The skeletal track that ripped this woodland in two 

still feels the strain in its twisting hips

but over time and undergrowth the wound has knitted

and we trace the scar like a crease in a map.

Yarner Woods

Capturing the Templer Way on film.

Granite, where stone meets iron.

Fascinated by the transportation …

For this project I have made new stitched paper works, all of which in differing ways show the emotional residue within landscape, the sense of place and people that is still present in ancient environments such as the Templer Way, where past lives have physically and emotionally shaped the land and left their story.

In Natural Art the plant life imprinted in Dartmoor’s granite walls, stones and lanes, where life merges, fuses and softens the harsh environment over time and the stone continue to pulsate with life.

image: Mixed media and collage

www.rachaelbennettpaintings.com

There are times spent in Vipassana meditation practise, and when I am fully present and aware in the landscape and places around me, when I enter a way of ‘dwelling’ of ‘being-in-the-world’, in relationship to the world which the philosopher Heidegger called ‘Dasein’. 

Dwelling in the world in this way my senses, feelings and awareness of time and space slow down, merging into a simple, very alive and present experience of fluid moments of changing phenomenon and happenings. In this space of impermanence my eye slowly, continuously follows the seemingly spontaneous phenomena, lines and shapes that it is attracted to and curious about in the qualities before me, through the pencil or paint onto the drawing paper.

Being with and reflecting on these gestural drawings and paintings reminds me of the Buddhist understanding of interdependence in the world. Every thing and every occurrence being dependent on all other things in a mutual relationship which Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hahn called ‘Inter-being’ *.

Noticing this ‘inter-being’, the web of relationships that bind the universe together into a cohesive whole, spatially and in time, can sometimes reveal causality in action*, moments when the relationship between cause and effect become apparent.

Deeper awareness of these universal laws of cause and effect, the persistent life-force back of things occurring in their own natural, meaningless rhythms and patterns, may also potentially bring better awareness of contingencies*. Those future events or circumstances which are possible but, being dependent on whatever is actually taking place in a given world, cannot be predicted with certainty. 

Embracing this uncertainty in all its eternally messy and chaotic unfolding I gratefully celebrate in awe and wonder, all that life is.

image: Teign estuary many moods

My journey along the Templer Way is taking many routes, with more to follow as I absorb the poetry inspired by our venture. But the words Boat Graveyard have gripped me for now. I am very aware how water, transportation, and the life source of the Teign have evolved over time. Boats that would have been an essential part of life for thousands of years have changed unbelievably in recent years. The freight ships of 2024 so far removed from the local hand built craft of before. Hence my digging into the concept of boat graveyards.

More green and rocky bits will follow. I promise.

Image: 448 boat

avenda.uk

I DRAW BREATH yoga breathing blind drawing

Slow, slow I draw breath, my breath

So I might breathe it out on paper.

My breath. Drawn down to belly and toes,

Drawn in, passing colours through closed eyes,

Feeling a path through charcoaled fingers

It lingers in the air and then exhales.

Light, hard, left, right, loose, tight.

To rub or shove, or stretch and curl,

The graphite whorl spells out drawn breath

Across the page of freedom unseen before me.

I will not look yet.

Let the ink jet black unfold its surprise.

Aah, eyes unfurl. Yes. I have drawn breath.

UNEARTHING FIELD TRIP observations of a markmaker

Spectacular fairy ring of rabbit pooh and tender heather

Rusty heifers with mismatched horns, the young ones skittering and
scampering in playful uncertainty

Pale yellow slender grasses growing strangely brighter, glowing even, as
sun fades at the close of making marks

Gorse scratching, gouging, mark making our thighs

Hastily tucking trouser legs into socks for fear of ticks, spiders,
lizards and adders

The magic of fading sun and clouds on dark water pond, that stares back
at us as we stand and look, and stand and look, and then get bitten

Still scratching at imaginary ants in pants, must investigate that later

The path is there, we see it easily on the back track, the light now
faded, but the path still glowing sandy bright, laughing smug at us who
missed it hours before and scrabbled long through thick and thin, rough
and tougher, sticky and prickly, tender lichens pale and magic, heathers
new and shouting colour, embryonic spruce trees fledging their tiny
beginnings

We saw it all

We saw and sought to make our marks

And marks escaped us, but we found one or two and caged them in our
notebooks.

Revealing the concealed, layer after layer.
Delicate, translucent.

A life lived.
A loss grieved.
An experience integrated. 

Marking, drawing, painting, and then sanding back.
Painting, drawing and mark-making again,
adding detritus and discarded but beautiful patterns and shapes. Layering paintings like the palimpsests of our lives. 

Art full of wabi-sabi wisdom, the perfection of imperfection and occasional broken-open places is marked with time, scars, incisions and alterations… just like our own bodies. 

These are paintings as reflections of getting INTO and UNDER our skin – weathered, worn, wonderful and wise. Touched, held, loved and altered by human exchanges. 

They are like writing on skin in the fashion of monks of olden times, repeatedly writing and erasing whilst leaving traces…
recording our loves, losses, laughter, lives. 

This body of work is made up of inside-out images that comprise a presence practice, revealing hidden treasures. 

image: Ravens and flight birds …

www.katheryntrenshaw.com 

Artist plantsman living on the edge of Dartmoor

i walk 

i see colour 

i paint

Making art is all about breathing out what is inside, it is just another way of keeping a diary (emotional or otherwise) a fleeting moment in a timeless space

The energy of nature invites me to paint, creates a space in which to immerse myself,  the place, my emotions to reveal the submerged, presences that underlie existence

i only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, i found, was really going in

john muir

image: Claypits, made with clay