Abstract Landscape Painter.  Rural Dweller.  Lover of Modernist Art and Design.

Flowers Appear All Over The Earth…

"Winter is past.  The rains are over and gone.  Flowers appear all over the earth; the season of singing has come."

It may be a piece of ancient Hebrew poetry I know, but it certainly seems truer than ever this year.  I've never seen as many cowslips and primroses in my life as this Spring.  The hedgerows and field edges are thick with them.  I even photographed a patch of beautiful star-shaped wild flowers growing in a ditch the other day.  I don't think that I've ever appreciated the blossom quite as much either.  On one side of our back garden there is a tree covered in elegant white blossom. I was working out there on Sunday, when I became aware of a delicate, cologne-like fragrance.  I realised after a while that it was the perfume from the flowers on the tree.

We've also got some small apple trees growing in the front garden and I've been watching the buds on these.  They looked like little green/white parcels until today, when for the first time they have opened to reveal tiny rosettes of pale green leaves and pink and white centres that look almost like a cluster of miniature figs.  The trees are slender and delicate and with their little pattern of buds along the stems, they make me think of Japanese textile designs.

After the drab and stormy winter, I feel as if I'm enjoying this Spring more than any in my life so far.  I know that it's an old cliché to say that the earth is dressing herself in all her finery, but this year, for me, it does seem like that.  After being lashed by the rains and starved of light, she seems to be enjoying the warmth and celebrating by putting on her most colourful and decorative garments - (florals are so totally on trend!).  The trees look as if they really are waking up from a sleep and stretching out their arms in the sun and even, sometimes, as if they are dancing.  It's not difficult to see where the idea of the dryads came from.  

Thinking about the trees has brought another old piece of writing to mind recently:

"there is hope for a tree: if it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.  Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant."

Change is a constant - as it were!  Things are always moving and developing as the days pass.  They never stand still.  I was walking alone with my dog Millie the other day, on a path that cuts across this vast rural landscape, and looking around as I walked.  I marvel that I am here.  Not in any part of my previous existence did I expect to be living here, now, among people that I have not previously known.  But that seems to be part of the strangeness of human life - after long periods of travelling on what looks like a very well-defined path, one or two elements can change and then the whole pattern shifts and a brand new phase emerges - something entirely new and unexpected.  This principle of relentless growth that I see around me, seems to apply.  Things start springing up quickly and suddenly you realise that the season and the whole context of your life has changed.

All text & images ©2014 Carol Saunderson

http://anartistinthelandscape.blogspot.co.uk/

Abstract Landscape Painter.  Rural Dweller.  Lover of Modernist Art and Design.

Energy & Atmosphere

Preparation for the first exhibition of the year is now complete.  The last few pieces went into the frames this week.  I'm interested to see how they will hang together in the gallery space.  My colour palette has changed again due, I think, to the recent intense phase of cloudy and wet weather.  Perhaps there are rather more subdued tones than usual!  However, a preliminary glance at the collection in the studio suggests that there is a richness to the overall colours, and that they work together as a set.

I enjoyed a break into realism this time too, with a painting of a Millie on a morning walk.  In it I included a reference to the skylarks that have been so prevalent of late.  It was a pleasure to portray the surrounding countryside more directly in my work and made me feel as though I would like to do more.  It was very loosely rendered and incorporated some of the techniques and lessons learned from my abstraction.  I find that my walks around the village provide plenty of inspiration.

Something else that's been inspiring me this month is the sea.  Having lived in the centre of the country for over 30 years, it's a pleasure to be closer to the coast again.  Although more than an hour away, it's still near enough to spend half a day there with ease.  I've enjoyed walking along the beach with Millie at Aldeburgh and Thorpeness, and seeing the rough energy of the water as well as its serenity.  I've also discovered large, grassy areas on the cliff tops, where Millie can run.  It's one of the happiest things in my life - to see my young dog do what she was made to do - RUN!  I can sense the energy and excitement in her as I release her from the lead and watch her take off! She will begin by running vast circles at incredible speed.  Then she will suddenly turn on a sixpence and run straight towards me like a rocket, swerving at the last second to avoid crashing into me, and then reeling off to start another loop.  After a few minutes she will canter back, tongue lolling out, tired but so happy, ready now for another slower, exploratory walk.

This aspect of energy is an interesting one for me.  I certainly feel the effect of what is around me, and that frequently finds its way into my paintings whether, as this month, it's the increasing amount of birdsong on bright mornings, or the raw power of the sea.  I also find that it affects my choice of music while I'm working.  I often repeat the same couple of albums frequently throughout the course of making a series of paintings. There is something unquantifiable in them which sums up the mood and links them together.  The nine new paintings produced for this show were all made while listening to the Icelandic singer Asgeir*, alternated with Handel oratorios** and opera***, interspersed with the wonderful randomness of Radio 4, where I find plenty of comedy to make me laugh.

After a few days break, during which I'll clean the studio and un-pack and organise the rest of the stuff from the house move, I'll start all over again on a different series, for a new exhibition, with a new atmosphere and soundtrack no doubt!

