Earth Works

When I was 7 or 8, my father took me Green Road trail riding. Was it the first trip, probably, but in a way it was an early influence. Green roads are road than have not been macadamized, but you do have a right of way. Usually, these roads are old drover roads that have fallen in to disuse over the years. The green road we drove on was the Ridgeway, this is an old track that starts in Norfolk and runs down through the Home Counties to the depths of Wiltshire. Whilst others took their motorbikes, my father and I drove in a small four wheeled truck, made by Puch. I was on gate opening duty, having to close the gates behind us to stop cattle roaming.

It was always sunny and I can't remember any rain. I am sure if was more grey than blue. We went pass some of the greatest prehistoric monuments of the Uffington White Horse, the castle beside the chalk figure and Weyland Smithy. Stopping at Marlborough overnight, in the morning we went to Avebury stone circle, the West Kennett Long barrow and Silbury Hill. I was fascinated by these ancient earth works.

They sit in the landscape as part of the landscape, yet as a viewer. These man made hills stand out with later walls or hedges circular the barrow or cairn, rather than disturb. Recently on the South Downs, walking by a Tumulus as marked on the Ordnance Survey. I had the same sort of feeling. It was pieces of farmland, but the farmer had worked around the mound. How long had it been there, it just was there. Standing like a watchtower, perhaps, with a burial underneath signifying a long dead warrior who would protect his prehistoric tribe. If you looked north across the weald up to the North Downs and south to the coast, where any potential invasion was likely to come from.

We can make assumptions about what they were for, but never really know really know the complete story. This makes them mysterious to us as we come across them. A ruined building is something similar, why was it there, who built it and why was it ruined. We do have records and so it would be possible to trace these buildings. Yet, it is an aspect of lost and the many people that might have lived through this landscape.

This is one of the reasons, I admire, Andy Goldsworthy's work. His sculptures are placed in the landscape setting that is natural and yet unnatural. Man-made and organic. He is refining nature and distilling common elements down to make 'supernatural' objects. These can be weathered by the countryside, so that they decompose over a short or long period of time.

His recent show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park http://www.ysp.co.uk/view.aspx?id=3 had several gigantic pieces. A wonderful log walled room that reminded me of the West Kennett Long barrow. Rather than a vertical chambers, it was circular and when should in a half light as there was no lighting. You had the impression of reverence. The logs were laid in such a way that you had a swirling effect around you, not a giddy dizziness, but gentle and uplifting. The giant slate cairn shaped as a pine was harking back to the large monolith stone from prehistory, but this has been made from dry stone wall techniques, so it was not a great slab stone.

One of my previous companies printed a catalogue for his Leaves exhibition at the Natural History Museum, using duotone of black and purple to reproduce his pieces. This was an exhibition organised by the charity, Common Ground. http://www.commonground.org.uk. Taking dropped leaves and then using then to make shapes of delicate complexity. These pieces are shown in a museum, so this added gravitas to the whole exhibition.