Throwing grass and letting go in the Hebrides

Luskentyre, Harris

Harris, in the Outer hebrides.



My favourite place in the world.

I went for just four days, determined to do very little other than walk, write and take some photos.

I was thinking all the while about ways to do very little, or as I thought of it 'practically nothing'.

I found a few ways.

Collecting shells on the beach was my first.

On Scarista beach I collected sea urchin fragments. They reminded me of Paul Kenny's work, 'Heaven or Las Vegas', Ross strand, Mayo, 2008, shown below.

Why so rectangular, when a sea urchin is round, I kept thinking.

https://paul-kenny.co.uk/photo_5003362.html

My fragments were less varied in colour.

homage to Paul Kenny, 2019

I photographed them on my notebook and then dissembled the arrangement, not wanting to copy Paul's work.

I found a number of sheep with lambs to talk to.

lamb and ewe, Harris 2019

My favourite was this brown one.

We had a good chat, eye to eye.

I said more than she did.

I revisited all of my favourite beaches.

I had forgotten how white the sand is, and how clear the water.

Such a sense of space and freedom.

Luskentyre, Harris 2019

And when I had tired of walking on sand, I decided to explore the old coffin road that crosses the island from west to east.

Coffin Road, Harris

By this time I was so good at doing practically nothing that I started to play a little.

I searched for circles of lichen on rocks, but the rocks were mostly unappealing.

Still trying to do nothing in particular I waited for three o'clock.

It came.

I walked on, and was soon drawn to some curling grasses by the roadside.

I pulled some and held it, trying to photograph the curling blades with the road ahead.

Then I threw some into the air to catch the wind.

It flew.

I tried to throw and capture it on my camera; not easy with one hand.

I failed over and over.

But the very act of throwing gave more pleasure than I care to admit.

Finally I managed, just once,  to catch a tendril before it fell.

throwing grass, Harris , 2019

Somehow this one photograph captures everything that I was feeling.... a sense of freedom and lightness.

It is my favourite image from the trip.

Later I wrote some words to accompany it.

First I tried typing a note on my typewriter. There is no option to change and edit as one writes with a typewriter, so the first draft is quite spontaneous.

Later I revisited these thoughts and tried some different words in my notebook, writing and re-writing, playing with verbs.

I call them 'Letting Go'.

Letting go

throwing 

throwing grass

pulling

tearing

throwing

grass

pulling skywards

throwing windwards

throwing

blowing

falling

splaying

throw

pull

watch

blow

grip

pull

drop

fly

fall

let

go

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Finding ways to do nothing was a good way to spend a few days.

I won't leave it so long before I go back next time.

Northton, Harris

my new ( old) Olivetti typewriter

olivetti lettera 22

Now here's a choice.

New dress or old typewriter?

Guess which I chose......

Meet Olive Etty. My new friend. She comes from George Blackman typewriter repair shop in Bexhill, and is a dainty little Lettera 22 from Olivetti.

Designed in 1950 by Marcello Nizzoli, she is classic enough to find a place at MOMA, and light enough to carry from place to place.

She has a tidy zip case, and a very delightful yellowed plastic cover.

Why a typewriter?

I hear you ask.

OH (my other half) has been less than enthusiastic, informing me that it will be a two week wonder.

To which I replied that it has already, in just three days,  given me much more pleasure than any dress that cost the same amount ever could.

Added to which

• it was already on the planet, just going to a new home
• I have wanted one for ages
• It has many advantages over a laptop for the purpose of writing.

Just ask Tom Hanks..... he has over a hundred, and has written a book about them.

He has also made a typewriter app, which I have enjoyed in the past, but not in the same way as hitting those keys and seeing real ink on a real page, smudges, mistakes and all.

It is the physicality that appeals.

Mistakes are glaringly obvious and the smudges are apparently due to there being too much ink on modern day ribbons. I have to keep typing until the ribbon gets less inky, and then I can make something a bit more sophisticated.

And there is more.

No wires. No power required.

No software updates. No flat batteries.

And as others have said, 'all it can do is write'.

No worries about what font to use or whether my sleep will be disturbed from too much screen time.

No temptation to check my emails or look up words on the internet, leading me down a rabbit hole of exploration.

No. It just writes.

Mostly drivel, but that's my fault.

And how wonderful to have a key for 1/4 and 1/3...... I am sure there must be a use for those if only I can think of one.

So what will I write?

It doesn't really matter.

Time will tell.

https://kaiteoreilly.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/london-paris-berlin-dusseldorf-border-control-at-tanzkongress/

And if I can't think what to say, I'll do some therapeutic key bashing.

olivetti lettera typeface

• 
  

learning to write, the Arvon way

'passing poplars' a book made at Arvon

I am a few days back from a writing week in Devon.

Arvon, Totleigh Barton.

Bookmaking and poetry; Rachel Hazell, and Nancy Campbell as tutors with a guest visit by Richard Long, one of my favourite land artists.

A course made for me. All my favourite things, and a chance to get some ideas on how to write more creatively.

I had to beg them to take me. They squeezed me in at the last minute, and so began one of the most creative weeks of my life.

The house is an old manor house, with heavy beams and a garden full of apples and quiet spots for reading or writing.

No wifi, no TV and almost no telephone reception, unless you ran up the hill into the cow field.

Scroll free September became remarkably easy.

views from the cow field

Cows everywhere.

Some sheep too.

A 40 minute walk to Sheepwash, the nearest village.

Luscious dew laden grass all around.

And juicy blackberries in all the hedgerows.

The only thing I could complain about was the mattress on my bed.

We were told to write three words down as soon as we woke up in the morning. Before doing anything else.

This is a shortened version of 'morning pages' that is a regular habit for some writers.

