Drawing stories
Drawing stories – a seasonal series of experimental days using psychogeography as a framework for creative practice with writer Dr Alison Clare Scott and visual artist Pip Lewis – began in the autumn of 2023 and ran through to early summer 2024.
Today we gathered, talked, shared, ate delicious food lovingly prepared by Guy, and, crucially, explored ideas of connection to space and place through both drawn image and written word. I hadn’t foreseen that I’d end up tracing the flittering journey of a butterfly, or the susseration of wind and roaring ravine, with eyes closed… Jack Smylie Wild- Workshop participant from the first session
Psychogeography is both a way of moving through an environment; and the effect of engaging with the geographical location differently. In the sessions, what was initially an urban practice was diversified into the wild, rural landscape of West Wales. The days provided opportunities to explore the possibilities of navigating topography, identifying the palimpsest of the locale and expressing our responses through creative writing and visual arts.
The entire experience was uplifting: the activities that led to intriguing verbal and visual individual responses, shared opinions and thoughts for us to explore, delicious home-cooked lunch and snacks, the fire in the courtyard and, above all, the delight of the freedom to explore that natural landscape – fields laced with history from ancient times, woods, the stream that coursed through the valley. What a day! Dr Alison Clare Scott – Workshop Co-leader
The Celtic festivals provided a focus for each of the sessions. Celtic spirituality named sacred places as thin places where the walls between heaven and earth seem especially permeable, and the worlds distinctly close to each other. The Celts also believed that time was not linear but spiral. This place was not just beyond time but beyond space and actually re-forming space.
Imbolc
Sanctuary is in the ancient hills,
Down a rickety farm lane,
In the shelter of a barn
And warmth of community embrace,
Away from the soggy rain, drawing
The landscape on a mobius strip.
Drenched in the cold white light
of winter’s transition to spring,
No longer bone-dead still,
but stirring in tremulous breaths,
Bring hope to the surface,
Finding shape in formed thoughts.
No perceptible action as yet,
We observe the candle’s flicker
And consider ways that we might,
As we observe the swan’s curved neck.
The feathered elegance glides
Before the fascinated child,
Who knows that the seed’s
Energies are beginning to gather,
Preparing to pounce forward
Clare Scott
Image credits: Pip Lewis