On Sunday the weather was so beautiful, I decided to go painting down at Friars Meadow. Not using acrylics or oil but by collecting the mud at the fields and mixing it with water. It has been a while since I have done this and it made me realise how much I have missed it. I have enjoyed the challenge of seeing what will be created by placing materials outside and leaving it to nature but actually painting something is the thing I love. Although my main focus has been seeing the changes and markings left by nature and this has been exciting, I will now also be looking at painting with mud again. I like having my paintings be a part of the land. Mud is such a versatile material to use, and easy to manipulate on canvas.
An artist who is well known for his mud drawings and walks is Richard Long. I wrote my dissertation on his works and processes . There was an exhibition I visited in Bristol, Time and Space, 2015, at the Arnolfini, with many of his documented walks and mud paintings, and I found these fascinating and beautiful. The photographs that showed the traces he left in the grounds and where he had moved rocks and sticks, was a way to document his actions but also were stunning to look at. He had clearly thought about the composition and so for people like my sister, who had joined me, she could appreciate the beauty in the photographs without needing to understanding the importance of his actions. I had seen many photographs of Long’s waterfall paintings but when seeing it up close you can really appreciate the large size of it and the frantic jestures he used to create the waterfall like effect, which probably couldn’t be fully appreciated on a smaller scale.
Waterfall Line, 2000, River Avon Mud on emulsion. Photograph from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/long-waterfall-line-t11970
