Lost Worlds

Finding a way to communicate using art

I live on a small Scottish island and I also travel a great deal around the west of Scotland and so I inhabit the lost forests. These are pockets of forests that are known to be temperate rainforests and it is almost impossible not to get lost in them. Globally rare, these pockets of forests are incredibly precious and important in the future of our planet. Rare mosses, trees and even wildlife inhabit these places and we should be doing all we can to protect them from further harm.

As a seasonal artist I am always accutely aware of environments that I inhabit and what I might do to protect those that are fragile. I think it is in my DNA. I even once ran a campaign in Bakewell, Derbsyhire to connect our wildflowers on our farm with those on the other side of the town. We mapped a ribbon of wildflowers through the town and gave away seeds to households and businesses in order to prevent any breaks in the wildflower journey frequented by bees and other wildlife. We also campaigned for sections of land to be grazed once more to help support the wildflowers. A couple of years ago I ran a project with a group of fellow stitchers to use stitch as a language. We created work that highlighted issues caused by climate change and the pieces went to the Cop 26 Climate Change conference in Glasgow. My piece was a response to witnessing a devastating wild fire on a hillside on the island. Not a sight we are used to here….yet.

Art finds its own way to communicate and can, at times. reach deeper than words. But with that comes a sense of responsbility. So I am currently on a deep dive to find out more about the forests I walk through regularly on the small scottish island I call home. The outcome of this research will feature in my virtual open studio in September. I have shifted the working title from ‘forest lore’ to lost worlds and we shall see where that thinking takes me. My art journal page is finished so I now feel ready to embark on the pieces for the event.

I use art journaling as a way to begin to bring my thinking together. There is a play on the world ‘lost’ going on in my head. The lost worlds of the temperate rainsforests are beginning to be more widely understood. However the other interpretation is that many of us like to get ‘lost’ in forests as a way of escaping modern life. I am firmly in that camp. I find the world too noisy and busy and far too ‘immediate.’ I want to wander slowly using my senses to understand the world around me and the forest is the perfect context for those wanderings. As I emerge from the forest I always feel much calmer and able to take on my day. So, I hope this new collection will take account of both of these understandings of the phrase ‘lost worlds’.

I wonder if you have a place that you visit to get a wee bit lost for a while? I think, maybe, we all need to get lost from time to time….sending love. x