I've just returned from a week at West Dean College with 2 groups of students. The first course was landscape-based during the brief and beautiful cold snap. We were considering the poem, 'Self-portrait with falling leaves' by Jeremy Hooker (reproduced below). We touched on the way in which we 'enter' our work and on our craft as makers of marks. Jeremy speaks of 'the countless differences words point to, but cannot catch'.
I find myself doing just that but with marks not words.
The poem accompanied us into The Arboretum. It was a cold morning with no air movement and the temperature was hovering below freezing as a few icicles were forming in the watercolours.
Now and then flurries of leaves would descend as if an understanding across the still cold of the glade triggered release. The trees are uncommonly tall and the leaves had a long descent to make. I witnessed the leaves fall- watching their speed, trajectory, their individual size and shape. It was only when they fell one by one that I had time to really follow the unique descent. Poem and place met for that morning.
I find myself doing just that but with marks not words.
The poem accompanied us into The Arboretum. It was a cold morning with no air movement and the temperature was hovering below freezing as a few icicles were forming in the watercolours.
Now and then flurries of leaves would descend as if an understanding across the still cold of the glade triggered release. The trees are uncommonly tall and the leaves had a long descent to make. I witnessed the leaves fall- watching their speed, trajectory, their individual size and shape. It was only when they fell one by one that I had time to really follow the unique descent. Poem and place met for that morning.
FALLING LEAVES: Arboretum. West Dean Estate. December 11 2012 ink and pencil.
Self-portrait with falling leaves
1
After long stillness
a breath
which the wind-chimes felt.
Night music
and a rattling house.
2
Dawn in a shower of colour,
wind ragging the nest of the woods.
What I love though
are the countless differences
words point to, but cannot catch:
a boat rocking on air
an arrow gliding
wings that turn or float or drift
this slow one downing that would love to climb
the other quick as a bird:
a leaf, and another leaf
each itself, but all it seems
one – a fall
that lays open the heart of the wood
this circular flight which seems
for a moment
endless
Jeremy Hooker
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