Northumberland Triparks

More images of work on and around Simonside

2008-11-12T10:56:00.002Z

Below are a few of the images resulting from a weekend spent at Lordenshaws and on the Simonside Hills near Rothbury. The weather was pretty bad at times and I wasn't sure if we (myself and my glamorous assistant Mair Hughes) were going to make it up Simonside, it felt like my Solstice experience all over again!

However, the clouds moved on enough to make us think it was safe to go up. We had worked out a carrying method for the replica rock I had commissioned from Robin Burch (Spice Design) and amid much hilarity we set off up Simonside.

Once again what was interesting about being on this site was the interaction with fellow walkers. Of course I was attracting a bit of attention with a giant rock strapped to my back. Mair was surprised at the people who just walked by without a second glance, but I was most surprised by the people who asked "Is it real?"

I feel like there is much more to come out of this work, I would like to work with geo-cachers in order to place the rock in a variety of sites around the park. There are more places around Simonside I would like to take it to as well, I think it needs to spend some time with the solstice rock. I would also like to get back in touch with Chris Jones ( NNP archaeologist) and record a discussion about the archaeological implications of the work.

However, for now I am just interested to see what all the Triparks work looks like together. We will all meet on the 15th November in Dulverton, Sommerset for a preview exhibition.

every cloud has it's silver lining

2008-11-12T10:55:00.000Z

on Lordenshaws

2008-11-12T10:53:00.001Z

infiltrating Lordenshaws

2008-11-12T10:51:00.000Z

spot the rock

2008-11-12T10:49:00.000Z

The Management of Change

2008-10-21T17:33:00.002+01:00

Work is coming together, after a period of anxious waiting the various components that I commissioned for Triparks were completed and collected.

Below is an image I intend to use in the exhibition. It would not have been possible for me to create this image without the help of my trusty "assistant for the weekend": Mair Hughes. She accompanied me up Simonside and endured the wind, rain and endless curiosity of fellow walkers with me, for all that I am truly grateful.

Photograph by Mair Hughes, rock by Robin Burch, absurd idea; all my own!

Wanderer above the mists of time

2008-10-21T17:29:00.000+01:00

Consolidation

2008-07-21T10:29:00.005+01:00

The last month has been spent researching possible locations for filming and consolidating my ideas for the work in preparation for the group meeting this month on Dartmoor. I have spent two long weekends walking in the park, one around Simonside and one around the College Valley. The second of which gave me a taste of how wild the weather can get in the park. The wind at the summit of Auchope Cairn was quite intimidating and when the mist began to descend I though it was probably time to head back to lower ground.

Below is and extract from my mid project report for Aune Head Arts which details my proposed ideas at this stage.

"I came to the project with a deliberate open mind to the outcomes, determined to let my time in the park shape the work. My own concerns with the biological and psychological body would obviously impact upon the outcomes in some way. Following 3 days of preliminary introductions and tours of the parks landscape by the rangers and park officials I was immediately drawn to the recently initiated Border Heritage Project. Revolving around work with remote communities on both sides of the English / Scottish border, the projects aim is to create a cultural map based on shared memories, history, folklore and cultural identity of the place. Unfortunately, this project is in it very early planning stages, gathering and processing information, making involvement quite difficult within the timescale of Triparks. However, I am very interested in continuing an involvement with the project and hope to have the opportunity to do this.

I also began walking with Bridget in the park - we talked a lot about our practices, our ideas and the preliminary meetings we had both been involved in. Some of the most interesting things that came from these conversations for me involved the contradictions that exist within the park, ideas of wilderness and control, timelessness and change. I was also fascinated with the fact that we walked for almost 6 hours and only saw 2 people, re-emphasising what we had already learned about certain areas of the park being amongst the most remote in England. The feelings of space and isolation walking in the park were amazing; I decided that I wanted to immerse myself in this isolation as a central part of the process. I consulted with the park staff to find some of the most remote areas and have spent a further 9 days in the park walking, being with the landscape. Through this process the work has developed and I am now at the early stages of coordinating the production.

My ideas have developed into 2 proposed outcomes: a video work and a series of digitally manipulated images. Both works deal with the idea of wilderness/control, how the body (or man) and landscape relate to one another and how this relationship could be viewed as an attempt to rationalise, interfere or create structure. Both works will approach this by re-examining and manipulating direct recordings of the park’s landscape.

The video work has developed with additional support from a series of mentoring sessions provided by DigitalCity in Middlesbrough. I have negotiated with DigitalCity to produce the piece for Triparks with the provided mentor Ian Bailey. I have also arranged to use their HD camera equipment through the month of August to shoot the work in the park. The video will incorporate cyclic footage of human gamete, cell division and necrosis integrated into a repeating 360° panoramic shot constructed from various uninterrupted views of the landscape edited together. The human biological elements will be manipulated and integrated into the film in the editing process to reproduce effects such as video interference and damaged film, juxtaposing the clarity of the HD landscape footage. I hope to be able to gather some of the cellular source materials myself and am attempting to negotiate some time in a lab or research environment over the next few months. If this is not possible I will use licensed stock footage. The work will be displayed for tour using a HD plasma/LCD flat screen and Mini Mac. The screen will be housed in a purpose-constructed frame.

