The 3 months since my last blog, filled by Christmas and New Year, long journeys, storms and sickness, it is fair to say have not been my most creative. Instead of producing I have searched, marvelling at the beauty of the sea as it hurls itself landward, taking in the weight of the seemingly slumbering land in the vast agricultural basin above us. I am looking for a focus, a theme, something to latch my next works to. I am unsure as to whether it will be land, or sea; built, or natural. I am excited by the possibilities, impatient for the day when I can reclaim the space that will be my studio, I am six months in and hope I will not lose a whole year. I am not disheartened though. The opportunity to recharge, to explore, to tease out my approach to the subject of this land/seascape I am connecting to is itself both refreshing and essential.
As I continue to ramble I am drawn to the details. Frost on moss, the cut ends of logs, the decay on fallen tree limbs and the wear on stone. A recent wander around the site of the Mill at Benholm provided the photos above. All surface, abstract without context, sublime images that also tell a story. There are millennia of human history in the fields and coasts around me, an evolved landscape that wears the marks of its development on the surface. I see the signs of life emerging after the dormant winter. Already Snowdrops, Daffodils, root vegetables and grain poke through the clays. There are early spring lambs in the fields, seal pups on the shore. I have wandered for miles yet barely scratched the surface. I am though, getting closer.
Rambling through an abstract landscape 
That first one is outstanding! To me is looks like a craggy mountainside, maybe in the southwest desert area, even though I know it’s a tree. The color is luscious.
Thanks. Yes, I’ve got a couple of that one, and may do a painting based on them. I have a side project that I’ve tinkered with for a few years, micro-landscapes – photos that show the need for context to get scale, such as desert vistas formed of low shots of sand ripples on beaches. That tree definitely fits into the category.