ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [23 August 2008]

‘The day was beautiful and it seemed to him that a long swim might enlarge and celebrate its beauty’   

Quoted from ‘The Swimmer’ by John Cheever.

The vague notion we began with is of ‘altered states of mind’ induced by wild swimming and an aesthetic response to these. As the photographer Robert Frank writes ‘The project …..is one that will shape itself as it proceeds and is essentially elastic’. We agreed to act on this principal. 

The project was inspired by three literary sources - a short story entitled ‘The Swimmer’ by John Cheevers, a longer journal entitled‘Waterlog’ by Roger Deakin, and a book on anthropology/archaeology entitled ‘Inside the Neolithic mind’ by David Lewis Williams which discusses altered states of mind.

The ‘missing chapter’ in Deakin’s book - which involves a swim across the Lakes - would be another aspect of this elastic project.

# 2 [23 August 2008]

25 July 2008 – Loweswater

Today has been one of the high points of the summer. Richard and we began our Swimming Home project, swimming across Cumbria from Loweswater to Gurnal Dubs.

At Loweswater, the surface of the lake was littered with small pieces of vegetation fallen from the overhanging trees, like flies, dead on the surface. We pushed out into the broad water. The sun was high and full, occasionally hidden by fast moving cloud, and the steady breeze forced waves westward along Loweswater, mimicking a slight sea that added to the drama of the experience.

Pulling ourselves steadily deeper, the awareness of the expanse and depth of the water became vivid and thoughts of what lay below had to be pushed to the bottom of the thought pile.

Wearing clear goggles, in order to cope with waves by submerging and pushing through them, allowed me to see the sun’s rays cutting into the light green water below us like bullet traces. In the midst of this uncertain experience, we frequently checked in with each other as we neared the centre of the lake. The surrounding hills stood passively and images of small heads bobbing about in the middle of the vast expanse of water surrounded by mountains made for sobering thoughts about the insignificance of humanity in such a landscape.

At half way, we checked in again and agreed to continue, eventually landing at the other side with some relief before quickly pushing off again for the return. The wind and waves pushed us off course from our target line home, making for a longer route, but we landed again on the shingle beach, emerging triumphant to dry ourselves as quickly as possible to avoid the bites of persistent flies and to find the sunshine again, out of the trees. Days had never felt so good.

# 3 [27 August 2008]

25th July 2008 - Crummock Water & Buttermere

At Crummock Water, having parked on the roadside, we carried cooking equipment onto the picnic area by the lakeside, busy with day-trippers enjoying inflated dinghies and paddling up to their thighs. We cooked and ate porridge with honey and washed it down with Japanese green tea. They had never tasted so good. 

Crummock Water is deeper, larger and noticeably colder than Loweswater and we agreed on a lesser swim but one that took us round the small island that sits off-shore.

Having digested and lazed in the sunshine a while, we rounded the island to discover a bank of raised rock floor which allowed us to stand up or appear to sit on the water’s surface. Swimming beneath the surface showed fallen boughs of trees scattered like debris. In the shallows I reached down and picked up a small stone whose shape echoed the line of hills opposite descending to the water line. A landscape fractal lain dormant under the water, now brought to the light of day.

We packed our things and drove the short distance to Buttermere. By now we knew whatever happened, our third swim of the day would be the shortest. We found a shingle beach to walk in from. A black and white cat, very friendly and with no obvious means of support, strolled up, rolling in the shingle, seeking attention. A flock of Canada geese landed on the water with a flourish. Our swim, brief as it was, was in full view of Haystacks. The cloud had thickened – moving towards rain and thunder as predicted. We walked in but the water didn’t deepen and we swam with weeds stroking our ankles, always able to stand up. After the depths of Loweswater, this felt rather uncomfortable. That surprised me somewhat and I longed for the knowledge of hidden depths beneath me. 

After drying off, we returned to Buttermere village and a decent pint of beer before the drive home, meeting the rain at Thirlmere, discussing saxophone techniques, listening to Art Pepper live in Copenhagen in 1981 and Frank Zappa’s Gumbo Variations from 1969. Truly amazing saxophony

# 4 [27 August 2008]

1 August 2008 – Styhead Tarn 

The climb to Styhead Tarn had been a reminder of the physical demands of climbing/walking up mountains for 1000+ feet. The coming down was even harder with legs failing almost completely by the time we approached the car.

I had waded through the river that flows from the tarn, getting footwear and legs soaked only to change from these wet clothes into a dry wetsuit in order to get completely wet in the tarn. The rain that was persistent that day, held off for half an hour as we swam the length and back, watched by a solitary angler on the far bank.

