This old rusty gate and shed are just two of the ageing things I found by the wayside on one of my walks through the Galloway countryside in Scotland.
Tag Archives: metal
Metal, Wood, Stone
This week’s featured StillWalks video shows another representation of the woods in the previous featured video – the woods at Fforest in a snowy Winter.
You can use the Donate button below to help StillWalks. Pay how much you want and receive a high quality download of this week’s featured StillWalks video – “Forest Walk – Summer” which is at Fforest, Carmarthenshire, South Wales. Click the image below to watch the video. DVD Collections are available to order in the StillWalks Shop.
Fibre Connections – Metal and Weaving
Continuing with my textural link to StillWalks, these and other mini woven tapestries are available on my new Etsy Shop, ACMDesign – each one is unique. I have described them as “tapestry notes”, and in doing so, I was thinking back to when I started using wire in my work as an artist.
One of the first tapestries I wove that included barbed wire can be seen here. It and another are also on the Etsy shop. However, barbed wire is not the starting point for my work with wire and my interest in metal.
I originally started working with wire in a similar way to which I am now doing with these mini tapestries – as design notes. I think of them in the same way as I think of drawing in a sketch book, and as I work on them, I develop my feel for the wire and find out how it interacts with the soft fibre of the warp and weft. More on this tomorrow.
You can use the Donate button below to help StillWalks. Pay how much you want and receive a high quality download of this week’s featured StillWalks video – “After the Tide” which is from the marshes on the Loughor Estuary, South wales. Click the image below to watch the video. DVD Collections are available to order in the StillWalks Shop.
Interesting Objects in the Woods
The sound of many pheasants in yesterday’s post was not accidental. There are many pheasants on the Gower Peninsula, but I had not seen or heard such a concentrated number of them before.
When I went into the woods at Cwm Green, I discovered various objects that seemed to have a specific purpose that appeared to relate to the rearing of pheasants, presumably for the shooting season. Not being an expert on these matters, I was only guessing at their use but the fact that there was an enclosure protected by an electric fence suggested something along these lines. In fact, I wasn’t sure that it was still in use as it looked as though it had not been tended for some time but I wasn’t going to touch the fence to find out.
What I liked was the way the other objects around the area were clearly settling nicely into their natural home and becoming a part of the woodland undergrowth. How ever much we think we can influence or control nature, in the long term, we are only a danger to ourselves if we do not respect the natural environment.
You can use the new Donate button below to help StillWalks. Pay how much you want and receive a high quality download of this week’s featured StillWalks video – “Woodland Walk” which is from Penllergaer Woods near Swansea, South wales. Click the image below to watch the video.
Building Blocks on the Beach
The beach at Llanelli is not all patterns in the sand (see yesterday), there are also many patterns in the stones.
Stones? I don’t think that is quite the correct description! Bricks, metal, clinker, copper and parts of walls would be a more accurate description.
Swansea, on the far side of the Gower Peninsula, used to be known as Copperopolis. In the early 1800s 90% of all the copper-smelting capacity of Britain was based within twenty miles of the city, and it seems there is still evidence of this on the beach in the Millennium Park at Llanelli.
There are more photos of these fascinating objects on the StillWalks Flickr Photostream – all taken on my iPhone.
You can use the new Donate button below to help StillWalks. Pay how much you want and receive a high quality download of this week’s featured StillWalks video. Click the image below to watch the video.
Crossing the Bridges
Yesterday I went through gates, today I am crossing bridges.
Foot bridges can serve a similar role to gates in a StillWalk. Useful as way markers both visually and aurally, the design, materials, condition, sounds – all play a part in identifying a stage in the walk.
Here are two of the foot bridges I encountered on my recce walk of the River Morlais and Troserch woodland with a view to producing a new Summer time StillWalk.
That Old Freezer – why I like it?
So, back to the canvas, or at least, the place from which that “Metallic Canvas” came – the old burnt out freezer that provided me with so much colour and texture for my camera and sound for my recorder. I said that I would try and explain my interest in metal and my weird liking for the sounds it can make and these are the clues.
