NUMINOUS LANDSCAPEstudio updates, musings, and inspiration |
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Scottish Centre For Geopoetics 27th February 2023 (Best viewed in a browser) My first encounter with Geopoetics was in 2017, when I spotted an advert online for an event called 'Expressing The Earth'. This gathering was to be held on an island off of Scotland's west coast whose name was not familiar to me, around the time of the summer Solstice. It didn't require much research for me to decide that this intriguing sounding event was worth a try. Travelling from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and on to Oban by rail, then a bus to Ellenabeich on Seil, and finally a small boat across the stretch of water to my accommodation on Easdale (famed for being the location of the World Stone Skimming Championships). From capital city to Atlantic edge, the journey itself expressing something essential about the spirit of Geopoetics. The image at the top was taken on Easdale, and you can make out the white buildings on the far shore, which is the island of Seil, separated from the mainland by only a few metres at its north eastern edge. The conference was fantastic, with a variety of speakers, and workshops. Despite being quite unfamiliar with Geopoetics as a concept, it was not difficult to settle in, as the people in attendance were very welcoming, and the presentations thought provoking and rich, the valued qualities of space and light finding expression in all sorts of forms. These were people who in one way or another (and the ways are many), were living out something of the Geopoetics philosophy. I won't elaborate too much further here on exactly what Geopoetics is, partly because there is a very well written explanation on this website, and also because you may prefer to find your own way into it. This is what attracted me most of all.. "(Geopoetics) seeks a new or renewed sense of world, a sense of space, light and energy which is experienced both intellectually, by developing our knowledge, and sensitively, using all our senses to become attuned to the world...It also seeks to express that sensitive and intelligent contact with the world by means of a poetics i.e. a language drawn from a way of being which attempts to express reality in different ways." There is something really important about that emphasis on sensing. Perhaps that is a one word description of what Geopoetics can be: a sense. Not a vague hunch, or guesswork, but very clear and crystalline, sharpened and distilled into its own way of knowing. |
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Above: Looking across to Easdale, from the distant hills you can see in the top image. To my mind, Expressing The Earth speaks to how I conceive of my own art making process. That I am not seeking to say something about the Earth, but for, or from it. An intensified relating to place, an awareness. There is a growing wealth of recorded material available on this You Tube Channel. I particularly recommend a lecture from last year, on connections between Geopoetics, and the Irish writer, poet, mystic, wild man, John Moriarty. The Scottish Centre is no longer the kind of island it was in 2017, with connections now spreading out into other parts of the UK, and USA. |
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Above / Below: The rapidly changing weather of the west coast. These two images taken less than ten minutes apart. The clouds clear to reveal the majestic coastline of Mull. |
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Geopoetics has its origins in the work Kenneth White, and you can read about him here. A few pieces from 'OPENWORLD - The Collected Poems 1960-2000'. Out And Down Making out of town to the end of the macadam where old bracken spreads darkened in the rain and thorn grows loosely in ragged heaps let me lie here awhile in the wet and the wilderness watching the grey cloud passing saying a quiet hallo to a bedraggled sparrow. |
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Above: The magical Kilmartin glen. Autobiography Each star in its own sudden fire blazes or shoots in a fast fine curve of light over the breathing emptiness and leaves me alone by the rock or stumbling groping my way through the undergrowth with only the feeling of existence as it trembles in an animal's belly. Below: The Dark Lake |
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Rosy Quartz Out of what storm of darkness out of what hellish blaze out of what torments and what changes held at last in a crystal matrix held at last in its own wild form held in its own unbroken aura came this incandescent stone came this immaculate glory came this idea of the earth to illuminate the frozen sky. |
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Andrew Mackenzie Sarah Myerscough gallery - London Until April15th Click/tap image above for gallery, and below for Instagram and website links. I have admired Andrew's work since I first encountered it in Scotland, and these new large-scale paintings really highlight his talent for a unique way of seeing 'landscape', and as the title of this exhibition suggests, sensing place. Perhaps we might describe it as a Geopoetic response? |
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Andrew is interested in architectural and sculptural forms, and his works often convey the meeting of natural and human made. Living in Stow in the Scottish Borders, I can relate to much of his work from my frequent forays to that part of the world, a few years ago. What springs to mind now is how well Andrew expresses tree forms, and perhaps there is something of a tradition of modern Scottish excellence in tree depiction, from the top of my head; Kenris MacLeod, Victoria Crowe, and Callum McClure. |
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Thank you for reading. See you next time. |
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You are welcome to share this newsletter on social media, or privately. I am always pleased to hear from those who have an interest in what I do, or for whom the related themes resonate. You can reply to this newsletter directly, or use the 'contact' form on the website. Previous Numinous Landscape communications can be found here. For information on the Psychotherapy work I offer, please see this page. Galleries of work, and online shop AndrewVPhillips.co.uk |
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