Blue Topography

To get to the beach you pass the tip, flames in from pipes, titanium oxides, seals, nature reserves.   In the car park is the hefty smell of Frutarom, the maker of fake smells. We have a relationship with this reactor.  It  was the end of our Nuclear family tour.  There are some neat and unusual links between the cyanotype process and the nuclear process. Prussian Blue is the colour and chemical created by the cyanotype process. It is also the chemical used to remove radiation from the body. It  sequesters the isotopes from the body. Honest  landscapes,  heavy with industry with the spoils  City dumps,  White paint makers Quorn smells Ponys  cows Sea breezes, seals and dragonflies. Starlings.  Twitchers looking for green warblers/ only finding brown dragonflies This plane flew in twice. maybe I looked like a corpse..  maybe they where checking in, Is everything ...

Chemical Beach in Seaburn just inside Co Durham. Colliery works, Oyster catchers, gulls  The wind was so strong (onshore), the carpark was so busy with walkers and brides and dogs.  Blast beach felt too busy, we could see a lush team of litter pickers and  although I am keen to come back to print there, especially in the reed beds, today wasn't the day. I worked through some vertigo ( always to the amusement of the print crew) to take a look at Chemical beach from the cliff edge. We decided to take a risk , no one seemed to go down to the beach. It was completely empty. There is a neat wee path down to the beach, it was so windy, but the sun was beautiful and it felt secluded enough to go for a print. I confess once I get started on the print I am always pretty comfortable doing it , but I was anxious/ stressed on the cliff top, a mixture of time pressures and body pressures.

Off the edge of Bollihope moor, in Weardale is this old Quarry. The soil heaps have created small grass covered mountains set agains the flat quarry cliff that is eaten out of the rock. On arrival two men are smoking and watching the view, there are a few walkers , a photographer Behind the false mountains is a pond, the edge is boggy with grass and spagnum, in the air a fizzing a trickle of water, the sound of dragonflies hitting the tops of the marsh grass. Its the lazy afternoon sun of September. I pick a spot that is sheltered from the the path. There are a few women walking their dogs , but I want to be close to the water and the marshy ground. I think the women seem nice and won't care that I am making this print. We set up and I settle into the sounds of the space. It is so quiet, not much wind, you can hear the dogs in the distance , no guns the shoot must be over. A destress call of a raptor has silenced the small birds, I think there is a water bi...

A short film from Marsden Beach With improvised audio

Testing out Print speeds and fabric.  Silk Cyanotype/ double dipped Marsden beach in South Shields.  The sun and wind dried the flag and gave a us a glimpse of possible ways to print and document and use   the shoreline.  The impending tide matched the tension of printing, trying to relax and sink into the printing process to be still and pushing the back the anxiety of being happened upon. Its only a body soaking up the sun and the ground. Wondering who I am worried for me or the visitor. Probably no one will really care.  The tide decided to intervene, so we washed out the print in the sea.

Starting out with Holy Island.  Prints made two years ago . Learning to lie still