from the dark enters the light

the spaces i have been visualising to make work in within the muse walk and woods are growing in my imagination, painting the tree scape with torch light has felt like creating the stage set. reflecting on the renewing cycles of life has brought me to begin seeing the motion, cycles, dynamic nature of nature and spaces and the human relation with that, to see the dance of life if you will imagine with me. i have also begun participating and assisting to inspire a 'deer dance' with a local contemporary dance group, with the choreographer claire pencak, which is giving me an insight into the dynamic world of movement, this insight will inform the works. i want to dance, move, find rhythms in the spaces next, i will be opening up the shutter of the camera again in low light, painting the scene and recording my movements within the space with a small light bulb, creating line drawings in the landscape with light. these i will use to inform the development of works to make in the spaces with material from the wood and landscape….. deep breaths… so excited….

Open studio Hotpots art dancing

Our open studio has been the most exciting to date. Fabulous time and sales. My greatest pleasure has been the sharing of the nature and context of art making and the encouraging feed back that comes from this open sharing of art. Thank you to all those that came along and shared there enthusiasm. Thanks to Peter McGoldrick for sharing his amazing paintings.

Open studio Prep

Trying our best!
Beatrice head of opps

Meditative

Cutting dovetail draws for our kitchen. The stage is set on my workbench. Hours go by marking and cutting these old fashioned draws. The dovetail saw needed sharpening before i started. They take a long time but they will last my lifetime and beyond. Craftsmanship future proofing our kitchen storage needs. The value of this meditative repetitive process gives my mind time to focus and relax deeply from life's distractions. My creative thinking goes into overdrive in this quiet time in the background new thoughts pop up for the next project, sketch book to hand. Some times its hard to explain the value of this seemingly mindless activity, my hands carry out this work almost autonomously while my imagination drifts into a turbo charged creative overdrive. My good friend in science says this is called flow by some famous mind scientist i forget the name of.

Torch light

Torch light yew

Interesting evening looking at trees in the dark.

Drawing

Drawing yesterday afternoon with great relief and excitement for a private commission i have just started to make work in a local woodland. At this stage i am using drawing to take in the experience of being in this wood and on this occasion focusing on the yews and there character and the last drawing of an old coppice bowl. One of the pictures i could not resist doing up the tree, climbing to sit in a comfortable spot. Climbing the tree felt like a privilege, and one i think i may grant myself more regularly. I felt a peculiar jump back in time to my boyhood and a strange cocktail of recalled emotions from that time. Sitting intimately with trees and studying them puts the human experience into a unique perspective. Standing and sitting around the trees for a few hours, I joined in there game, a squirrel nearly ran up my leg and a buzzard flew close by unaware of my humane presents.

Folly hay stacks

Four Stacks

Had great fun this morning finishing our art hay stacks with the families help.
So far these stacks have gone mostly unnoticed, sometimes met with recognition to there pointless nature by some and recognised by a very few as interesting artful creations inspiring reflections on our farming heritage and physical relationship with ecology.

Making these stacks annually i have often wondered how they have been received by local and visiting passers by. This week i have great pleasure in announcing that i have been invited to put forward an art project proposal along similar sentiments to some one who has admired these stacks and wants my art in his garden. Dreams do come true, developing my land art for site other than my own is so exciting. i have spent so much time considering these kinds of projects on our small steading that now ask to consider someone else's large space i find ideas are pouring out of me.

Been a while since i cut dovetails

First of ten kitchen draws in progress.

Drum Birth

Deer man returns

Repairing this drum feels weird. So much i have visualised the deer i have seen and imagined being a deer through this drum it brings back a welling of deer empathy/sympathy inside me. Feel a poem coming on. Imagining the emotions of a deer give me indescribable feelings. Ancient, landscape, forage, water, territory, 4D smellavision, power, fear, flight, flat out exhaustion, starvation, confusion, never ending alert hearing, the taste of cud.

liina klauss / art awareness activist

http://liinaklauss.blogspot.co.uk/

Planning a beach curation project this summer

Loving your work, especially the description of the effects of making such actions on kids and adults. Last week end my wife and i visited a beach i bought my camera with black and white film to see where to start this years summer project, (i want to make a wee book) using trash on the beach to make something. We cleared a beach a wee bay and used the found wood to make a never ending line, i will be experimenting in my dark room tinting or painting in this line in colour. Anyway what did strike me was the pleasure to be found in carrying out the action and the lovely playful and positive response it gave the passers by. 

Dr. Thomas Hawson Ph.D.
Hundalee Mill Farm
Jedburgh
Roxburghshire
TD8 6PA
Tel: 01835 869931
Mob: 07801653830
www.thomashawson.com
tom@thomashawson.com

work in progress blog:
http://drthomashawson.blogspot.co.uk/

sailing blog: http://chortlesailing.blogspot.co.uk/

'These e-mails won't be spelled right because I'm dyslexic'.

The never ending line

Jen and i just made this found wood line on the beach. Loving it

Wee bit tidy up

The mill studio is available to higher, events, parties, artist studio space.