The image work will consist of a series of three - five images of the landscape that will undergo a series of manipulations before presentation as large format framed prints to tour. I met with park commissioned photographer Simon Fraser to discuss potential sites for filming and shooting and established a list of sites to visit in the remaining days of the residency. I have been researching digital processes that can be used to replicate natural forms and create fictional, man-made landscapes in virtual worlds. One process I found which is very interesting uses fractals to create virtual landscapes that mimic nature to an incredibly detailed level. I aim to use this process to create a new structure that will be overlaid onto the actual images. I aim to construct these fractal structures using manipulated images of bones excavated in the park and am currently trying to organize some time with park archaeologists."

I have since had a meeting with Andrew Miller, the national park northern area manager and following this have arranged to meet with Chris Jones, the park archaeologist to discuss gathering the images of the human material from the park.

Locations for filming (College Valley and Auchope Cairn)

2008-07-21T10:05:00.004+01:00

Locations for filming (Simonside)

2008-07-21T09:42:00.005+01:00

suggestions

2008-07-20T17:44:00.000+01:00

restrictions

2008-07-20T17:43:00.000+01:00

personal stories

2008-07-20T17:42:00.000+01:00

personalisation

2008-07-20T17:41:00.002+01:00

bottom slab size

2008-07-20T17:41:00.001+01:00

black granite in grass

2008-07-20T17:40:00.001+01:00

white marble with lead

2008-07-20T17:39:00.002+01:00

handcut with black

2008-07-20T17:37:00.000+01:00

two inch letters

2008-07-20T17:01:00.000+01:00

Much later on, in July

2008-07-20T16:42:00.002+01:00

After my weekend in Rothbury I had quite a long time away from the park, I made a trip to Iceland and persued Robin for a quote to make me a rock about 60 x 60 x 60cm.

As always things change, ideas modify and practical issues like money and time necesitate compromise.

I've been thinking long and hard about the replica rock idea and would still like it to be an element of this project, but I also have another set of ideas that I feel may take priority.

I have been coming back to two phrases about the landscape that I encountered in the early stages of this project:

BLACKLANDS and WHITE PRARIE

They refer to different types of ecology and I encountered them in reference to the two seperate areas of the park North and South.

I have been in contact with a memorial stonemason from Rothbury (John Clark) about commissioning him to make two stones with these phrases carved into them, one black granite one white marble.

I met him on Saturday morning in the cemetry nr Rothbury. He is a very gentle man, perfect considering the delicate nature of his work. He showed me various examples of stones and we discussed different techniques. He works with a man who hand cuts letters (sandblasting is the other option), I really want to work with this letter cutter, John said hand cutting is a dying art and I'd like to take the opportunity before its too late.

Some how this issue of preservation and restriction keeps coming up. Aparently white marble and black granite is not allowed in churchyards any more, only "natural" "old" looking stone, more planning and control of the aesthetics of place.

John left me with a catalogue of memorial stones, it makes interesting reading....

Meeting with Chris Jones

2008-07-20T16:04:00.002+01:00

Next day, Monday I met up with Chris Jones, archaelogist with the Northumberland National Park. We had a really interesting conversation in the car park before setting out onto the Lordenshaws site, the area at the foot of Simonside with the cup and ring marked rocks.

Chris had been a Garlands Edge in the Peak district where they had been examining an impressive example of rock marking before burying the original and putting a fibre glass replica in it's stead.

Had this man been reading my note book I thought, I was getting really excited. He was excited too, it transpired that this was his first visit to the site so we were going to do some exploring together.

Chris talked about each generation of people having a different way of seeing the landscape, that each time period brings with it a different psyche. It was refreshing to hear someone speak so openly about their field. He told me some funy stories about a fight between two archaelogists at conference over "processualism", apparently an insult in some circles.

We followed ditches and walls and Chris revealed the story of the site and its re use over time. There are quite a number of marked rocks around the site but they are not that easy to find and the markings are "tenuous".

Chris talked about the Park policy of "managing change" and not "preserving in aspic", he was enthusiastic about my idea of working with the rock markings, when I asked him what would be the newest thing to be considered archaelogically interesting. His answer was that "archaelogy starts yesterday". I started thinking about working with an archaelogist to interpret my work.

Chris gave me a list of suggested reading, some of which I've been able to find.

He left me with the impression that he would be back at that site sometime soon, he was very interested at the prospect of excavating a triangulated cairn.

view from the rock

2008-07-20T16:03:00.000+01:00

potential rock candidate

2008-07-20T16:01:00.000+01:00

potential rock

2008-07-20T16:00:00.000+01:00

Church Rock

2008-07-20T15:58:00.000+01:00

Potential site and Church Rock

2008-07-20T15:37:00.002+01:00

I re joined the official path an continued my ascent. The wind was so strong that I have to admit I was really just concentrating on keeping upright most of the time. My main mission was meant to be finding potential rock candidates for robin to use as models for our replica. I kooked at a couple of sites and identified one potential candidate and site. While I was contemplating the site a fellow walker joined me, he told me a good way through the woods via Church Rock in the woodland. I had a really pleasant, sheltered walk through the woods and found the rock easily.