Over this last week I have shown something of the ways in which I have used metal in my work but perhaps I have not explained why I use and like it.
Synesthesia – This is not how I would describe my visual, aural or linguistic experience of the world. However, from the moment I started tapestry weaving at college many years ago, I was excited by the touch and texture of the materials I handled.
It took many years of weaving to reach a level of expertise with which I was happy and confident. A part of this development was my deepening understanding of how my body, my fingers, interacted with the structure of warp and weft. For many years I used strong bold colours and blends in my tapestries and this too helped me to gain a clearer understanding of how colour interacts in different ways in different circumstances. Tapestry weaving is unique in its absorption and reflection of light – hence its generosity with colour.
These things are key to my approach to photography, sound recording, StillWalks and my “Interventions”. I have carried out workshops in the past where I have asked people to close their eyes and listen to the sound of an instrument or an everyday kitchen object and think about what colour the sound might be or what it would feel like if they could touch the sound as it travels through the air around them. Music, too, is often described in terms of colour, texture and form. This is not synesthesia, I do not see numbers as colours or whatever the crossover of senses might be for an individual experiencing synesthesia.
I find the relationship of one sense to another exciting and I am thinking more and more these days in terms of how everything in this world is interconnected in one way or another. The texture and colour of an old burnt out freezer relates precisely to what has happened (or been done) to it. The sounds it makes in this state are unique to its condition and the circumstances of the space that it occupies.
Sounds are very important to me and whilst it may just be a matter of personal taste in the end, the fact that I like those (some would say harsh) sounds that metal can make, is relevant to StillWalks. I specifically do not like the soft, ethereal music that is so often used on meditation disks and it is this fact that led me to explore field recording and its use in StillWalks. The sounds in StillWalks are unique to the time and place of the walk, and the photography, and therefore, what you hear in each walk is entirely the result of the conditions at the time.
I find it fascinating how little these conditions need to change in order to create a different sound – it may be wind strength and direction or simply atmospheric pressure, time of day or year or how many people, birds and other creatures are around . . . and those thing too, only exist as they do because of the conditions and circumstances at any given time and place.
Everything is interconnected and it is this that I try to impart to project participants when out in the field. How we interact with our surroundings has an influence on everything that is a part of those surroundings and as a species that is in the privileged position of being able to make conscious choices about what we do and how we act in relation to everything (and everyone) around us, we have a responsibility to consider the effect we have on all those things to which we are connected directly or indirectly.
Oh dear, now I’m getting preachy – sorry about that folks 🙂 Comments welcome!
Suffice it to say that it is the colours and textures both visually and aurally that attracts me to metal. This says nothing of the symbolism that it can have in different forms and conditions, but that is something that perhaps should be left to the audience to interpret.
Conflicting Arguments
The theme of “Conflict” in my work began to broaden over the years. My two previous posts (Dialogue and The Conflict of Working with Metal) illustrated my work as it related to a specific situation, that of the troubles and peace talks in Northern Ireland at the turn of the century.
The conflict in this piece is more personal and more general. The barbs still represent conflict but relate more now to the world stage rather than just Northern Ireland.
By now I have also become more interested in the physically contrasting textures of the two materials, metal and wool, and how they interact. The pattern in the weave relates to the paper prints you sometimes see of DNA and it is this that relates to the personal element of conflict.
People often ask whether the barbs were inserted during the process of weaving or pushed through afterwards . . . it was the former. The barbs would significantly have damaged the weave if they had been inserted afterwards and, yes, there is blood as well as “sweat and tears” in this as well as other tapestries I have made. Don’t be concerned though, they were only minor scratches (for the most part) and a few rips in clothing!
This work is available for sale – anyone interested should contact me.
“Conflicting Arguments” 85 x 120 x 10 cms
“Conflicting Arguments” 85 x 120 x 10 cms
“Conflicting Arguments” – detail