So many voices

This has been a winter of riding waves from without and within. 

So much pointless destruction of human and more than human life when there is enough suffering already built in to existence. Causes and dualisms abound, how can humans ever be free of them ?

I know I'm adding my voice to the voices, and of course no one has to listen. 

I liken making artwork to songs without words. I feel the landscape in my bones and tend to have a visceral connection to it through my feet, eyes, hands and heart. I see and feel her music. But how do we all learn to see it as our kin our relation, someone we care about and take care of ? How do we learn to love the land ? I suppose we need to learn the skill of listening and seeing beyond our desire for wealth, success and building ever more institutions and all the while ignoring reality.

One of the reasons I like living in this post industrial valley is that I have had to work hard to love it. On the whole I've noticed humans don't like facing the reality of 'ugliness'. Many would not choose to live here because it still retains its scars, and there is still a prevailing attitude of care-less-ness towards a land that was literally despoiled. People still use the local rivers as a dumping ground for example, and the roads to and from major settlements are strewn with litter tossed out of passing vehicles. Yet despite our best efforts of disregard, life returns and smothers and changes the desolation into something new.

I will be honest and say that I have fantasised about living in the 'countryside' over the Bannau and far away from the litter but there is a reality here that is grounding for the soul. I think we need to see and acknowledge our own ugliness, in order to see beyond ourselves. That is what this place, this valley and its magnificent hills has done for me.

My efforts at making artwork is a way of saying something about that magnificence. The process of walking, being in the landscape, of the landscape and translating that through hand via memory and light is a way of paying back the love I feel. I'm sure it's the same for many if not all artists, poets, musicians and craftspeople.

Art is a window onto reality.

Paul