meandertect

Paths

I took the dog for a walk. Knowing I had plenty of time for it, I decided to rediscover a new path I’d recently found. While rambling, I was smugly surprised how easily I was able to retrace my steps, how these paths formed by movement remain obvious; humans, dogs and deer all regularly navigate through these spaces, naturally curtailing growth and treading the earth; forming the path. They are as clearly perceptible as the lorry shapes carved through roadside tree canopies. Then I realised I was a bit lost.

The forest was bounded by heathland on my left, and to my right, was dense forestry woodland, the trees so intensely spaced, it’s plain no creature wanders in there. I dared not look at it. I have a terrible imagination and could easily visualise red eyes glowing through the dark vacuum. So, I persisted on my new path until I eventually found a way out.

Ideas started swirling, about how maybe our brains are like a forest. We forge paths, emotional responses and ways of thinking, and these paths become increasingly hard to deviate from as trees sprout from the undergrowth and create impassible areas. In this analogy, imagine trauma like a forest fire, or destructive trailblazing. They become maybe the easiest paths to go down, or ones we cannot help but revisit. All paths lead there.

Maybe society is like this too. We function with so many conventions that we take for granted. I think, only hindsight makes you realise this, because I’m certain many awful conventions still exist (of course they do, though I’m thinking about this principally from a western perspective). These conventions are like paths, and trying to deviate from them is difficult. You are going to get scratched, sunk, dirty, scared and probably a bit lost on the way. But once they are forged, others can follow and eventually the path is well trodden. They might even become the new main route.

I illustrated these concepts with what I was presented with while lost, the dark forest, appearing as bars of a cage.

Understor(e)y

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A heavy fog hung over us today, obscuring any view into the distance, and on my walk, the tree tops disappeared into the ether.

Focused downward, I noticed this hidden world had opened itself up: All the bracken, brambles and grasses browning and collapsing, giving way to a view under the tree canopy. Soggy leaves, crispy fern, soft moss and, in some places, newly formed ponds.

I’ve recently been reading Colin White’s book about Jessie M King, and started imagining those other worlds, like this, that she animated so beautifully in her work. It’s so far a pleasure to read about it, in particular to learn more about the development of the Glasgow style against the wider European backdrop.

I sort of set out to emulate that style here, but it didn’t really work. Mostly, I think, because this is not composed at all really, and also because I realised as I was doing it that this wouldn’t be a simple sketch but something that would have to otherwise be laboured over for hours. Maybe it’s worthwhile to work up some studies and progress to a composition before then attempting this.

Teraphim : legs

23rd Nov 2022 meandertectLeave a comment

Since the last post I’ve wanted to get my hands on some clay. Unfortunately it’s messy, and needs lots of working. So I plumped for the air dry stuff, which is actually horrible to work with, but I started building part of this rustic creature’s feet, legs and bottom…then running out of material.

Weirdly, I think the rustic texture suits this subject. It’s sort of primal. Ok, it’s obviously malformed but the process of making this was still a joy, each impression I think of the hands that have done this before me. I loved making this ugly, rough figure. Just need to do it with actual clay next…

Teraphim

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Someone recently directed me to the book, The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant. This book really struck a cord with me – giving the silent, feminine perspective of an ancient time period. Though fictional, it spoke of a universal truth. It spoke of the eternal mother.

Of course part of the story focussed on Rachel’s famous transgression against her father, in stealing her father’s teraphim, the objects thought to bestow blessings on his house.

Vivid images of these objects were conjured in my mind. Perhaps they were made of clay, but if they were handled as much as suggested in the story, they would necessarily be of wood.

The power of belief in these objects fascinates me. Like lucky totems, but something deeper, something shared with others, passed through many hands. Imagine all the emotional energy imbued in these objects.

The child’s prism

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I have this idea that towards adulthood, our understanding of the world crystallises and is ordered and systematised. It becomes increasingly difficult to bridge between these organisational systems or grasp new concepts.

A child’s mind, on the other hand, where some order may exist, is a much more fluid thing. I still remember vividly believing in bizarre things and concepts, I didn’t know where reality ended and imagination began.

I have an older sister in particular who filled my early years with a fantastic parallel world, where I was frequently a visitor. Apparently my eye colour didn’t allow me to see this other dimension, non-the-less I distinctly remember sharp images that my mind must have conjured up in those many, many excursions.

When we were becoming women, it was really, really hard to let this world go. I think we both knew it broke our hold onto childhood, and memories of our final acknowledgment that it wasn’t real still upsets me to this day!

Perhaps when we are old, these barriers between reality and the imagination will break down to become elastic once more, and we will sit on the magic carpet as we did as children, determined to discover the master’s word to make it fly.

Patina

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I recently stepped into a building, back in time. Everything in that place had been made by hand, laboured over, and in spite of having gone through the knocks of life, was well preserved. I started thinking about the value of old things, admittedly not a new feeling for someone interested in architectural conservation, but I did feel a perspective shift.

My presumption before was not so precious about older things, insisting somehow that we can also add our own modern (honest?) artistic stamp to older buildings, and, while appreciating the values of what we are working with, we shouldn’t be to nostalgic about loss ‘where it is needed’. But as it becomes more apparent, the skills and labour and materials invested in these buildings of the past should not be so readily subjected to our fashionable whims. These are scarce commodities and we can’t pretend to replace them with anything like the same level of quality.

Patina, I think, is like a veneer of use acquired through ages. I used to look at my doors and skirtings and sigh at the knocks left by stubbed toes, chips made by mysterious blunt objects, even little grubby hand marks around the light switches…peeling paint, cracked plasterwork… Some of this requires attention (or cleaning), but actually these marks tell a story of the life of the family within. We are unconsciously stamping ourselves in our time and place.

