As I mentioned in my last blog post we have been visiting Adel Woods for our Art, Plants and Environment module - yesterday we went up to the woods and staged individual interventions.
In terms of research and artist inspiration I have been looking at Land Art and Environmental Artists such as Michael Heizer. I love the mighty sense of awesome raw power in his works that comes from his use of the earth as a medium. I also took a trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park and saw the Spiegelei by Jem Finer - the inverted camera obscura really made an impression on me. I enjoyed the way it forced me to look at my surroundings differently and allowed me to see an almost complete panorama of the area without really having to move.
Our tutors were very specific that we had to draw on our experience of the wood. I was fascinated by everything in the wood - from the micro of the lichen and moss to the macro of the canopy of trees. Although I enjoyed the whole of the wood, for me the beech clearing was the most poignant - it was the place where I rested, organised my thoughts and really truly felt a connection with the wood - perhaps because I also felt a connection within myself. This is where I would do my intervention - but what would it be and how would I process all I had seen?
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| Clearing with beech trees |
Processing all I had seen. Thus, I developed the idea for my intervention - Nature Obscura. I would strategically place small mirrors near each other, in a space in the clearing, so that whilst looking at the micro of moss on the rocks I could also see the macro of the leaves on the branches of trees. I would have my own type of camera obscura allowing for a type of panoramic view - seeing all I had enjoyed about the woods from one view point. The mirrors that projected a more close up image would force me to really look into the mirror - thus reflecting my face (symbolising my experience of the woods) and yet also display the wood behind me.
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| Nature Obscura |
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| Nature Obscura detail |
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| Canopy of the Trees reflected in one of the mirrors |
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| Base of a tree trunk reflected in one of the mirrors |
Then we received an email stating that only natural or materials already present in the woods were allowed to be used. (I did the version with the mirrors anyway, as I had bought them with me and wanted to do it, for myself more than anything else.) Right....so using Heizer's technique of digging into the earth as a way of creating art, I dug a hole. This was to be the case of my natural camera obscura. I then chose typical elements that represented the beech clearing and placed them in the hole. I had the 'view' for my Nature Obscura II. My second all-natural intervention was to then place the earth back on top of the Nature Obscura II (after the presentation of my intervention to the group) in order to symbolise that the experience I had of the woods was an internal one - sitting in the clearing, alone, thinking, processing, observing.
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| Nature Obscura II |
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| Nature Obscura III - with the earth pilled back on top |
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