a sword and a shield, a horse and the holy family.
Holy Family in Royston Cave. On the right you can see the top of a Templar sword.Figures and Crescent Moon in Royston Cave
There are many other drawings of knights, angels, rows of sinners and a figure holding a candle that may represent the light of the new religion that will lead believers out of darkness. Low down and to the right of the passage entrance is a crescent moon.
It was the figure of St Christopher that made the most impression on me. He is the patron saint of travellers and is said to have carried a child over a river who turned out to be Christ. I kept in mind the image of a figure carrying a rucksack, journeying on foot over the hills and drew and collaged a picture of this figure I have titled The Journeyman.
The Journeyman – A pen and ink drawing with collage.
My figure is walking through a dreamlike, fluid, but fragmented landscape with the chalk figure of The Long Man of Wilmington in the distance. I like the idea of a traveller wandering the land without any particular destination, stopping here and there to find work. The ground in the picture looks unstable, symbolic of the unsettling times we’re living in.
I didn’t know what a journeyman was until I looked it up. Apparently the word originates from the Middle Ages and refers to a worker, such as a craftsman, who has acquired skills as an apprentice, but who is not yet a Master. He would work for an employee, often for a day (‘journée’ means ‘day’ in French) and was also known to travel around the country working here and there. There was a strong journeyman tradition in Europe.
When I googled ‘journeyman woodcut images’ I was surprised at how similar my drawing was to one of them.
I then decided to create an altered book titled The Journeyman.
The Journeyman Altered Book
I had in mind a present day journeyman walking over the Umbrian hills in Italy. I’ve never been to that region of Italy, but I imagined dry, rocky paths, leathery-leaved oaks, ibex and lynx. In my book you can see the spire of a church in the distance, a village in the valley. I’ve featured a cave and remember that there is the unusual, underground, spritual community of Damanhur in Northern Italy.
The altered book has seven illustrated pages on the left of the central spread and six on the right. It will be for sale in my Etsy shop and Reflections website shop soon.