* Ásgeir - In The Silence

**George Frideric Handel - Your Tuneful Voice (Iestyn Davies), The King's Consort/Robert King

***George Frideric Handel - Giulio Cesare, Glyndbourne, Sarah Connolly, Danielle De Niese

All text & images ©2014 Carol Saunderson

http://anartistinthelandscape.blogspot.co.uk/

Abstract Landscape Painter.  Rural Dweller.  Lover of Modernist Art and Design.

The Skylarks

The first month of the year has passed in our new home.  It's been a month of wind and rain, but we consider ourselves lucky when we see the flooding in other areas of the country.  Between the gusts and the showers, I have done a lot of walking with our dog, Millie, along the muddy footpaths, looking out across the wide open landscape and rolling distance.  For someone originally from the flattest of lands, this position in the gentle Suffolk landscape feels like the top of the world.  I feel as if I'm living in the clouds!  I love it.  Perhaps that's why I have been so interested in the wild birds that I'm seeing, and why they are weaving their way more and more into my work.  I feel as if I'm seeing the land partly from a bird's perspective.

A couple of weeks ago we were walking at a particularly high point, on a day when the sky was unusually clear, when we disturbed five skylarks.  Up and up they went.  I stood and watched them - powerhouses of song.  Such tiny dots in the vast blue space, but filling the air with sound. They looked like minute kites tethered in the wind.    I thought about Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending", and how cleverly he captured that upward movement and the voice of the bird, in his music.  I can see why he would be inspired by it.  It's quite emotional I think - a tiny creature, full of spirit and beauty.

It's funny really, I feel more aware of the sky here than I did as a child, living on an unbroken plane.  There, it seemed to bear down upon us, almost crushing us.  Here, I seem to have risen up to meet it.  This is ideal for me.  I find it peaceful - the perfect balance.  The mass of mountains is too frightening and the flatland too oppressive, but here there is a wonderful sense of lightness.  I think it is changing the compositions of my paintings and that will be a challenge.  That is, however, a good thing for me.  It will stretch my mind to work with different shapes and viewpoints, and make me look at things afresh.

All text & images ©2014 Carol Saunderson

http://anartistinthelandscape.blogspot.co.uk/

Abstract Landscape Painter.  Rural Dweller.  Lover of Modernist Art and Design.

A New Landscape

So I've changed location.  I sit here in the kitchen of our new cottage, gazing down the long, narrow garden and out to the rolling countryside beyond. Two hares have just run past at full pelt, about 100m from the house.

I still feel slightly disorientated, having lost most of my familiar markers.  It will take time to re-establish myself and to find the new version of me that will grow in this different terroir.  It is a strange life-in-waiting kind of phase, particularly being between Christmas and the New Year.  A rich mixture of life lies behind and so much yet unknown lies ahead.  I miss my old friends and neighbours, and my beloved little cottage and valley, but I am deeply grateful for this beautiful new home, with it's little garden studio and wonderful views.  Instead of being enclosed within a valley, I now find myself at a higher point in the landscape, on the edge of a plateau from whence the fields on two sides roll and tumble down and away for as far as the eye can see.  There are not many buildings in view anywhere - just a few farms and the top of the tower of an ancient church.  I like the fact that so many of the buildings here are medieval - higgledy-piggledly, multi-coloured.  The beautiful village of Lavenham lies only minutes away.  I find the blocks of colour cheerful and the uneven lines soothing.  It will be interesting to see what effect all this has on my painting.  It is bound to change as a result of this new viewpoint and influences.

In many ways it is a difficult time to move, in mid-winter - bleak and starved of light.  But amidst the stormy weather there have been frosty days of crisp sunshine and moonlit mornings and nights full of stars, so silent that I could have heard a leaf fall in the garden.  I look forward to getting back to work during the next few days, to organising my little studio and starting to paint again, whilst overlooking a new corner of the world. I'm looking forward to a new routine and to the Spring and seeing all the changes that the increasing light and temperatures will make to the earth and the wildlife roundabout.  I look forward to the birds coming back and am pleased that our new home is named after my favourite little character - Wren Cottage.

All text and images ©2013 Carol Saunderson

Abstract Landscape Painter.  Rural Dweller.  Lover of Modernist Art and Design.

Possibilities

"Possibilities" - "unspecified qualities of a promising nature" - Oxford English Dictionary

I've been thinking about the French concept of "terroir" - the way in which the geography and geology of a particular landscape interact with the plants grown there.  It can affect the flavour of a wine such that its region can be identified by its taste.  I've been looking around at this landscape and wondering how much it has become a part of my work and affected my own personality.  For someone originally from the flatlands, it is beautiful to live in a valley, where so many more views and angles are possible.  It has deepened my love of the natural world and given me a greater opportunity to observe its minutae.  Living so close to nature puts things into perspective for me and provides a slow, rhythmical backdrop to life.

