Natural systems and early starts.

I made an early start, (5am early.) An unearthly time, one which my body and brain really says no to most interactions. I drove out of the campsite feeling a little elated to be alone on the road. Moving on again. I remember the time when I was young and as a family we secretly crept out of a campsite in northern France hoping to make it to the ferry in time, to cross the channel. There’s always a time to be somewhere. Departures and arrivals.

Does the early bird really catch the worm ? It is said, in our modern world, that to be successful you need to rise early. Moving on and moving through to make the most of every hour. It got me thinking about fishermen casting their nets as the sun rises. The aeroplanes above, not far from arriving at their destination having travelled hundreds of miles whilst we’ve been sleeping. Connections.

There is always someone, somewhere watching the world turning. Or someone travelling along the road. But who sees the peat water in the burn or the moon’s quiet presence despite the rich morning sunlight? I love the colour of peat water, transparent tones from amber in a gentle sunlit mountain stream to dark chocolate in a flood torrent after intense rainfall. The circularity of water. From the sky, to the mountains to the rivers to the sea. The natural systems: Evaporation , condensation, precipitation, collection. It makes me think about abundance. To stand still whilst the world turns. I get out of the van, boil the kettle, make myself a strong coffee and watch as the moon dips below the hillside.

Quiet Continuum

Atmosphere is in the air and then without notice seeps under the skin. It permeates through quietly. It is both external and internal, something seen and experienced becomes visceral. I have recently been away on a research trip in Assynt, a place that keeps on giving in every flavour of weather. Each time I return I see the landscape a new. Changed yet still familiar.

It took me a while this time to adjust to being away. To adjust my looking and behaviour. There is no rushing in this summer landscape. The space dictates this, the long days and light tells you to wait. The tidelines ask for you to look a little longer. The hillsides littered with Lewisian Gneiss will you to spend time joining the dots, to see it’s undulations and find the crevices and valleys, peaks and troughs. The Iron Age broch at Clachtoll asserts this thought of precious time, history, where slowness and this passage of time becomes relevant to now. Evidence of lazy beds used for cultivation lie under the turf, speaking of the lives that once lived here.

This place has a lasting effect. The external, once again becomes internal.

Landscape changes you. Our surroundings become part of us. I write this a few days after my return after having already started new work in response. My painting is never preordained, never dictated, always an exploration. What has started to come clear in these new works is an affinity with the feeling of a quiet continuum. From then until now, from what is seen and sensed, to an outer space and an inner one. As we watch dawn break we know it will turn into day, as the sun sinks and the shadows lengthen, dusk starts to sing, so on and so forth.

Eddies and Portals

Sometimes the marks don’t make sense until the next day. Or the next year. But there’s something that made you paint it. It is put to one side, discarded perhaps as the marks or colour seem alien to my then present psyche. Stepping out of the comfort zone is truly unnerving yet so liberating. New ideas bursting, new directions waiting to be explored. For several months now I have been pushing the boundaries of the comfortable. The need to paint ever present since there are new discoveries to be made. I have always wanted to find new ways of expression. From my very abstract days of college I have explored paint. This is my currency, the energy that is found through the ecstasy of moving paint around with pure expression. Whether by quietly by hand or poured, drips, or scoured we know it is authentic when we find within it something that has been sensed or seen whilst being in the landscape. A reminder, a touch, an atmosphere.

Lately I have made a promise to myself to write more. We can become so engaged in the visual spacial planes, the technicalities of painting that it is easy to disconnect with the reason. If we disconnect with the reason then it is harder to see. So to go back to the dicarded painting I mention at the beginning. It is not that the new painting is alien or wrong, it is simply the way of creativity. I believe new work should challenge you and make you question what you are seeing and also take you back to the source. There should be eddies and portals, estuary mud and the metaphoric storm. If there weren’t then where would we be? Unchallenged, dissatisfied and disengaged.

Writing for me has always been a way of quietening the busy mind, focusing on the reason and helping see the validity of those new marks.

Art words

Finding the balance between the two worlds of words and paint. There are times words are necessary. They are useful to commit, to reassure, to remind, to inspire. Of course there are many more reasons to write and speak what you are thinking. Like roots they grow and mature and each tendril reaches out further to a new idea. Flying solo, alone in the studio words float. They come and go as I work. The internal thinking is ever present but the discussion is absent. Social media is a form of communication. Visual artists mostly sharing images hoping that people can read in-between the brush marks as to what you are thinking. Perhaps this is never fully understood? How can it be?

During my solo at The Scottish I was offered the wonderful opportunity to speak about my body of work, my thoughts and experiences, to speak openly about the source of my work. Indeed a privilege which has enabled me to believe a little more. The studio discourse becomes louder and more sure, for a while. Words fall away again as the painting resumes and gathers momentum. A hazy intention, like the pale sinking in early January, of finding the fugitive. Then it becomes just about the paint. Just paint.

Every Waking Moment

Solo Exhibition at Strathearn Gallery Crieff

Every Waking Moment by Helen Glassford

Each landscape, has an atmosphere and climate of its own. As you turn the corner and face the sun, the wind now at your back, the ambience shifts. With you and you within it.