Beneath the surface in the shallows, banks of weed thickened yet held channels through which I swam Deliberately observing the weeds helped dismiss fantasies about their destructive, gripping power that had been sowed in my head by others’ fearful panicky tales. Confront the fantasy and dismiss the cognitive distortions. Having swam through the weed channels felt good. 

Back to the bank, back on ‘dry’ land – it had started raining again – pulling on wet clothes. The only regret that day was not swimming to the point where the river flows from the tarn down the mountain.

# 5 [27 August 2008]

1^st August - Styhead Tarn  -  Richard writes:

An overcast day – we drive to Seathwaite and park – take path up valley and then off to side up wooded ravine – eventually to Styhead Tarn through intermittent showers. Dither about looking for spot to enter the water - the glowering clouds, sombre rock faces surrounding us, and darkness of the water inducing a state of confusion/panic? – finally cross swollen stream with difficulty - get to the northwest side of tarn - find a place to start - feverish haste to change from already wet things into momentarily dry swimming gear – then into the water off a steep rocky shore - the wonderful experience of being received and protected by the water from the threatening day – it could rain heavy now and it would make no difference – swimming across together to a river entry on the far side of the tarn - the familiar motion of water and wind – thoughts come -  ‘swimming home’ is the name of the project but where is ‘home’? – not Kendal -  have felt no actual house has been a home for ages now – always passing through - ‘in exile’ searching for a way ‘home’ –but suddenly I am ‘at home’ here, now – is ‘home’ being in water then or a state of mind induced by the swim? – if so for me it is an ‘altered state of mind’?! - as we get close to the far edge there is weed and it tangles a little – sprawl on the beach - the clouds lower and the water surface shudders – return to the water and swim back – thought of hot drink, dryish clothes and warming up – on tarn side there is a mad scramble to get clothes on and move – to head down again – all thought of going ‘home’ or going on to Sprinkling Tarn abandoned – just the need to move on and warm up.

# 6 [27 August 2008]

15 August 2008 – Sprinkling Tarn 

Paul writes: 

We looked full-faced into the abyss and it was stunning. 

The reward of the hour and a half climb up to Sprinkling Tarn was eagerly anticipated. The cluster of peaks held the rain-filled climate, producing white clouds that formed below out altitude and which was blown up and over the ridges, across the tarn like bonfire smoke. Richard later recalled Seathwaite being the wettest point of the UK – 130 inches per annum. Eskdale Pike stands south of the tarn, protecting it from sunlight and warmth. Entry soon revealed how cold the slab of water was. We swam to the middle but solidifying muscles told us not to go any further. It was at this point we independently looked beneath the surface. Nothing. No light penetrating. It was so dark it could have been a mile deep. A strong sense of awe and fear heightened the cold we felt.  Back on shore, we dressed, ate our food and drank hot chocolate with rum that Richard had thoughtfully carried up the mountain. Richard had also located a beautiful, vertical rock surface sliced by diagonal striations and hairline near vertical fissures. The rock face was also colonised by patches of tight black moss and acid green lichen. This was our canvas that we marked with earth-based pigment. In the rain, the paint spread and we knew that very soon the weather would return the rock face to its original condition, only emphasising the very limited temporal experience and inconsequentiality of human existence.  

Richard writes:

A sombre day with showers – the shock of the colder-than-usual water as we enter Sprinkling Tarn – this time I have goggles and swimming out to the middle I, unintentionally, look down into the depths of the lake – what I see gives me the horrors – I pull my head back at once and look up at the sky as if looking for an antidote to the vision below – my back crawls and yet what have I really seen – absolutely nothing – a brown/green/ grey void – but the quality of this void makes me shudder – some blank visions below the surface say  ‘come down and explore, see what you can find’ – but this vision speaks of endless nothing, of being lost, of never returning – a shiver of repulsion – later on dry land we wander through a maze of crags and find a large surface which invites paint – water-based paint so as not to pollute, so as not to be permanent, to say ‘just passing through’ – Paul says ‘lets just look at the surface first’ – ‘let it suggest the style’ - the painting finds the marks already there and develops them like putting make-up on a face, I imagine, or the way cave painters used features of the rock to suggest forms which they then elaborated – it rains as we paint and the painting changes and begins to disappear ……

# 7 [27 August 2008]

22 August 2008 - Angle Tarn, north side of Bowfell

The longest and steepest ascent to the highest and midway point of our swim home. We climbed for two and a half hours to reach the tarn to find it a busy place with hikers resting up a while by the water and two tents pitched nearby. The atmosphere was very different and somewhat under the gaze of others we entered the tarn and swam across to the other shore and back.

Although the highest, it was not the coldest and the afternoon sun helped cheer us. It felt good to complete a width and back and return to dry clothes, hot drinks and some belated lunch.

As we relaxed, the light played on the surface of the water and mesmerised us. Dandelion-like seed heads blew across the water, rolling on the actual surface without getting stuck.

The descent was as long and testing as the climb up, although enlivened briefly by conversation with a young Hungarian about to return to home after a period of employment in the Lake District. She had found her whistling echoed across the water from Rossett Pike as she sat by the tarn.

Richard and I had discussed many things  including:  restructuring lives to maximise opportunity; where the art lies in artwork; and jazz saxophony.

 Below, in the Old Dungeon Ghyll the beer tasted so good.

# 8 [29 August 2008]

Richard writes:

Angle Tarn, Friday 22^nd August

Set off midday and after a long, and in places steep climb arrive at Angle tarn – Paul is up for swimming the diameter of the near circular tarn – I can only manage a large cord - during swimming altered thoughts occurred - thoughts ‘outside’ the normal pattern, - imagining the water below, occasionally looking down and forming an image of the subscape – visualizing the contours of the tarn floor – the shape assumed by the mass of water through which we were swimming – a shape which, were it to be inverted, would assume the contours of a mountain – a desire to see and sculpt this nonexistent mountain – a desire to see the varied underwater landscapes set out in this way as a chain of conjectural mountains - how to do it – then the cold and need to return – I ‘cash in’ my thoughts and we swim back.

# 9 [31 August 2008]

29^th August 2008 – Stickle Tarn

From the car park we could see the route we needed to take but Pavey Ark was completely lost in low cloud and remained so until we reached the severe horizontal of Stickle Tarn. The wind was still and the surface smooth and highly reflective. Patches of weed, floating in rafts and tiny islands holding natural bonsai trees contributed to a landscape drawn by Hokusai.

Without definition of its height, Pavey Ark could have continued into the stratosphere. The sense of having arrived into a different landscape with its different rules of physics was compelling.

We entered the tarn from the right hand side of Pavey Ark and decided to swim the length and back beneath it.

Throughout the ascent, ants were swarming in the humid air and were flying with their once in a lifetime wings in order to breed. Thousands lay on the water, some dead, some still locked together in a wet coupling in a forlorn attempt at continuing their gene strand but were essentially drowning, We pushed them aside with our strokes as we swam through.

After reaching the far bank and pushing off again to return, it was soon apparent that Richard was feeling the cold more than me. His face took on increasingly desperate angular features as if the air pressure around his head was intensified. The further we swam the more his breathing became laboured and exaggerated. Checking in regularly with him brought words of reassurance that he was okay but it was clear he was reaching the limits of his tolerance to the cold.

By now Pavey Ark was clear of cloud and somehow its gaze upon these two small insignificant people was both reassuring and threatening. Reassuring as if the mountain had chosen to reveal itself to us, but threatening because of the immovability and permanence of the mountain simply emphasised our frailty. When we finally pulled ourselves ashore, the need to get warm was urgent – hot coffee with whisky gave an instant hit.

Richard had brought a thermometer and we had deliberately not tested the water before our swim. It read 15 degrees from the shallows and surely out in the deep middle it must have been a degree or two colder.

We started the descent quickly in order to warm up. Towards the bottom, a young family had immersed themselves fully clothed into a pool fed by a waterfall in full flow. Their screams and laughter rose as they entered the falls, etching a permanent memory that would never be lost.

# 10 [31 August 2008]

Friday 29^th Aug – Stickle Tarn

Paul and I discuss some film of a dawn swim at Potter Tarn shot in July and then toy with  images/quotes from an ancient Taoist text -  ‘Lake beneath mountain’ - ‘It furthers one to cross the great water’ –which we half joke about whilst still feeling their relevance - drive off to Langdale at 2pm.

Up into cloud - to Pavey Ark and Stickle Tarn – late afternoon – we change and enter the water, past ‘floating’ islands of bonsai trees, the atmosphere is close, the water calm, the cloud low, the mountain hidden – ‘lake beneath mountain’ – we swim across the expanse of water to where sky meets water - arrive at the far shore – a moments rest - start back – Paul is swimming well but I am aware of feeling the cold round my shoulders – we swim on steadily and before long I can tell that I am drawing on reserves that I haven’t had to draw on before – Paul knows I am struggling – ‘it furthers one to cross the great water’ – my mental buoyancy aid - gradually we pull to the shore – Paul stays close and together we stagger out – later on– an unanswered, tongue-in-cheek, quip - in ‘crossing the great water’ which shores did we actually reach?