Kingley Vale – the road to the interior

I spent Monday 17th August 2015 on a guided tour of Kingley Vale with Richard Williamson and the South Downs LiDar Project Group looking at the hidden histories revealed by LiDar maps and memories of Richard.
Fascinating layers of information from shaped surfaces of the ground, objects from histories of war and home, of changes to the forest, flora and fauna affected by changes to management of the land, of Sir Arthur Tansley, of politics and power, and of this one man who has been recording so much detail, providing access to schools, and supporting the amazingly diverse and rich range of species found in this small area.

The first place we stopped was beside the entrance gate where Canadian soldiers had buried 200 smoke bombs.

The next was a dew pond where last year I had developed a light painting of a yew that had fed and grown beside this same pond.

Richard showed a spot beside the pond where a large number of pot boilers had been found, stones that can be used to heat water. On the lidar map more of these are shown and shown to be interlinking down through the valley following the path of a long ago ice age.

More of the stories can be found in Richard’s books, The Great Yew Forest.

How can these maps of surfaces found by lidar, verifying histories, relate to the drawings from movement in the forest, and drawings in the studio?

The drawings and movement are about personal stories, what lies beneath the surface of the individual that is accessed as they explore the space and environment through drawing. During these exercises the objects of others become found. I have pieces of bronze age flint hammers, Victorian china (KV was a popular destination for picnics), ginger beer and tizer bottles, tail fins from Canadian bombs. And on Monday I walked along the edges of Bronze Age villages, in the crater of a blown up tank, on the edge of a Guerilla Hideout. I walked here as an eight year old child, through my youth and adulthood. It’s this connection across time and experience that is fascinating, and the drawings I’m developing about surface and experience.

Drawing process in which i let the marks come from simple movement of expression using a soft graphite stick. The sense is of me getting out of the way, of dark and light, of spaces appearing into which light fills that resonates with my own feeling of joy and sadness, and as I draw thinking how I can create that same sensation in the viewer.

That when the viewer looks into these abstract marks and spaces, they will wander as if in a landscape, that the drawings create a sense of wandering and the contrasting light and dark has a visual impact on the eye.

Drawings as if panoramas of the mind, where eyes no longer know
where to rest
nor what lies beneath
beyond
or below
a simple surface of graphite and paper

Back in the forest noticing the dark and light spaces similar to the drawings. The drawings now affecting how I view the forest.