As I get older my work feels more abstract, less narrative based and detached from daily life. And I wondered where the story is. I look into my pictures. I can’t find it. So I look into my past.

As I grew up in a Valley, my childhood was around trees because the country was thought of as an industrial failure. In 1970s Britain, the beauty of nature that I saw around me was considered as broken and garbage and rejects and white dropping seed gunk from pollinated plants spilling on nettle leaves was white wash paint graffiti. Rusty coloured bracken was just that, old bits of iron scrap metal on the side of the road. And running through lush gnarly bushes was like wire of an old deserted fence post that no one could be bothered to pull up. Now I know the wisdom of an old shrub growing in a way to support other trees.

The bright shining glint of the sun on a wild buttercup was the thought of some kid chucking away a sweet wrapper and the shout, ‘our kids do stuff like that, coz they’re rough alright.’ But even in this dysmorphic view of nature there was always the sky of blue peaking it’s way out beyond something. Yes, there was a gap and a way to leave the rubbish and I saw it.

It reminds me of a little of the people emerging out of vivid that documented silly in a scratchy from reel.

The pay off for me was often to make stories up as I go albeit remembering a few dinner ladies blowing the whistle calling back to join the group.

Thinking of sitting in a garden as flowers shine I realise, how we bloom is a temporary thing too.

It was not nature that broke me out though. It was standing still and reaching out to make more green lungs so we can breathe that did it.

Looking back, it all fitted together neatly but the neatness was skewed.

And to make stories up as I go is still a good pay off.

Maybe that’s what I am doing today. I notice more people come into focus. It’s unavoidable.

As I follow more things honestly and to completion not matter what the value I put on them people emerge sat at benches or walking on the heath.

Today I see solitude is a temporary state and that brings comfort. Maybe we are following the stars to think isolation is ever achievable and daft to think we are ever alone.

It reminds me of Mariela Heineken’s art and the poem read by Richard Burton ‘Death Shall Have No Dominion’. and the continuity of the fishing net menders at St Ives.

What do you feel about the future ? Is it like a force or a funk? How does nature help us connect in this digital age, do we need to look back in time to appreciate it?

And then I enjoy the stillness around my work. It draws me to see life in a way that is far apart from my preconceived ideas and I have a hiker in the distance to share it with. View the future if you will.

This post shone out after a trip to see Art in a Glass Tank

PS I have also started a little free substack mainly out of curiosity. It’s a fresh use of technology so I’m wondering what the true story of substack will be. Just another myspace?! Let’s wait and see!