This is an exhibition, about these moments, the natural language of nature and the connections we have with it. Noting the shifts in air, light, wind, the fast and fleeting flurries, interspersed with slower, timeless pauses.  Light diamonds dance on the lochan, choreographed by the north wind. Disappearing as quickly as they came by the orchestration of passing clouds. Almost imperceptible changes but there all the same. At other times peaty darkness drives through with January squalls leaving a noisy presence that lingers. Later, a silent twilight which has an awareness of its own. Every minute the atmosphere changes we are simply the participants or perhaps custodians of those moments. They are there to be sensed, there to be noticed and to be part of and inspired by.   

These oil paintings are my way of communicating what I see and experience when in the landscape whether it be in North East Fife where I live or in the more remote areas that I love to explore, in the hope that others may see it and experience it too.

Layers

A small group of work tied together with thoughts around simplicities and complexities. The immediate response to a landscape needs to hold fast throughout the making of a painting yet giving allowances for the time away from a source to mould, build and add a greater depth of meaning. As though layering time and life together through the use of paint. Forms come and go, light is both certain yet fragile. I’m always sensitive to narrative of the weather, the stories it can tell. These paintings form a small group of work which will be available soon from my Open Studios event at the end of April.

Looking Back

This last year has been one of experimentation and re-evaluation. It’s an interesting process to allow yourself to do this for such a lengthy period. One fraught with doubts and fears but liberating at the same time. There have been many eureka moments as I have pushed paint to the maximum and explored theory and new ideas to the full. From a more abstract expressionist approach to a finer distilled and thoughtful handling of paint. My intention, to find a place that gives me the greater freedom to explore the inner/narrative ideas, of the personification of landscape and life. Where there has been doubt it is usually when my approach has changed so radically but yet there’s an inner buzz that reassures me when I know it still hits the spot. Questions as to why come forth. A year on I know now that each and every approach is valid, landscape and myself being the centre. like the weather and the accompanying ideas there are many variables, ethereal and changing.

The piece below is one of these eureka moments of having captured something different. It’s a thoughtful piece and perhaps a defining one from this period of flux.

Looking Back

Oil on Board 40x40cm

Amorphous Thoughts.

It is nature, not to describe or portray but to discover. Horizon lies come and go, appearing and disappearing as distance becomes momentarily tangible and land masses float.

Simple terms; Coast, Sky, Cloud, Light, Ground, Air. Seeking the core of each becomes primal, almost. Thoughts of space, about space, beyond space sends you on a journey of discovery. Sea becomes Land, Light becomes mass. Expanding the realms. Sounds need air to be heard.

Cultivate

“Awake!, arise! the hour is late!
Angels are knocking at thy door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
And once departed come no more.
Awake! arise! the athlete’s arm
Loses its strength by too much rest:
The fallow land, the untilled farm
Produces only weeds at best. ”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Seize the day! This last month has been a turning point for me, new ideas and renewed energy have led to a very active and productive month in the studio. Painterly decisions made, brave steps forward throwing off those lurking, invisible shackles. Several large paintings are on the go for forthcoming exhibitions and open competitions. Fallow periods are useful: research, drawing, travelling, thinking but its the action of painting that brings it all to life, where sense is made and to cultivate the painterly decisions which are then intuitively made when in the throws. Like when seeing the first appearance of the snowdrops and aconites I breathe a sigh of relief to know that time is of the essence and more importantly yours to cultivate.

With this newly found light today I have added three new works on paper to my online shop.

Like the Tide

The push and pull of a painting is a challenge I relish, finding the right marks and mood, balance and tone. Somedays the need is for a greater abstraction, others a simple narrative. Horizons come and they go again. Coupled with an inner narrative, freedom of speech and a little bravery thrown in paintings can arrive at their final resting place, with the desired intensity that has been a thread from the start. Other days they do not find this, then you start again. There’s no shame in deciding a painting is not ready, no frustration either just the knowledge that there will be another day to find the right stage of the tide.

Take This Longing

Oil on Board 35x30cm 2023

By the light of the Moon

‘……And They Danced.…’ - Edward Lear The Owl and The Pussy Cat

My fascination for painting the night sky continues. This time with the influence of the poem by Lear, The Owl and The Pussy Cat. A joyful journey of non humans reflecting on togetherness.

And They Danced

Oil on Board

30x25cm

Please email for details

Life Cycles

As I work through a painting it can go through several stages before it finds its place. They take on a life of their own. From the first simple touches that ground the piece they can become complex as I work through finding the right space and feel. Rough and raw, smooth and silky, rhythm, energy, line and light. All of these things and more all jostle in varying accents to find their place. Looking and listening, recalling the original thoughts. Paint is removed and applied, over and over, picking up time and history along the way. Then the tipping point comes, intuition perhaps, and in my case often the need to simplify. Taking away the equivalent of unnecessary words in a script, areas are defined, contrasts are made and tones are set. Abstracting, creating what will be come close to being the final image.

“Yes, though I touch it. it is a dream”

Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre