Residency at Brisons Veor, Cornwall

    November 2nd to 16th 2024

    Working with uncertainty to re-discover elements of my art practice.

    Exploring how writing, walking and making interact and work as containers for the unpredicted.

    Solitary, but not solitary…company and compatriots in other guises – pebbles, paper, sand, water, vegetables, air and gravity.

    One of the containers I utilised, especially during the first week, was the blog space offered by a-n Artists. Open this vessel here.

    The residency builds on a piece of writing entitled ‘In search of the unpredicted: Walking in spaces of open enquiry’ published in the Walking as Research Practice, Soapbox Journal. More about this here.

    The residency offered a gentle container for a re-discovery of elements of my art practice that had been sidelined overtime.

    I had forgotten the fluid joy of water and colour on a page. Returning to something after many years summons doubt, but I had chosen to work with uncertainty and through that choice different possibilities arise. I watch myself taking many tiny little leaps of faith.

    My current practice adds walking and writing to the mix, and via this interplay, I connect painting to the action of water in forming smooth pebbles. Watching how the fluid colour mixes, settles and dries, there is a resonance in the images that transpire, with wet innards and at other times solid stone. I begin to use natural colours (red cabbage, turmeric, beetroot) that can be rinsed by the sea, with kelp as a connector.

    In holding a pebble close to my head, I am listening to the deep time stories of seismic movement, intense heat and compression that led to its formation.

    In this residency I found many containers useful for holding uncertainty. These included writing and walking, a-n Artists blog platform where I placed notes and images,  bowls, jars, microwave, paint brushes, paper for making and holding colour and Brisons Veor which offered just what was needed for this experiment: uncluttered from demands and distractions, porous with a door opening to the sea. Simultaneously holding and enabling.