Because we have the privilege of living in an old house, we have inherited a number of such bumps and scrapes, and it’s likely the next owner might do the same. I’d like to think this can go on and kind of add to the charm of the place. These are not qualities modern buildings and materials are now designed for.

I’m not trying to be black and white about this, after all my own line of work often involves adapting historic buildings. But if we focussed instead on doing something once and doing it well, making something enduring, an investment for the future, how might be do things differently?

Virtual reality

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When I was a child, I imagined (and I’m sure most children have thought this) that an alternate world existed in the mirror. I used to look along the edges and try to peer along the sides, to glimpse round the corners, to see the surface from below. Hotel corridors presented impossible worlds of double mirrors where, frustratingly, you could not see between or around. I felt like I had to step into it, somehow.

Is this the appeal of virtual reality? As we create alternate worlds of existence, these become increasingly detailed and life-like. We create alternate virtual realities, and alternate virtual identities. To what end? I see it is useful in architecture; we can simulate appearance and performance datasets and pre-empt issues that may arise in construction. However, it does not replace human intelligence or sensory experience. Do we want it to?

In our alternative world of the internet, we have created new currencies – social currencies, cryptocurrencies, advertising and software application currencies…maybe most sinisterly as well, the currency of personal data. This whole virtual world exists, and grows ever richer in its level of definition. But just like the mirror, it isn’t real. It’s merely a reflection, an illusion of some kind, and we cannot pass the barrier into it.

The appeal of going beyond this mirror is lost to me. I enjoy the odd bit of escapism with a good film or book, but I do not see what the ultimate benefit or aim of this constantly plugged-in culture is delivering us. I can’t remember the name of the study, but a few years ago heard it posited that the amount of (physical) social engagements a person has per day has one of the most direct impacts on their life expectancy. If that’s true then I’d doesn’t bode well for our generation.

I want my children to engage with the real world, see it with all their senses. It is so full of richness and beauty. We have the real thing right before us, and it’s soul-destroying and fundamentally unnatural to remove ourselves from it. The alternate reality is all very good, but as a society we have become drunk and giddy with it. Like any drug, moderation and appreciating when it has its uses is more sensible. It’s time to sober up.

Personalities

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If you’re fortunate enough to witness children growing up, you’ll notice, with hindsight, that their fundamental personalities were there from the start. Inherited behavioural and character traits, either from our parents or by some quirk of nature from much further back.

As we grow, these simple shapes are kept, but built upon, by what some might call ‘conditioning’ i.e. how you are treated or taught by others, and your experiences.

I think it’s very neat to think of this all building up in layers, like a Russian doll, but I’m sure it’s a lot more complex than that. If we started to peel away these layers, we would find some are stuck together, missing parts, or simply broken. Some parts might even be sliding under other tracts – connecting seemingly unrelated layers.

Psychology must make for fascinating but scary sort of work. Who of us would like to see such a cross section of others, but especially ourselves?

Trees

5th Oct 2022 meandertectLeave a comment

Trees are natural strata-makers. Every year they build up another ring of growth, reflecting spring’s burst and demand for water and nutrients buried in the ground, then diminishing and pausing through winter. Each year, information on the climate and the tree’s immediate ecosystem are being charted with each successive layer of growth – such information is being used to date timber samples but there is also the separate study of dendroclimatology.

I drew a block of wood today, thinking about this. Trees grow in layers, and those layers each hold a story. This cut of wood wasn’t the best for looking at growth rings, having been sawn and destined as fire wood, but looking ‘along the grain’. It’s interesting to look at the structure from this angle, being so directional. It makes me think back to historic properties and the fact that timber products in our buildings were all made once with a quality of slow grown timber that just isn’t commercially available anymore. Structurally, the properties of these stronger timbers were understood and exploited, resulting in much smaller sections doing only what a modern, large piece of structurally graded lumber can achieve. This is why it is better to conserve these old timber structures, windows, doors. That, and the issue of conserving the trees we have.

I live in an area that has been heavily commercially forested. The landscape is dominated by it. I often try to picture what it must have once looked like. Clearly there is a demand for this type of timber, however a lot of wider landscape and environmental issues have emerged calling for balance. I’m less and less convinced simply planting trees is the answer to our problems. It’s certainly not going to every justify our propensity towards waste.

Slabs

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It’s probably worth investing some time in learning Geology. I keep surprising myself with the fact everything we use comes from the ground. It’s easy to forget this, because so much stuff goes through sophisticated processes of refinement and technology before it comes to us as a complete and packaged product.

Geology is fascinating, because it reveals a story, a story through time, of how the earth was formed. Abstracted, imagine each age laid down in these massive time-slabs – sometimes crushing debris and animals in their path, reducing them to mere pages. Sometimes these pages are then bent and buckled or scorched or cooled – how rapidly or slowly dictates the formation of different crystals and deposits. Then there is water, with its huge, awesome force, traversing this activity, ripping through the earth.

I keep thinking I wish I paid more attention to it at school, because I feel I know so little of it now. But I didn’t appreciate any of this at the time, and my geology teacher was not charismatic. It isn’t ever too late to learn, just time is not on my side.

The local coast is dramatic, often rocky, defined by semi-metamorphic rock, in some places jutting out of the sands and mudflats diagonally several metres high. The rocks of the cliff sides churn then slam down into the shore.

This particular sketch is a solitary upright slab. These sort of slabs are interesting in themselves. It makes me think of gravestones, and how we feel a need to mark a life. These slabs are in effect their own markers of a time and circumstance.