Some random jottings.
The men in the high-viz jackets (from days and days ago) were indeed spraying the road, purely so that I could add to my collection of round things:
I also have a collection of poles:
and tidelines. These are fascinating: each beach has its’ own character, and each part of the beach is different. Some have tiny spicules of shells and frothy bits of seaweed, others have great chunks of kelp or round stones. Some are extremely minimal, like line drawings – found drawings indeed.
There’s room for development into print, I think.
A digression.
I suppose many people have “seeing the Northern Lights” on their bucket list. Although it’s perfectly possible to see them in North Wales, somehow I have never managed it. It’s either too cloudy or they appear too late, or I miss the alert from the University of Lancaster AuroraWatchUK. The Lights have that mystery which attaches to spectacular natural phenomena, but also – for me – the additional attraction of things experienced vicariously as a child, through the memories of my parents. My father grew up in Aberdeen in the days before intensive street lighting, and the Aurora Borealis was, if not commonplace, just another of those things that happened from time to time. My mother saw the Lights once, during the War, and the story is associated with the other tales she told of nursing in the Thirties and Forties: low pay, autocratic matrons, the unexploded bomb in the Nurses Home at Manchester Royal Infirmary, and working in a T.B. Sanatorium by Lake Windermere, where the boys preferred to sleep outside on the balconies (in their beds) in all weathers.
I was really hoping for a chance to see the Aurora during my stay in Shetland. On Tuesday, the auspices were excellent: significant magnetic activity on AuroraWatchUK, and a forecast of a clear night. I spent all evening in the Stevenson Room, looking out of the window. I even set the alarm and got up in the middle of the night for another look. Nothing. So you can imagine my feelings when I looked online on Wednesday morning and saw the overnight Sumburgh Head webcam footage of brilliant green Northern Lights, taken 20 yards away from the spot where I was peering Northwards and seeing nothing apart from the airport lights.
And there lies part of the explanation: there is significant light pollution here (even without the beam from the lighthouse ). The double glazing in the Stevenson Room is an inch thick, highly refractive/reflective and probably coated in something protective. And finally: that glorious green colour seen on the webcam is enhanced. Unfair, unfair.
Try again.
http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/
Wednesday night, and the forecasts were good: cold and clear, with minor magnetic activity for hours. Go online, wait for the webcam to show lots of green light on the horizon, rush outside holding hand up to shield out the airport lights (being careful not to fall over the edge of the terrace). And success – a brief green light over the north-east horizon followed by a gently waxing and waning glow like moonlight to the northwest for about an hour. And a shooting star.
Another tick on the list of Shetland Firsts.
I think I may have mentioned that I am spending a lot of my time looking out from the (semi-)panopticon which is the Stevenson Room at the Visitor Centre. Being able to touch-type is a great advantage, so blogging does not interfere too much with looking. I am watching the light change over Fitful Head to the north west, and envying the owners of a very smart house just above the shoreline. (Typed “hose”, but spotted it in time.) (Tend to miss the numerals too, if I’m not looking at the keyboard. I learned touch-typing on an old Royal typewriter during the Winter of Discontent, bu candlelight. by candlelight.)
Strangely enough, faced with such a huge vista, ideas for exploration have contracted rather than expanded. I had great plans for walking up Fitful Head, as it’s one of the Relative Hills of Britain, but I think I may not make it. I could take a bus part of the way there, but getting back again? Miss the bus and it’s a very late return on foot.
Little details catch my eye when I’m walking. Things in corners: a distressing amount of plastic, but also the Brownie’s Geocache; round things, square things; apertures open and closed.
A bird has spent the night in a hollow in a doorway at the lighthouse.
On a fine day, the retreating waves leave a pattern of lace on the sand.
A stud on the pier at Grutness sports aWW2 Ward Department arrow, and is still shiny while younger metals have rusted almost to nothing.
Other odd objects lie in the grass: a bizarre, decaying machine of wood and iron; a Steampunk mangle? There’s no-one to ask.
Today is only the second time I have given up on a walk (if you don’t count the decision not to go to the end of the Ness of Burgi). There have been several days when I have decided to stay put and work inside. I have even had a day off. I planned second day off today, but didn’t get very far. Encased from head to toe in waterproofs, I set off to walk the mile-and-a-bit to the bus stop. Within 200 yards it was obvious that a], I wouldn’t get there without being blown over and b], I wouldn’t get back afterwards. Ah, farewell to the joys of the Shetland Museum, the coffee at Hays Dock Café, and the gastronomic delights of the Co-Op in Lerwick. Here I am back up in the eyrie, watching the weather sweep in from every direction at once.
My shortest walk to date was made on March 14th.: the sketchbook page is blank apart from the date, the weather report (gale force wind and driving rain) and the statement “15 paces and give up”.
Now, I’m back inside and thinking small, which is a challenge for someone who has got used to the extravagant gesture and the splashing of paint. I don’t have the patience required for true illustration:
Perhaps I could try some tiny etchings when I get home. For now, I am planning some 5cm x 5cm linocuts based on the footpaths and field markings , which have to be simple as I don’t have the tools for very fine cutting. Proofs taken by rubbing with graphite stick – messy, but not as bad as ink and rollers.
I have started making some very small pieces indeed.
I generally have a fondness for working on a large scale. At home in North Wales I usually feel comfortably enclosed within the landscape: high horizons, high hedges and banks, trees, green lanes. A long roll of paper seems an obvious thing to use in order to re-imagine a walk, and the physical activity of painting and drawing at this size is rewarding in itself. Painting on a surface bigger than oneself is also comfortably enclosing; almost immersive.
I definitely do not feel enclosed at Sumburgh Head. The terrain here shows traces of long occupation, from prehistory through World Wars to the present, but it is the sea and the sky which dominate the landscape. The headland is barely 90 metres above sea level – I am three times higher at home, but the horizon here is more than 20 miles away on a good day, compared with less than a mile in Wales. Here are no trees, no hedges on land; just winter-dead grass and dry stane dykes. Above me the sky, below me the sea. The sense of being a tiny scrap of humanity in an enormous landscape is almost overwhelming. It’s a bit like looking up at the clear night sky and seeing the Milky Way above you. So much space, so much time – all out there. Within: a little space, and a fractional amount of time.
So, somehow, it seems right to reflect this by reducing the scale of work rather than increasing it. Odd, really – I imagined doing lots of drawings to take home and use as a basis for my usual large pieces. But “working small” seems more logical. 5cm square in some instances.
Thinking with the camera:
