Seasonal Eternity

To capture forever

The concept of eternity has fascinated me ever since I discovered it as a fairly small child. When I married the concept with seasons I could clearly see a way that eternity could work for me. Each year the same season would return and I would have my personal take on eternity - the wheel just keeps turning. It turns with us and even despite us. As a species we might be altering the seasonal changes but still they come and I, for one, take some comfort in that. I live on a small Scottish island and I recognise the autumn winds arriving each and every year. I see signs of spring in my pond every spring and I bear witness to the first frost every winter. I don’t follow artificial time, preferring to follow the natural clock so I am perhaps more mindful than many on how the seasons are changing and that is sometimes very difficult to bear witness to. When the autumn winds arrive early August you just know something is wrong. Even when the Scottish midge bites you late October you know something is wrong.

My patrons and I are spending the year from September - to September tracking what we notice using a phenology chart and today I will be settling down quietly to construct my October section.

If that is the macro approach I also have a micro approach and that is a commitment to try and preserve seasonal moments for eternity. I am looking for small changes in plants that surround my world so that I might then preserve them. I would love it if these preserved specimens would out survive me but they may not. So I am taking no chances and digitising them. The journey begins with a part of a plant (usually leaf or flower) which is then pressed over time (at least two weeks) before then being scanned in as an image that I can use again and again. So let us take the humble Cosmos flower that is not so humble as it shines very brightly about now. This is it pressed.

This is it then digitised.

It has some beautiful company. From there I can do what I like and I just thought this would make a beautiful journal cover.

Now, not only is it preserved, but it can also be shared. I am blessed to have a wonderful community that support my Etsy store so already some of these new journals have left the island for their new homes. It just makes me smile that the beautiful Cosmos flower has a life way beyond its own expectations. The trick for me is to pick just after full bloom. A life time of growing has thought me that so I let the flower have its natural moment of joy. I am taking this further and further now as my wee study of decay in plants continues. At the moment my studio looks more like a science lab than a space for an artist as I have wee experiments underway to test what happens in different conditions over time.

This is the best example so far with almost half of the flower in decay and now preserved. I am now trying to make a creative response to this using a zentangle approach to drawing which focuses on mindful pattern making.

So perhaps that is one thing artists can do, they can help to capture small seasonal moments as their version of offering up eternity?

This journey is likely to run and run as I can feel it in my waters! I just know that this fascination with tiny seasonal moments juxtaposed with the concept of eternity has captured my curisoity and my creative soul and, for me, that is what art is all about. I may have fallen down a decaying rabbit hole but is absolutely beautiful down here, trust me! x