The Newcastle Hotel was a little quieter on Sunday night and I had time to think about what I might like to inscribe on the replica rock. I am interested in using some of the icons from my digital camera display screen a reference to how most people enjoy the view nowdays: through their technology.

the whole through it

2008-07-20T15:36:00.001+01:00

solstice rock

2008-07-20T15:34:00.000+01:00

The solstice rock, only a day late

2008-07-20T15:25:00.002+01:00

I found the solstice rock quite easily when I returned to Simonside on the Sunday morning. Mark, one of the park rangers had given me an idea where it was the day before and he also showed me some pictures of it from a website which explained how this rock lines up with a series of other significant rocks in the region. I'm not too interested in all that stuff but I was on a mission to find this rock.

I enjoyed lounging around on the rock in the sunshine, looking up at the clouds rushing by overhead I regretted not bringing my DVD camera, but I'd opted for a lighter load to go up the hill with.

I got a certain amount of satisfaction in being at the rock site exactly twelve hours after the solstice sun set, better late than never....

The craggs again

2008-07-20T15:24:00.001+01:00

2008-07-20T15:23:00.001+01:00

Room with a View

2008-07-20T15:22:00.001+01:00

The morning after...

2008-07-20T15:16:00.002+01:00

Sleep came, eventually, I hesitated to look out of the window the next morning for fear of more rain. Luckily the air was clear and patches of blue sky teased from a distance. Though my night's sleep had been less than perfect the view from my window of Simonside was some sort of compensation. I took photos from the window and decided to give the Newcastle Hotel the benefit of the doubt, it being Saturday night and solstice and all.

zooming in on Dove Craggs on Simonside

2008-07-20T15:14:00.000+01:00

Simon side from a distance

2008-07-20T15:11:00.000+01:00

Garleigh Hill, trigpoint and cairn

2008-07-20T15:09:00.000+01:00

Sundews, a carnivorous plant, like venus flytrap.

2008-07-20T15:05:00.000+01:00

Longest day, even longer night...

2008-07-19T16:03:00.002+01:00

Got really wet walking from Rothbury to Simon side and back. Took an umberella and was really glad of it.

Met a really nice couple out walking their three terriers, one staffie and one siamese cat...

Went to the forestry commission carl park and decided not to go all the way up along the ridge but to walk along the road to Lordenshaws car park. It was really looking dodgy up on the tops and I didn't want to take any unnecessary risks, especially on my own.

I came across one jogger and three cyclists on my way to the car park, wished them happy solstice , think they thought I was a bit strange.

It looked really bad weatherwise but I headed up the path.... however common sense prevailed and I turned back. There was no way I was going to find the solstice rock in those conditions and there certainly wasn't a peak of sunshine to shine through it anyway.

I slopped my way back to Rothbury on quite a pleasant route past some interesting little wooden chalets and was very glad to get back to my wee room and take off my soggy gear. I was absolutely knackered and took a hot bath in the 'interesting' bathroom.

Meanwhile things were really hotting up downstairs in the bar, the music got louder and louder and LOUDER, sceeching and catterwalling masses slammed in and out of the front door which my room was oh so conveiniently positioned above.

Around mid night I was begining to seriously regret my choice of accomodation, I locked my door and tried to read my book.

In my mind scenes from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights were being re enacted below my bed chamber, finally at two AM peace descended upon the Newcastle Hotel.....

Soggy Solstice continued

2008-07-19T15:41:00.002+01:00

OK, I digressed into the world of fake rock for a moment there....

Back to Simonside at Solstice time.

I kept a journal of the three days I was in and around Rothbury so I will use extracts of that to create this posting.

"twenty first June tweleve thirty ish

The Longest Day:
Up to Simonside again got here about ten thirty decided to go straight to Hills and take a look around Garleigh Moor which is to the side of where the cup and ring marks are but has a trig point and a cairn on Garleigh Hill.

Garleigh Craggs are most imposing and I come back to the thoughts I keep having about Picnic at Hanging Rock. Whilst driving here I took some photos of Simoneside froma distance and thought about "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" where the guy gets obsessed with the shape of the hill. Because I want to capture my first sighting of it , the characteristic shape, I become quite a dangerous driver.......

I stopped near the turning to Fontburn reservoir this time and took a couple of shots with the SLR and tripod. Feels quite cumbersome carrying all this gear around with me, hope its worth it..

Car park is filling up with walkers and cyclists, but on one has chosen to explore the area I'm in, yet.

Took photos of trig point and cairn up on Garleigh Hill. Think there really is something to the fact that these two markers co exist in the landscape.

Walked along the top of hill towards Rothbury then down the fence line towards the hillfort, was stumbling about quite alot and very fortunately stumbled upon a patch of sundews, see photo.

