Love of the Land – Ceramics Celebrating Landscape
Early this year (it’s 2023 as I write this) I started work on a ceramic piece that came bubbling up from inside me, a kind of mad idea for a pot that was more patchwork than pottery. Something that would take me outside myself, that I could absorb my mind in as I made it – as I am absorbed in the land around me when I walk.
In the later part of the awfulness that was the pandemic I found myself still on furlough from work, but with the opportunity to go a little further afield than we had been permitted to during lock down (I’m talking about what us ordinary folk were permitted, not the very different interpretation of the rules that seem to have applied to e.g. the Prime Minister).
I needed views and air and space about me, some feeling of wildness and freedom. The Wessex Downs, The Ridgeway and downland – only a short drive away from our home – were perfect for this. I feel such a connection to this landscape, which I’ve lived amongst for nearly a quarter of a century now. The whole route I walked - from Bury Down to Overton, and then on to Avebury was around 50 miles (about half the entire Ridgeway) done in day long chunks, from wherever I parked the car, and back to it.
Photo by Ben Seymour on Unsplash
As I walked I felt a total immersion in the landscape. It was almost midsummer, the light was somehow amazing to me, everything looked more than itself – the corn more yellow, the trees very green, the chalk white of the paths almost too bright to look at. There were very few people about on the weekdays I walked. I could amble along alone for hours, stop and stare at a view for as long as I wished, watch the red kites swoop above and sometimes below me, listen to the skylarks – one of my favourite heart lifting sounds in the world.
When I walk like that something magical happens, it’s almost like I step out of time. I begin to weave stories – often very vague ones – about those who’ve walked the path before me, or may walk it in future, about what marks they will make, what changes has and will this ancient landscape see, how does it feel about it. I kept this with me long afterward, dreaming it in the night and feeling a huge pull to get back out there as soon as I could.
“Isn’t that what landscape is? In this country – it’s a parchment, on which various generations of human beings make their mark. And when you’ve lived in one place for a bit you understand your landscape in a way someone just sort of coming in and having a look can’t, really […] It’s the cliché really isn’t it. Just sit still and the entire world comes to you”
Musician Chris Wood, on BBC Radio 3’s Music Matters.
But of course “normalish life” began again, and my walks became less frequent. I didn’t go on those walks to gather ideas for decorating or constructing pottery, but memories of them started spilling out into my ceramics.
I wanted to be hands-on with the clay, to use my knowledge of how clay behaves to go beyond what felt comfortable to me. Could I stick bits together, and what would work? Would they stay where they were put? Would this go into the kiln in one piece, and come out in twenty?
It felt fitting to use textures found in nature – seed heads, pine cones, grasses – to decorate and give texture to this vase. After a few weeks of doing a lot of throwing this felt like being set free. Yes, I also realised through making this pot that I am a hand builder at heart, that’s my happy place. I built the piece up from a pinched bowl, adding pieces of textured clay as I went. It took the shape it wanted to take.
Gradually meadows, and fields of grass and cereals started to appear. All along the downland routes there are copses of trees and small woodlands nestled in the folds of the land; these appeared as applied clay balls and decorated coils. The whole piece became slightly abstract and I often didn’t know what would happen with the next layer of making, I just let myself be led along.
I hope I translated the slightly psychedelic effect walking these hills has on me, or had that summer at least. I certainly used a lot more colour than I usually do in this piece but as I had throughout I just went with it - I went a bit wild, a wildness I really only feel on a long walk in a place I know so well.
Though I do keep in mind always that this is not an entirely wild place at all. People have lived on this land for millennia – the Ridgeway itself is a prehistoric track, we find tombs, hillforts and earthworks all over the downs. The land is farmed and managed. This land changes all the time, but I hope not too much in future. It fells in some way enchanted, and I hope I caught some of its magic here.
Useful Things:
BBC Music Matters 11th March 2023, about the Kent Marshes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001jtc4 - landscape works just as well in sound as on TV (or pottery).
If you don’t know the Wessex Downs Hedley Thorne takes beautiful aerial photos of them: https://www.hedleythorne.com/ - we have one of Wayland’s Smithy on our wall).
The Ridgeway National Trail: https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/trails/the-ridgeway/ if you fancy a walk yourself!