My three words increasingly became about my bed.

uncomfortable
cold              (because I was too lazy to get up in the night and close the open window)
coiled spring
stiff

 but also

authentic
unsettling
fulfilled


We had so many new ideas to deal with. Brain buzzing day and night.  
Book structures , hand-writing with real ink and nibs, creating poems by erasing text on a page of an existing book, learning about local 'lost'words, and choosing a word of our own to 'abandon'.

We tied lost words to the rowan tree outside the kitchen, and watched the words fluttering in the autumn sunshine.

We cooked together, ate wonderfully, and listened to each others' words.

I wrote a concrete poem about toast, using the words of instruction from our first evening on how to deal with safety issues.

We were advised to minotor our toast activity........a phrase that stuck in my head for several days.

toast © caroline fraser 2018

There was plenty of angst about writing and making things in short time frames.

I would normally go for months between the arrival of one poem and the next. I wrote several poems over the five days, most of which were about the process of trying to write under pressure.


Later in the week I found myself writing in pen and ink on Somerset velevet paper.

A new way of expressing myself.
One that  felt absolutely right.

And for a piece on "Lines in the Landscape' I created a concertina book of poplar leaves, sewn in with thread.

It won't last, but again, I felt happy.

Something to share that I felt represented my aesthetic and love of nature.

A far cry from my Camberwell book art days. I think I have finally got them out of my system.

Finally we created an edition of 18 cards ; one for each participant on the course.


In homage to Richard Long  and his 'Line made by Walking'   I made this............

No camera. No computer.

Just a piece of paper and an ink stamp.

Lines made by Livestock © Caroline Fraser 2018

 It doens't do to take life too seriously.

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For more on the tutors follow these links

 Rachel Hazell

Nancy Campbell

Arvon writing courses

I believe in.....

This week I attended a talk by Matthew Burrows of ABC Projects Atelier.

A complicated name for what is an intensive 2 day artist development workshop.

Introducing his concept Matthew talked about what to expect on his workshop, and amongst other things mentioned that before attending you have to make some lists.

One of the lists was 'I believe in.....'

Which really got me thinking.

So much so, that I started to make an 'I believe in' list in my notebook.

Initially I remembered it as 'I believe', which gets very different answers to 'I believe in'.


My 'I believe' list started with 'I believe there are too many cones in the world'.

too many cones

I thought about this, and wondered how that relates to my artistic practice. I have almost managed to stop photographing cones recently.

But then I checked my notebook and saw that it is 'I believe in', which is a very different thing. I certainly don't believe in cones. And when I rephrase it to 'I believe there are too many cones in the world', it really doesn't sound that relevant or interesting.

So here goes with the 'I believe in ' list, which thankfully contains no mention ofthe aforementioned items.

The list gets longer every time I look at it.

At the top of the list

• nature

I can't manage without it. The wilder and more remote the better, but seeing goldfinches on my suburban lawn for the first time this morning made me jump for joy.

•  my family

Always top of the list. Wherever they are.

• picking up litter wherever I go

this obsession is probably more useful than photographing cones

single use cup and straw from the gutter outside my house

and along with that must go

• reducing my consumption of single use plastic, along with trying to persuade supermarkets to do the same. Shopping gets much more complicated if you try to avoid food and fruit wrappped in plastic containers. But if we all did it....... THINK WHAT THAT WOULD ACHIEVE!

• 

  potatoes don't need plastic bags

   

• walking

 Walking is the best way that I know for relaxation and thinking time. Great ideas come from walking, and almost all of my photography too.

The higher the better.

•  singing or dancing to music

Last week I attended a writing workshop, and we talked about music that makes us happy. Creating a 'happy' playlist is a great way to bring back memories from way, way back.

'Let's go fly a kite' is my current favourite. There are many happy memories associated with this one.

• listening to birdsong

It is hard to fathom how much pleasure comes from birdsong. I now have quite a collection of sounds. The blackbirds in my garden, the birds of New Zealand. July is a quiet time for garden birds, and we miss the morning songs.

Orokonui ecosanctuary, New Zealand a video should you have a few minutes to spare, and like birds.

• the smaller details in nature

Stones and pebbles, grasses and water. Bare earth and branches.

pebbles from the Rocky mountains

I call myself a landscape photographer, but my landscapes are getting smaller and smaller. Looking down more than at the wider view. What I call 'random acts' of nature.

winter grasses

more winter grasses

lancewood tree

Which leads on to...

• water

walking beside it, swimming in it, sunlight on it......

an endless fascination.

Rakiura dreaming © Caroline Fraser

Loch an Eilein © Caroline Fraser

To say that I am excited about a trip to Greenland next week to photograph icebergs in Disko Bay is an understatement.

• kindness

Something to strive for, always.

•  writing

I love the feel of pen on paper. I have found the perfect combination; a uniball micro pen and a seawhite travel journal go with me everywhere. Looking back through journals reminds me of ideas, unfinished projects and how much my mood changes from month to month.

• long summer days

10pm, Findhorn

I am a summer person. Daylight agrees with me.

• abstract art
  
  
  
  

  

  
  

 Postcards on my mantelpiece remind me of two of my influences - Agnes martin and Karl Blossfeldt

• time to play

Creativity comes from play. Outside, inside. It doesn't matter where.

And just in case you are wondering ( as one person did) whether this is a hot air balloon that I am about to release into the stratosphere, let me reassure you that it is a kite. Photographed by a good friend who also likes to play.

Where do we go from here?

Lunch.

And then some bookmaking.......

I almost forgot!

• making books

This should be near the top of the list.

So much more tangible than a blog. And a great way to bring together many of my beliefs into a single story.

hand made book

That's enough for now.

What will be on your list?