Walked back up around the hillfort ....then the heavens opened.......

Whilst walking back to the carpark I came across a group of "hippies", joined them at the cup and ring marked rock and took their photo for them. Turned out they were from Newcastle and some of htem worked for Tyne and Wear museums. One girl, Naomi had previously worked at Killhope.... small world... "fake hippies" .... "fake rocks".....

Checked into my B + B, The Newcastle Hotel, then checked out Rothbury for a late lunch, still raining, but my husband sent me a message about a rock with a whole through it which is meant to line up with the solstice sun set. Will try to find out from rangers about this.

Robin Burch stone one

2008-07-19T15:38:00.002+01:00

Robbin Burch stone two

2008-07-19T15:38:00.001+01:00

Robin Burch: stone three

2008-07-19T15:34:00.001+01:00

Soggy Solstice

2008-07-19T14:40:00.005+01:00

It's been a while since I had the following encounters, for one reason or another I just haven't had time to put all this up on the blog before now.

Since my last blog entry I decided that I wanted to go back up to the site I"ve being thinking about most during this project, Simonside Hills nr Rothbury, for the weekend of the longest day, Summer Solstice in fact.

I booked myself into a pub B+B in Rothbury for Saturday and Sunday night and arranged to meet with Chris Jones NNP archaeologist on the Monday morning.

My main reason for going was to hunt out some suitable rocks to photograph and measure. Since being informed that carving onto the rocks up on Simonside is not permitted I have been thinking about the interpretation and representation of history or heritage alot. This also ties in with my current day job, which is information assistant at Killhope Lead Mining Centre. One of my tasks in this job is to guide people down part of the lead mine, it takes about an hour and is as you might expect, dark and wet. However one of the most surprising things I discovered when training for the job is that a large part of the tour takes place in a completely fake or replica mine. Due to health and safety and other visitor comfort considerations the centre built a big concrete box underground and connected to the real mine level. Inside the box they employed specialists to recreate features from various lead mines in fibre glass, which we walk through whilst telling people various tales of old.

This has obviously been on my mind. I point out the fakeness of the mine to all visitors, by the way, it doesn't seem to detract from their experience. It sort of bothers me and at the same time I love the idea of being inside this giant sculpture or Dr Who set.

Any how the reason for this little story is I started to think if I can't have a real rock maybe I'll have a fake one. I am currently in contact with one if the guys who worked on the Killhope mine, hence rock hunting, he needs plenty of photos in order to do a good job, and he is good. Check out his work is the three rocks above this posting Robin Burch rocks one, two and three.

Deer Hut at Barrowburn

2008-06-23T17:23:00.003+01:00

Windy Gyle

2008-06-23T14:04:00.009+01:00

I had a meeting with Archaeologist Iain Hedley at the Rothbury National Park office recently to discuss some of the areas I am keen to explore. He has a personal interest in myth and folklore and I wanted to see how this might link in with my ideas and possibly with the Border Heritage Project. He gave me some new directions for research and also pointed me in the direction of Barrowburn farm up in the Coquet Valley, where the farmer had various accommodations available for hire. I had mentioned my interest in remoteness and he recommended visiting as it is located in one of the most isolated areas in the park, without electricity or mobile phone network coverage.

Several people had recommended a walk from Barrowburn up to Windy Gyle , so I decided to spend a long weekend in the deer hut up at Barrowburn and do the walk. It was pretty tough, with lots of ups and downs but the views were spectacular. I was particularly looking out for potential sites to shoot footage for the video work I am planning. Locations where I could get 360 degree uninterrupted views of the horizon, where the hills meet the sky. Unfortunately it was a bit hazy, Ian the farmer told me that on a clear day you could see as far as the sea .

The walk took in another small section of the Pennine Way, following the border between between Scotland and England. It was interesting to see the difference between the landscape on either side of the fence.

Controlled Wilderness

2008-06-22T09:55:00.010+01:00

It's been a while since I blogged and things have moved along quite a bit with ideas for work. As Bridget has mentioned we took a good long walk that broke in my boots and gave me a better appreciation of the scale and diversity of landscape in the park. We saw a deer, no red squirrels though.

The main thing that struck me was that we walked for almost 6 hours and only saw 2 people, this really crystalised the idea of approaching isolation in the work I eventually make. Thinking about the original brief - people - place - time in particular - what I find very interesting in Northumberland National Park is that there aren't a lot of people. As soon as you get away from the popular Hadrian's Wall walk I imagine you could go for days without any contact, if you wanted to.

Prior to starting on the project I was interested in looking at how the body and landscape relate to one another, how they interact. I am still very keen to approach this idea in the work. What I have observed in the park is that the body and the landscape are actually at odds quite a lot of the time. We constantly attempt to manipulate and control our surroundings, make everything safe and functional, though it may seem on first encounter that the park has escaped this, in some senses it is still a victim. The timeless wilderness is a controlled one.

