Stony Tarn
Thursday, 23rd July – parked at the Woolpack Inn, Eskdale, and took path up to Eel tarn along jumping brooks and through high furns. The wonderful atmosphere of this area began to assert itself as we approached Eel tarn and skirted it. Waterlilies and reeds festooned half of it and the imagination fed on what might lie beneath the dark surface – Eel tarn refers not to eels but to an old Norse word for ‘evil’ (will-o’-the-wisps hang over it in autumn – wow!) . The far away hills towards the west were coloured in a blue/mauve that gave rise to an immense yearning to abandon the swim and travel to them, explore them, live there forever, and be happy.
Instead we went on up to Stony tarn where the land got boggy and beautifully wild. We arrived and got changed below a towering crag. The sun was out at times but not over us. We got into a dull, sap green water that boasted big umbrellas of weed that hung in the depths quivering at the slightest hint of current or movement. We had snorkels and spent time in this underwater landscape having more confidence to allow ourselves to see what was really there – I came away with a store of images which, I guess, will filter into the art work we do for the exhibition or recycle in my brain for years.
Afterwards we had great difficulty in collecting sediment from the bottom of the lake to use in our paintings and experiments – it was so Stony – what did we expect?
Richard
