I specificaly wanted to walk today on what my wife calls the Wild Wood Walk…. it’s actually the Wildart Trail…but Wild Wood is fine.
By total coincidence I can see a sign on the entrance gate, says….Wildart Day…Open to all…Family….be inspired by Nature and the Woodland…Free Activity …..Summer etc etc… and make art… And it’s next weekend or the one after, organised by The Kent Wildlife Trust.
This was the event that nearly two years ago when I was Artist in Residence with the Kent Wildlife Trust in these woods (Thornden) that I made these home made paints using the clays and earth from the wooods here.
The result of the activity was the ‘Shelter Posts’ more here and also see more here.
On the way to look at these posts I can see two ladies with small dogs walking towards us. Cosmo is close buy but roaming around off piste, he goes over to the two small dogs, on their leads, and I have that conversation I have had so many many times before,
‘Isn’t he lovely,…oh…. Marvelous…What kind is he?
‘He’s a Poodle crossed with a Golden Retreiver’
‘He’s a Labradoodle then…….oh…hello georgeous’
It is always at this point I have to make a decision whether to just let that go, or like I did today and say,
‘They call that a Golden Doodle cos he’s a Golden Retreiver….. and his name is Cosmo’.
‘Cosmo …oh lovely ….can I swap with you and take him home’
‘Are you sure, he has his moments’ I say
‘Oh they all have those’ and the conversation usually goes very Dog at that point.
The Shelter Posts look fine after two years, my paints stood up to the elements very well so far. Black, White, Grey, Yellow and Brown. So two years on I am now able to develop work using the clay and earths near to where I live to paint the landscape and things near to where I live. It seems a nice match to me……then I hear myself saying, ‘your actually trying to paint with mud and sand’….
yeh…I thought I would try it out…why!
We walk past the Drover, he has two pigs and he is on the way to market in Canturbury. The thing about the Drover is he often changes his hat…and on this occasion he’s got a bright red one. And a bow tie, I noticed.
As we walk back to the car I can see new areas being coppiced and logging activities. I look at arworks I made two or three years ago. The bracken has been cut back in prep for the event day I expect. And I get a feeling that I wonder if someone like say…..Bobby Charlton might get when he walks on the pitch at Old Trafford and says, ‘I scored a few goals here, but the club has new managers, new players come and go, and things carry on very well without me. Things move on.
When I put the keys in the ignition I notice a padlock key on the keyring. It is the one that opens all the gates in the woods. The ‘Key to the Woods’ and I still have it.