The work I plan to make for the residency focuses on the landscape as a threshold space where the body repeatedly attempts to infiltrate, interrupt, alter, infect, control, colonise and give structure. I am planning to use video and photography. For the video work I will capture slow pan shots at locations within the park where the landscape is uninterrupted. I hope to shoot in HD and slow the footage, referencing painting and the sense of timelessness in a quite literal way. In contrast to this I will use footage from the body, manipulated to appear on the video as interference or faults in the film - a contradiction.

Northumberland based photographer Simon Fraser has agreed to meet with me to discuss potential locations for filming. He was commissioned by the park to photograph places without any border divides which ties quite well into some of my own concerns. I will be working with editor and independent film-maker Ian Bailey through a series of DigitalCity facilitated mentoring sessions toward the completion of the video work.

I am also very keen to make a series images which I would hope to locate within the park, more to follow on this idea later...

2008-06-11T21:47:00.003+01:00

Much has happened since my last posting, but no new photos.

Paul and I went for a circular walk along Hadrain's Wall and through some forest areas on Thursday. We actually followed the Pennine Way for a little bit, we aspire to walking the length of the park via the Pennine Way, but for the meantime a day's walk in the sweltering heat was quite enough. I think we walked about 10 miles. I decided not to take my camera because it changes the way you experience things if you are constantly assessing whether or not to capture the moment.

Anyhow, we had an interesting chat along the way; I'm not sure how our walks will filter into the project but I feel they are an important way for Paul and I to connect.

I bit the bullet on Friday and proposed one of my project ideas to Andrew Miller (NNP north manager), I got the answer I had anticipated: NO, but I am not down hearted (honest).

My idea was to carve a coded image of the view from the top of Simonside into the soft sandstone rock that it is formed out of. A permanent site specific piece that would sit discretely alongside the exisiting "grafitti". The site is a SSSI (site of special scientific interest) and the park wants to preserve it, the worry was that any new markings on the rock might encourage more and more and more.........

Andrew and I met again today and we continued our dicussion about the pros and cons of monuments, memorials and markings. I want to write more about this but for now I will just leave this link to an article on the Scottish Mountaineering Council site about memorials on Scottish mountains.

http://www.mcofs.org.uk/mag_sm28_page2.asp (see live link on side of postings)

Analysis of a rainbow (after Newton)

2008-05-28T14:16:00.001+01:00

2008-05-28T14:05:00.001+01:00

Thoughts after the get together of Triparks 20th / 21st May: Hadrians Wall and ACA Allenheads.

A meeting of all three organisations and all six artists.

There was so much said over the two days that I will not attempt to give an account of the whole meeting. I just wanted to offer some of the notes I made afterwards.

The phrase that stuck in my mind was one that Hugh mentioned: speculative reconstruction. It prompted Alan to raise a discussion about the nature of reconstruction in relation to history and re-presentation or manufacture of 'evidence'.

I felt this was so relevant to how I want to respond to the Simonside site, I want to make something that could become absorbed in the history of the site. I am imagining a scenario whereby, on one level, my work could be considered together with the existing cup and ring marks and more modern graffiti as equal in importance as an expression of "I was here". On another level there is what I perceive to be the real scenario, whereby a whole gamut of hierarchies and means of judging an object or statement may become a barrier to the work existing (lack of permission). These are interesting questions. Who decides what is and isn't important / historical / art?

Helen talked about the role of the artist in relation to the many and various agencies at work in the park and asked the question where did the role of the artist lie. I found this very interesting and felt that my reaction to this question reinforced the desire for my work to be discovered and remain ambiguous rather than to be announced as 'art'.

Hugh and I were the only ones to try out the video conversation. He approached me with "What does the word landscape mean to you?" or words to that effect. I was really interesting to be put on the spot like that and once again it brought up the theme of contradiction for me within this project. My answer centred round the origin of the word, which some think come from the Dutch "landschaft".

“It entered the English language, along with the herring and bleached linen, as a Dutch import at the end of the sixteenth century. And landschap, like its Germanic root, landschaft , signified a unit of human occupation, indeed a jurisdiction, as much as anything that might be a pleasing object of depiction. So it was surely not accidental that in the Netherlandish flood-fields, itself a site of formidable human engineering, a community developed the idea of a landschap, which in the colloquial English of the time became a landskip. “
Simon Schama: “Landscape and Memory”, Vintage Books USA, 1996, p10
However, on reflection I think my definition of landscape in the context I had been using it that day was more to do with the lack of human presence. Perhaps I should have been using the word place, view or vista? I think I use the word landscape in relation to something that humans are not the main focus of attention but at the same time evidence of them being there is inherent in its meaning.

View is a word that is important to raise here, as I did not mention the significance of how something is viewed to the work I am making. A viewpoint is a place to take a photograph for many visitors; the re interpretation of this imagery via digital technology is where my work exists.

I am going to stop here; I'll get some images of recent work together then all this rambling might make sense!

2008-05-28T14:04:00.000+01:00

Bank holiday Monday in the Breamish Valley: 26th May 2008.

Since our full project meeting on the 20th / 21st May, I've been itching to get out into the park again. I particularly wanted to go over the Bank Holiday weekend because I had heard during a Park Authority meeting (which I attended way back in March) that there was going to be live military action over that weekend. The park members weren't too happy about this but it was a case of being told, no negotiation.

Anyhow, I thought I would go out with my video camera and capture some images of the Hill Forts in the North of the park with a backdrop of military action providing some distance rumbling soundtrack.

Well best laid plans and all that…. There wasn't a peep from the big guns, or if there was it would have been absolutely inaudible against the windy which was blowing a hooley.

What this did mean was fantastic movement of light over the land, which I attempted to capture with the stills camera.

One thing I had forgotten about was the traditional visitors of Breamish Valley would be out in force, and they did not disappoint. There was the smell of barbecues in the air when we reached the busy car park that was the starting point for the Hill Fort Trail.

I was very much reminded of a word that Paul and I had talked about when discussing the language people used in relation to the land. The word is transhumance; it means the seasonal migration of livestock to suitable grazing lands. We heard it in relation to buildings (shiels) which the people tending the animals would relocate to during the summer months.

There was something about these big family groups staking out their territory in the car park (who, I imagine get together in the same spot every year with their wind breaks and camp chairs). It felt somehow like they were reclaiming their temporary homesteads.

I wanted to linger and capture more, but my husband was most disturbed by all the people being there. I asked him why, but he could give a satisfactory answer. I think it had something to do with the fact that we had driven for two hours to be in a place which was populated by numbers of people equal to the entire population of the village we live in. In fact it was nice to come home to some peace and quiet which lent a certain irony to our trip into the tranquillity of the National Park. The walk, although described as challenging, was quite tame and once we got up the first hill we didn't see that many people. Oh and the views were great!

2008-05-28T14:03:00.001+01:00

2008-05-28T14:01:00.001+01:00

2008-05-28T14:00:00.000+01:00

2008-05-28T13:59:00.000+01:00

2008-05-28T13:57:00.000+01:00

2008-05-19T16:17:00.003+01:00

I also feel more focussed about the project after talking over some ideas last week. After our meeting I felt excited and a bit nervous, I also felt extremely restless. I decided the best thing to do was to go into the park and revisit the site that I had been talking about.

Simonside Hills have been haunting me. They are not the most isolated or the highest, in fact they are quite tame, which is what surprises me about my growing obsession about them. There is easy access to them, road, car park and path, they are well used by locals and visitors alike, there is nothing exclusive about them and yet (at the risk of going all hippie on you) they really seem to have a power about them.

Like Paul, I have picked up on the sense of time in the landscape. At Simonside there are ancient cup and ring marks carved in to stones around the foot of the hillside. When you get up onto the hilltops there are other more recent "carvings", which I photographed on my first visit. People have been making their mark in the soft sandstone here for hundreds of years and I feel the same urge.

It is very unclear just exactly what the cup and ring marks symbolise, I like this ambiguity. They are just there, in the landscape, they focus you in on the place, you are being told in no uncertain terms that you are not the first to stand here, but that doesn't detract it adds to the weight of the place.

And then there is the view………..
There is the view from the hills, which takes in Rothbury town, the Cheviot and various other distant hills and the sea.
There is also the view of the hills; they have a very distinctive shape being made up of three craggy peaks rising out of a ridge.

I've asked Andrew Miller (Park manager North) if I can spend some time with an archaeologist in order to find out more about the cup and ring markings and to see if there are any other sites in the park that I might like to work in. I'm also thinking of how to approach the park regarding making a work in situ.
And then there are the screen prints and the rubbings I've been making too…………. there's still a lot to work on but I feel it's starting to come together.

Oh yes, the colours were absolutely vivid, the young heather is just coming out and next to the grey of the rock it is practically psychedelic (man)!

2008-05-19T16:15:00.000+01:00

2008-05-19T16:09:00.000+01:00

2008-05-19T16:07:00.000+01:00

2008-05-19T16:04:00.000+01:00

2008-05-19T16:01:00.001+01:00

Healing

2008-05-15T06:32:00.011+01:00

This is me by the way - I didn't beat someone up so I could take these photos. I also didn't beat myself up so I could take these photos - I bruise a lot and have no spatial awareness...

I'm starting to make connections between the body and the landscape, maybe portrait and landscape? Referencing orientation, contrast, contradiction and the (static/moving) image. Within this I'm thinking of the landscape as a timeless, isolated, uninterrupted and natural(?) structure, becoming interrupted by constructed (contradictory) layers of (internal and external) body matter. Faults that need to be healed.

Loaded

2008-05-15T05:59:00.002+01:00

Wandering in the park - with and without support - words have started to stick to me - I feel like the mire. These words are threads that connect - the park - my practice - they have been stretched: Timelessness, change, isolation, silence, tension, alien, wilderness, healing.

Following a really lovely get together up a Allenheads with Alan, Helen and Bridget my thoughts have crystallised somehow, probably through informal sharing. I am starting to make positive connections and in turn feel positive generally, funny that init.

