Michael's Blog on Creativity: Art/4; land art

the Fiastra river

Art/4;Nature;

Land art

Yesterday morning found us four artists at the river of Fiastra, which flows past the Abbey of the same name. And flowing it was, at a noisy and phenomenal rate after the heavy rains of the last weekend. We groped our way through thickets and brier and had to jump down into a steep ditch and into mud to get near to the river edge

We never ever plan exactly what we are going to do on our fortnightly excursions into the wild, but we always come prepared with paints and colours and paper, inks, pens, you name it, just in case.

But as soon as we'd reached the river bed, whatever intentions we might have had, dissolved and were washed down stream, because..

We were instantly making land art, on our knees, scabbling about, collecting twigs, leaves, stones, branches, wild flowers; whatever we came across to.... well, it's hard to say really, because, .....because, we had become totally absorbed. No ideas coming from our heads, (but from who knows where ?); as if it were the river, or the trees guiding our hands.

We lost track of time and some auto instinct had me look at my watch and low and behold we were minutes away from a lunch I'd booked at a local pub and we were hungry.

Food before art I always say, so I zoomed off to secure our table and the others followed rapidly as if by magic, arriving just minutes after me. Mysterious that, because they'd been miles behind.

So there you have it.

We discovered something new in our creative lives. Land art takes you into a realm, a state of mind perhaps, or even no mind, which feels good, which feels peaceful and which washed away the monkey chatter in our brains, as swiftly as a crashing river.

We've done this in our childhood, we remember all these innocent things from when we were kids; sand castles on the beach, collecting shells and driftwood, making love promises on trees and daisy chains for our first love when we are young, gathering blackberries and mushrooms and making little boats out of twigs and leaves to float our wishes to a magic kingdom in our imaginations, blowing dandeline wishes into the sky.

But we are no longer children and the experience is different for us. It is deeper and longer lasting, It is as if it is something which we cannot summon, but one which arrives as a gift, as if it is in a message brought to us by a bird or a totem animal. I have had many of such experiences, but now is not the time to write about them; I will in my next blog

If you don't mind waiting ;0)