Blue Topography

To get to the Quarry you have to drive to Stanhope then up and out the back onto the moor and across to Barnard Castle. The moor tops are masked in heavy fog and I drive at a crawl avoiding the cloudy sheep that wander out to great me a slightly exhausting game of chance. Ive been back and forward to this old quarry site for years.  Its the image on my website.  http://www.productofboy.net/ Sheltered in the car it feels silent and film like. Out of the car, the wind is biting and the fog is more like the finest cold rain that seeps in through my jacket. I have the Dog... I don't usually bring her as she can be noisy but we both need the walk , so she is coming.  Spoil mountains, a small pond with waders, heron, The water cascaded down the edges of rock face. I can hear gun shots in the distance.  The Guns are out. Its another planet to the day we made the print, so hot and bright.  Still / wind / Still / carry on / still water / still / be...

I drove late and tired to the the reactor. I had in my mind the weather, the expectation of a place I know very well. The wind, the coast, the drone of the reactor, the birds, the big sky. A busy place that still gives you a sense of solitude. Heavy industry, heavy machinery. The print I made here was with the seals and fly by planes.  As industrial as the site is, it always feels like a link to the wild . A kind of periphery; Curlews and outflows.  A kind of intersection between humankind the natural world    So I had gone with a sense of that, the energy I would bring would be a bit frenetic or have a dense energy.   But Teeside had other ideas.  Mirror calm, full tide.  It was entirely still.  And I couldn't bring myself to make the kinds of sounds I had planned, or at least had assumed I might make.  The air was still , the light was very low and grey. I had some amazing ocular migraines inhibiting my sight.  I went...

Sphagnum We went to Tomintoul.  Just outside the village, which is past the snow gates o up the Mountain from Mums.  There is a small quarry and I thought maybe I could do a print there and maybe a recording, It was halloween and it felt like a good time to do it.  It was sunny and super cold. But worse it was windy and the wind hit the quarry straight on. It felt too observed and a kind of wind tunnel too. too cold We had a cup of tea in a cafe. It was dressed in old  fireman equipment and smelt of fry ups.  After we decided on a wee walk across some woodland towards the river.   We abandoned our walk in favour of exploring a kind of old birch wood plantation, covering a bed of spagnum moss.  Lukas is excited and makes me cover my eyes. He leads me to a fallen tree that has allowed a pool of black peat water to gather. Here is the right place! So we all go back to the car, I get my suitcase . and my wool skirt, ( its supe...