South Park

2008-05-09T09:39:00.002+01:00

Another day jam packed with information, Paul has summarised the day very well in his entry below and I don't want to duplicate too much. I just wanted to add some of the things that stuck with me.

We opted to look around an area on the outskirts of the South West of the park and drove along a single track road which formed the boundary between all round accessible land and RAF property belonging to Spadeadam Camp. The first place we stopped was Cramell Linn ,popular with locals as a swimming hole, this waterfall (formed by the river Irthing) marks the boundary of the park and the Northumberland Cumbria border in this area. There were cute looking stone buildings on the bank side of the river which Derek explained were pumping stations that once formed part of a cooling system for Blue Streak (the aborted Anglo French space exploration effort). Once again a landscape with a military presence. I tried to get a picture of an abandoned plane but my camera wasn't really up to it as you can see! The landscape was bleak, flat and the warm weather gave it a scorched / parched feeling. White Prarrie was the name Derek used, a contrast to the Blacklands of the North Park. We passed dummy tanks and a small target practice village, for me it took a small leap of imagination to picture myself in one of the current theatres of war, perhaps the heat was getting to me.

As we drove through the regimented lines of spruce and Derek explained how the forest (Wark and Keilder) were started as part of the war effort (WWI) to try to make Britain self sufficent in timber. Farmland was purchased easily from farmers who were making marginal livings and the Duke of Northumberland gave over one of his hunting parks for planting. Not all farmers gave up their land, Lampert Farm remains an oassis of open space amongst the quite claustrophobic woodland. It was near here that we made our forray into the mire and discovered the amazing islands of moss and lichen that Paul shows in his photos below.

Driving back Derek explained about the Nine Nicks that formed the impressive ridge of undulating Whin Sill that the Hadrian's wall runs along. There are no longer nine of them, several were quarried out and the hard stone used as sets (cobbles) in expanding industrial cities like Manchester. I was struck by a kind of circularity in the use of materials in the landscape. Here the shape of the land had been dramatically changed in order to service an urban industrial landscape thinking back to Simonside (see previous blog entry) it seemed to me that this movement had come full circle. To help reduce errosion the Park have paved the footpath using the flagstones from the floor of an old mill works in Derby: the urban industrial landscape declines and is recycled to preserve the landscape.

Cramell Linn

2008-05-09T09:38:00.000+01:00

pumping station for Blue Streak

2008-05-09T09:37:00.000+01:00

evidence of RAF presence at Spadeadam

2008-05-09T09:36:00.001+01:00

white prarrie

2008-05-09T09:35:00.000+01:00

drainage 'grip' : helps 'heal' the bog peatland

2008-05-09T09:32:00.000+01:00

mire surrounded by forest

2008-05-09T09:31:00.000+01:00

In the mire

2008-05-08T11:59:00.003+01:00

We traveled out into the South of the park yesterday with Derek Proudlock, crossed another border, this time between Northumberland and Cumbria. Passing through a village with an identity crisis called Gilsland which straddled the border, we headed further out into the remote areas where the border reavers (moss troupers) used to operate in lawless, debatable lands.

We wanted to get out onto the mire, an area of incredible biodiversity, to get a sense of this strange place, how it felt. At the edges the ground was firm and grassy, as we plodded further in toward the centre of the mire its consistency changed, squelchy and springy. We were told to watch out for adders that might be basking in the sunshine. We were hunting for a rare insect eating plant, but didn't find it. What from a distance looked very bleak on closer inspection was a very delicate, beautiful, almost alien landscape.

Derek told me that the peat in the bog can be harvested in moderation, that when you slice a piece out it will eventually heal itself, like skin.

First border sighting

2008-05-06T20:29:00.001+01:00

I headed out to the border over the bank holiday weekend. Starting out from Kirk Yetholm I managed to reach the dry stone wall and sheep fence that mark the divide between Scotland and England.

Another day (+evening) in the North of the park

2008-05-02T14:55:00.000+01:00

29th April 2008 : A friend of mine was visiting Northumberland with her family, who are keen walkers and climbers, so it seemed there was a perfect opportunity to combine business with pleasure.

We planned to travel up the College Valley by car so that Alex and her father could climb up the Hen Hole. However, when we arrived at the estate agents in Wooler (where permits to drive on the tiny road up the valley are issued), we found that due to lambing no permits were being issued that day. It was also very unpredictable weather, so the climbers were not too disappointed.

We drove as far as we could without a permit and then walked up the track, it wasn't long before the heavens opened and we were very glad of our waterproof trousers!

