Drowned, Drained, Swamped & Bogged Down:
Initiating A Creative Exploration Of Mythterious Scottish Marshes & Wetlands
CREATIVE: ABERNETHY FOREST
The awe-inspiring connectedness of the forest. The sheer volume of life around me, incomprehensively big and entirely interwoven.
How insignificant I felt among the enormous ancient pines - yet the warmth of a having a position within the tapestry the stretching all around me.
This place felt of another time - new life breathed from a mysterious ancient dream.
The growth-death cycle of the water and the wood - and everything flowing from that. It was all so much bigger than me.
Things that once held so much life, returning to dust. Not the end, just yet another beginning. A beginning upon a beginning, carried by the force of living.
I dreamed it alive.
I dreamed I thrived among the leaves and pines.
Beyond the light that shines through wind-torn reed stems dry.
I dreamed the land alive and I woke to a time when the world danced upon itself.
With tiny wings and bird songs high on summer air.
As we were one
Part of something greater than we ever knew.
This “stream” flows down beneath anything we see. Beneath the darkest dark.
Each part plays in its path as it flows to lands beyond land.
Take me back to where I started from. To where it all began.
Awaken me to a place alive.
The time is right and I’ll know that I know.
That I know.
Hiding in the shapes of the heather, juniper and stunted pines, I saw a vision of a faery creature - part human, part animal - fawn-like with branches for antlers and the long muzzle of a fox, yet perfectly camouflaged among the understory of the forest with skin a mix of bright moss and scaley bark.
I took some left-over packaging and began to piece this creature together.
I layered up layers of papier mache and coated it with pulped paper to create a textured surface.
Two interesting driftwood twigs served as antlers.
I layered up paint to create the woodland surface of the skin, starting with a bright forest green and layering up with numerous washes over the textured surface and breathe him to life.
