Notes on why I walk in the landscape

Three trees, Paul Nash and eternal landscapes

I turned to the landscape, not for the landscape sake but for the ‘things

behind,’ the dweller in the innermost: whose light shines thro’ sometimes. I went

out to try and give a hint in my drawings of those sometimeses. Paul Nash (1912)

My walks in our legendary landscape are sensorial and my photographs hope to capture the emotion in the landscape; the mystery and historical charge within. Like Nash, I went out to try and give a hint in my photographs of those sometimeses. It’s an awareness of all that has happened over thousands of years in these eternal landscapes that I’m trying to tap into as I walk. The unseen creates that spirit of place.

Recently, I came across this drawing, The Three, by Paul Nash and was completely blown away by it. The three trees are magnificent, standing together, leaning in conspiratorially, like they are plotting something exciting.

The Three by Paul Nash - pen and ink with wash and pencil

I used to lie in my bed when I was a young girl, look out of the window, watching a line of silver birch bend and wave in the breeze. Their fluttering leaves chattering and gossiping. Paul Nash’s The Three instantly made me think of the three beech trees up on Chanctonbury Ring. I have been walking on Chanctonbury Hill for years and worry after every storm that these three exposed beech will be blown down. But, they always endure, their roots must be held so tightly by the chalk downland. They remind me of my two sisters and I, as anchored as we can, weathering life’s storms and holding each other when times are tough.

Three Beech Trees at Chanctonbury Ring

Sometimes the light does indeed shine through. To experience the essence of a place is delightful, easy and comforting. The landscape welcomes me, it embraces me and I feel part of it. However, at other times, in other places, there is a darkness. The experience is uncomfortable, there’s a repelling force; I’m not welcome here, I feel an uncanny sense of dis-ease. The ghosts of this place’s past swirl around and dare me to step on. The spirit of place you see, lies in its history.

When I walk I go without a map, I rarely have much knowledge about a place other than its ancient or sacred significance. I don’t want to know because I’m sort of experimenting, I want to know how a place feels to me - in as objective a way as possible. I don’t want to know too much about the stories attached to place, just in case I end up feeling the stories.

Chanctonbury Ring

When I walk intuitively I am aware of the environment; I take in the sights, sounds, smells of the place. But, most important for me is how a place affects me emotionally; it’s a dance between the conscious and unconscious. When you see a familiar sight or, notice a familiar smell that transports you back to a time that’s gone so long ago, and yet, in that moment you are there. Like the brown leaves of the autumn beech that I see in the woodland all over Sussex which remind me of the hedge of beech that grew on the boundary of the garden of my early childhood home. Or, the smell of hawthorn blossom on the breeze that reminds me of walks in the woods with my father, holding his hand and him pointing out geological features and names of trees. My senses have instantly unearthed a deep memory of an experience from my unconscious. That’s a personal experience, but I sometimes wonder if the weird emotions I have felt whilst walking, the strong ones that can’t be ignored and overwhelm, could these be deep memories held in the land? And it is that which I am trying to express in my images, the ‘sometimeses’ that elicit graspable feelings, ones I can understand and trace and also, the unexpected emotions that perplex me, whose origins are unknown.

I’m trying to document that experience through photographs which are taken instinctively, automatically. When I look back at the photographs I remember exactly how I felt in that spot, what I saw, heard, smelled, thought and felt.

I have always walked and always remembered.

Unseen Zine is available from my website, each zine charts a psychogeographical drift through an ancient site including, Chanctonbury Ring, The Wilmington Giant and the haunted and haunting Clapham Wood