We forked off the track at a little church hall and monument to pilots who crashed in the Cheviots during WWII, Alex's Dad translated the RAF motto Per ardua ad astra (through strength (hard work) to the stars). I found it very powerful, but we were all a bit confussed why the names of the pilots weren't listed only the type of planes they were flying. I know that a lot of the wrecks are still there but it seemed a little insensitive to combine a memorial with a crash spotters guide (there was a kind of map on the top of the stone indicating the sites of the wrecks)

Later on in the evening I went to Town Yetholm (just over the border in Scotland) to meet some folk who are taking part in a NNPA project called The Cheviot Hills Heritage Project. There were about ten people at the meeting and I was really impressed by how passionate everyone was about the place that they lived in. People were from all walks of life and all places, not just born and bred, I met someone from North London and another gentleman from Edinburgh. Accents were a mix of English and the lovely soft Border Scotts. I gleaned a great deal of information from this meeting, particularly about walking routes!

Elanor Johnson the project co ordinator suggested we might like to exhibit the work from the project in a venue in the town or a neighbouring town / village; this sounds to me like a really good idea as there aren't many opportunities for these communities to come into contact with contemporary art and artists and Elanor assured me we would get a very honest response from them. I like this interaction I know from showing work in the small village I live in that it can be a very enlightening experience for all parties.

Driving back home in the dark I felt the looming presence of the Cheviot Massif as I skirted round it on some pretty wet and pot-holed roads.

per ardua ad astra

2008-05-02T14:54:00.000+01:00

2008-05-02T14:53:00.000+01:00

College Valley

2008-05-02T14:52:00.000+01:00

2008-05-02T14:51:00.000+01:00

2008-05-02T14:49:00.000+01:00

Up on Simonside

2008-05-02T12:29:00.000+01:00

Still on Day Two!

Mark and I walked up Simonside which is a big hill overlooking Rothbury town. We met a group of archeology enthusiasts in the car park below and as we made our ascent on the newly laid stone pathway we watched them gathering on a smaller hillside below us in order to look at Iron Age remains. I remembered the cup and ring marks that are dotted all over the north of Northumberland and I think I had stones and stone carving (or markings) on the brain as we walked up and along the ridge.

Mark must have tuned into this because he took me off the path to show me a particularly touching piece of modern stone graffiti. Someone carved their proposal of marriage in stone and must have taken their beloved up onto the tops to pop the question in front of a truely majestic backdrop. One can only hope its a story with a happy ending.

Graffiti aside I was also intrigued by the stones that the NNPA had used to make a long lasting pathway on the hillside. The big flagstones had come from the floor of a Derbyshire Mill. Each seemed loaded with its own history, but I couldn't help seeing the landscape I saw around me reproduced in minature through the layered surface of the flagstones.

I think I'd like to try my hand at stone carving, the work I've been making recently might well translate into relief carving very nicely!

I'd also like to make some rubbings of the flagstones.

New path stretches into distance

2008-05-02T12:27:00.000+01:00

2008-05-02T12:26:00.000+01:00

Picnic at Hanging Rock?

2008-05-02T12:23:00.000+01:00

2008-05-02T12:22:00.001+01:00

2008-05-02T12:21:00.000+01:00

2008-05-02T12:20:00.000+01:00

2008-05-02T12:16:00.000+01:00

Looking out from the top of the Simonside Hills

2008-05-02T12:14:00.000+01:00

The lonely Old Billy Goat

2008-05-02T12:13:00.000+01:00

Day two in the north of the park (cont)

2008-05-02T12:06:00.000+01:00

There is so much out there I'm just trying to give a sense of space and light (or darkness) in this landscape by posting images which pretty much speak for themselves most of the time. Below are more images of the Otterburn Ranges taken as we circled round the danger zone on the MOD roads.

Outer GoldenPot

2008-05-02T12:05:00.000+01:00

2008-05-02T12:04:00.000+01:00

2008-05-02T12:02:00.000+01:00

Mark and Paul study information board

2008-05-02T12:01:00.000+01:00

strategic view point

2008-05-02T11:59:00.000+01:00

Day two in the north of the park

2008-04-28T17:38:00.000+01:00

After two days of being shown around the north of the park my head is spinning and we haven't even started looking at the south!

Day two of our introductory sessions was spent with Mark one of the park rangers based at Rothbury. He showed us round the Otterburn Ranges. This is an area of land in the middle of the park which is owned by the MOD and used for training soldiers in the use of live artillery. It is marked on the map as a danger area, so naturally we were immediately curious. Mark showed Paul and myself several areas of interest within the ranges area, the WW1 trenches were particularly interesting to me in the fact that they are now come under the protective umbrella of archaeology. To go from these earthworks through the park to Chew Green (a Roman encampment) and all the while be reminded of the enormous amount of iron age forts in the area gave the whole landscape a feeling of some where worth protecting and fighting over. At the same time there was the bizarre irony of being in a place that prizes tranquility as one of its special features whilst at the same time being constantly reminded of the noise, destruction and danger of warfare.

A fortified farmstead

2008-04-28T17:22:00.000+01:00

Inside the fortified farmstead

2008-04-28T17:21:00.000+01:00

The live artillary range (tank in foreground)

2008-04-28T17:20:00.000+01:00

Signs warning of unexploded amunition

2008-04-28T17:13:00.000+01:00

Artillary range dotted with tanks for targets

2008-04-28T17:11:00.000+01:00