Ever since I found this strange tree in Aberdeenshire last summer, I’ve been longing to get back to Aden Country Park to spend more time documenting it.
It’s striking twists and contortions are vegetatively mysterious, visually exciting and emotionally disturbing – a perfect combination to captivate this tree artist.
Following six months hard graft in the studio preparing for my exhibition, it felt like the best reward to spend a week in my homeland, discovering some new trees.
So, I packed my drawing kit and headed for Derbyshire, excited to be feeding my imagination once again, turning the creative cycle back to the beginning of the process.
I grew up in Matlock and as a child used to visit the Chatsworth estate often with my grandparents. I have warm memories of lolling about the grounds with a picnic, paddling in the river and getting towed reluctantly through the big house. I had no inkling at the time that one day I’d be back with a drawing board to study the trees there.
This December I’ve been away tree-hunting – I was so ready for a road trip!
These journeys are like mini residencies for me – they are intense periods of research, exploration and new developments. They’re an essential part of my process, connecting me back to the old trees and their stories, eventually stimulating whole bodies of work.
Drawing on location in LangholmMy original plan was to stay in Aberdeenshire as there are some great tree drawing locations I wanted to return to there. Sadly the whole region’s woodlands were devastated by Storm Arwen and my accommodation and drawing locations were closed to the public. It will take decades to recover from and I really feel for the tree people there.
This year I will be exhibiting at the magnificent Drum Castle, a National Trust for Scotland property just west of Aberdeen. I will be sharing the impressive exhibition space (formerly Jacobean era bedrooms) with printmaker Margaret Pitt, who makes woodcuts.
The estate includes the Old Wood of Drum, an ancient woodland containing many old and interesting oaks. I had the opportuntiy to explore the woodlands on two visits last year and will be going back for a drawing trip next week.
The exhibition opens with a private view on Saturday 4th April and runs all through the Castle’s open season until 31st October.
I will also be doing some workshops and an artist’s talk – more details to come.
Fellow artist Anne Gilchrist and I worked together for the first time during the Grown Together exhibition at St Margaret’s House, though we have long shared a fascination with Dalkeith Old Oaks and have both made work there for many years.
The site sits within Dalkeith Country Park in Midlothian and is bounded by the North and South Esk rivers. The oakwood is grazed by cattle and managed as park woodland by Buccleuch Estates.
During the spring of 2018 we walked, talked and drew our way around the oaks, discovering shared favourites and introducing each other to their unique perspectives. At that time, the contrast between the copious dead and decaying wood and the vibrant green of the emerging new leaves was striking – two points on the complex cycle of woodland life.
We decided to collaborate on a collection of ‘things’ to present at the European Wood Pastures: Past, Present & Future conference, 5-7 September 2018 Sheffield, run by UKEconet which I worked with on ‘Tree Stories’.
Along with original artworks we’ll be presenting this new book, which brings together a selection of our art, photographs and writing made in response to the oakwood. Though we produce quite different work, we share a great deal in the way our art has developed as a kind of conversation with the trees. In the process of making this book and on our walks through the woodland, Anne has taught me to look down as well as gaze up, to notice the small and fleeting wonders of the habitat as well as the monumental aged oaks.
The book is available to preview and order here »
Autumn in Calder wood, it’s all about leaves…
I see my residency at Howden Park Centre as a fantastic opportunity for me to take stock of where my work is now and explore some new possibilities for the future. Looking at the work on the walls gives me a more complete perspective than when it’s dotted around the studio – I can regard it as a body of work rather than as a series of individual pieces. I’m hoping that this will spark a period of experimentation, but I have to trust my subconscious on this as I have no idea right now where it will take me.
Collaboration is a more certain way to stimulate new ideas so I’m delighted that writer and photographer Steve Smart has agreed to work with me over the next few months. I did a fair bit of preparation for the residency earlier this year, principally getting to know Calderwood and learning my way around its variety of landscapes, so it was great to share some of my finds with him on a visit last week and fascinating to see the wood from his perspective. We were also really lucky to have a clear, crisp and frosty day for the visit with gorgeous light.
He will be writing some poems in response to the locations, trees and themes in my work, which he’ll present at the closing event of the Dialogue with trees exhibition. In the meantime, feast your eyes and your ears on his images and poems on his blog…
It was a perfect sunny winter’s day today, just wonderful for going out and getting to know the landscape around Beecraigs a little better.
First stop was Cairnpapple Hill, so steeped in significance since prehistoric times – not surprising since it has such a fantastic view from all angles, to the Pentlands, the Ochils, across the water to Fife and further out to Berwick Law, the Perthshire and Lomond mountains and even Arran on the best days.
I’d spotted a row of beeches on satellite photos on the northern boundary of the hill, so went to investigate, finding a sheltered little valley with some small, hardy oaks along with the boundary beeches.
After a good walk round Cairnpapple I headed towards Witch Craig Wood and the Korean War Memorial, where I’ve been told I’d find an unusual bit of graffiti. After a little hunting I found not one but two carved horses on trees by side of the road.
One looks like a knight of some sort with a sword, perhaps some reference to the Hospitallers of Torphichen? The other is clearly a Clydesdale horse, standing proudly in the carving by B.R. in ’78. I wonder what their stories are…
For an artist looking for characterful old trees this doesn’t look very promising does it? Clearfelled plantation is in itself a dramatic kind of landscape, but not what I’m hunting for. Gladly we have wonders of the internet like National Library of Scotland’s online historical maps and satellite imaging (I’ve recently discovered that Bing maps are a far better tool than Google) so I had an idea that there might be living remnants of the previous landscape somewhere here at Beecraigs Country Park.
Surrounded by the plantation trees and densely shaded, I found a few old beeches just clinging on along old boundary ditches.
They show up on satellite images as bright green shapes against the dark uniformity of the conifers and checking the shape’s location against old maps confirms that they are on a pre-existing boundary.
I tested out my new water soluble graphite sticks while drawing in the rain/sleet – well it is February!
A second visit on a much sunnier day revealed a wonderful line of wiggly beeches along a south facing bank.
This cluster was a real surprise – mountain bikers clearly use this extensively as it’s all lumps and bumps, being a former quarry area.
So I found my characters after all, which means I not only have the satisfaction of a successful forage, but so many new trees to get to know through my drawing – expect to meet some of them at Howden Park Centre later this year…
Having had a illness last year which incapacitated me for about 6 months (which I’m working up to blogging about sometime), I’m so happy to be able to get back to the woods this winter. So I started the year by making some plans to explore new locations through a series of mini-residencies – a sort of self-directed intense period of study, learning about the history of the landscape, making links with locally knowledgeable people and making as many on site drawings as I can.
Since I have an exhibition at the Howden Park Centre in Livingston scheduled for the end of the year, it seemed natural to start in West Lothian. While the recent storms have been blowing outside, I’ve been indoors poring over old maps and current satellite images, looking for clues to more ancient landscapes and some likely places to look for old trees. I thought I knew West Lothian pretty well, having worked there on and off for the last 20 years, but Calder Wood is an exciting new discovery for me.
It’s a plateau of ancient woodland bounded by the Murieston Water and the Linhouse Water, which both join the river Almond at Almondell. The river banks are steep and the trees mostly hide the surrounding housing, making it feel much more remote than it actually is.
These are a few photos of the wonderful trees I found – impressive old beeches, gnarly sycamore, elderly birches, hazel coppice, twisty decaying sweet chestnut.
I’m starting to learn my way around the woodland now, working out how all the little tracks fit together, where the clusters of old trees are and which are the best candidates for more prolonged sketching.
Maps are marvellous for getting the structure of a new place into my head, but now I realise I need to start creating my own mental maps – these are the first of many days in Calder Wood…