How much are we a product of our "terroir"?  At one point in my life many aspects of it changed at once, and at that point I realised that much of who I thought I was, was actually just activities and labels.  I was defined and categorised by them - by others, and even by myself.  They had become ingrained over the years - "I am X and I work at Y", "I am a daughter / sister / wife / mother / etc.", "I love to cook", "I am a dog-owner", "I run x times a week", etc., etc..  Taking away a large group of such things in one instant made me feel as if I had been cut free from my moorings and was floating in space.  I wondered what actually "me" was?

But maybe this is not such a bad thing. Perhaps, without realising it, we can become squashed into moulds that we don't easily fit.  Sometimes aspects of our personality can become blunted or subdued by circumstances or ill-fitting roles.  A new situation or environment allows different aspects of "me" to spring to life or to be required.  Perhaps each different "terroir" in my life produces a different version of "me", identifiable by the unique set of factors that it contains.  Each one must therefore contain a new set of possibilities.  It is always interesting to see what grows in a newly-inherited garden, when the weeds are cleared away and the light is allowed in.  You don't always get what you expect and sometimes there are some beautiful surprises.

I listened to the brilliant Reith Lectures given by Grayson Perry a few weeks ago.  In the last talk he quoted Marcel Duchamp, who said, "clear your studio out at least twice in your life".  Co-incidentally, I am about to do just that and, in a few weeks time, the "terroir" will be changing.

All text and images ©2013 Carol Saunderson

Abstract Landscape Painter.  Rural Dweller.  Lover of Modernist Art and Design.

Stars

The good thing about having no street lights, and indeed, not living on a street, is that you can see the stars so clearly.  It is a beautifully quiet, clear morning and, as I opened the heavy wooden front door at ten past six, I was amazed to see how many there were.  So clear and so bright, spread throughout the inky blue canopy above.  A few minutes later, I fetched my sketchbook and stood on the stone steps, making quick, rough drawings of the tall, slender tree shapes as they appeared out of the darkness.  I couldn't even see the page, but I know that following the line of what my eyes could see, with my hand, would help me to record the memory more clearly. I also like the completely unselfconscious marks that this produces.  There is often a free-flowing beauty about lines produced without the burden of "having to get it right".  If anyone had seen me, they would probably have wondered what on earth I was doing or, at the very least, thought it an eccentric thing to do.  I suppose so.  I don't mind that - "having a different centre, being in an elliptical orbit, not having the same goal or motive".  If it means that I can take time to look at the stars and the flowing shapes of the willowy trees beneath, then I am very happy with that.

All the small moments (like the encounter with the wren), are important to me.  I like to note them down, otherwise I might forget them.  So many of these journal entries are about early mornings because that is when I write them.  They are the first thing that I do after putting a pot of strong coffee on the stove and making breakfast - I either read or write.  Perhaps, for me, it is another way of laying down memories, other than sleeping and dreaming.  And each day, as it goes on, often becomes so complex and fraught and challenging.  It is sometimes these small moments of beauty that keep me sane.  Perhaps they are a bit like meditation.  I hear a lot about "mindfulness" these days and I suppose that is what these instances are.  It seems to me that there is so much to cope with within a human life, but these concentrated sensory experiences help.  They are outside of all that chaos.  They are like the application of soothing balm to the soul.  So, whether it is the stars, the song of the robin or wren, the heavy dew on the lawn caught in the morning sun or the smell of the earth on an autumn day, I hope that I will keep recognising them and keep recording them, lest I forget how many moments of beauty I have experienced in one lifetime.

All text  ©2013 Carol Saunderson

Abstract Landscape Painter.  Rural Dweller.  Lover of Modernist Art and Design.

A Close Shave!

It's 6.36am and I'm having breakfast and listening out for the first birdsong in the morning darkness.  The robin will start soon, but yesterday it was the wrens that were filling the air with their powerful, mellifluous song.  Who'd have thought that such a little bird would produce such a loud sound! They are like little powerhouses - tiny, ocarina-like birds, breathing out music.  Actually the most common British garden birds, they are my favourite.  Sprightly and characterful, with their upright tails and flitting movement.  Despite their miniscule size, they seem to want to fill the air with their sound.  Yesterday morning I had a close encounter with one in flight.

I went out into the garden to fetch some logs for that evening's fire. It was misty, as it is this morning.  The fine water droplets in the atmosphere had diffused the light of the rising sun into widespread, golden glow.  I climbed the two stone steps from the path outside the back door and emerged from the overgrown herb garden and onto the lawn.  A wren, obviously en route from one side of the garden to the other, was not expecting a human object to suddenly appear at that point.  It flashed past at great speed about six inches from my face, at eye level.  I'm not sure who was the most surprised!  I saw it land rapidly and expertly in a tree to my right-hand side - like watching a tennis ball zoom past your eye line.  It was a close shave for us both!

Later, in the studio, I continued to work on a series of small paintings based on our garden visitors.  So far, the two that I have completed have been night scenes, incorporating owls, a rabbit and some deer.  I worked until just before 6pm, almost without stopping, and finished the second one before returning home for the evening.  These pictures will be going to four galleries, as part of their relative Christmas exhibitions.

Meanwhile…..I am expecting another garden visitor….a new little dog is due to arrive next week….can't wait!

All text and images ©2013 Carol Saunderson