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After almost a year of withdrawal from mudlining activity, it was with a sense of calm release that we gathered once again on familiar ground, with old friends and new, in the spirit of creative connection. In some ways, I had forgotten what this meant, how to be in the natural world with creative intent. What is possible, what does it mean to put these sticks together, to gather, to dig, to probe, assemble, organise, play? I felt somehow alien from these processes, as if I must learn again, or learn something new. It was a kind of remission: better, but not steady.
It gave me a great sense of pleasure, therefore, to watch Tricia gathering sticks, placing them on the ground, arranging, honouring, feeling the shapes of things, the low and undramatic calling of those patterns that form links between us humans and the earth. For I think that is what we do, when we go out onto the land: we look for the shapes that are congruent with an inner stirring; we look for ourselves in the possibility of a creative, expressive moment. This makes for a sense of deep satisfaction; that something has been done, that had to be done. Tricia placed these sticks, side by side by rising tide, differences rippling between them, then water rippling over them, floating them apart and leaving that simple and beautiful gesture to its moment in time.
I fumbled with a poem, others drew, and Jenny Sanzaro-Nishimura introduced us to the cyanotype. I loved this sense of being a novice, of learning to grasp a new medium, wondering what it could do. I have sometimes wondered how, in our play with the natural world, we might draw upon the forces that run through its more tangible matter. Air, water, sun: where are they in our material explorations? Certainly the cyanotype knows what to do with the sun! And water is used to halt the work that the sun has started. Many thanks to Jenny for providing us with this opportunity. There will be more to follow I am sure! It is that sort of process that gets you thinking: "what if...?"
Rocky Point is a difficult place from which to fall in love with Canaipa Island. You have to work on it a bit, look closely at things, accept, take in the grit with the sparkle. There were several new houses under construction near by, one right there on the water front. There was some energetic hammering that resounded through the mangroves and along the shore, though thankfully no power tools or loud radio. At one point a truck pulled up and its occupants sat a while and smoked. This is not the image you necessarily have of an ideal eco-arts site. But sometimes these challenges to a constructed image compel you to look closer at where the treasures lie, to rely upon the immediacy of your own perception in a place that is no less sacred for the human inflicted scars and spoils.
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