Today being Tuesday was spent climbing with the usual group of friends. The weather was good, and we are gradually pushing our grades. Because some of the group are really novices we decided that it would be a good idea, before we packed up and went home, to have a kind of “technical tutorial”, making sure that everybody is up to speed with a couple of aspects of safety. I was rather surplus to requirements at this point, and because I had decided before leaving home this morning to pack a sketch book, drawing materials and a camera, I set off along the top of the crag hoping to encounter something visually interesting.
At the back of my mind was the expectation that, in that particular setting, I might well encounter some images that could be used to build on my “Beyond” series. Stanage Edge is a wonderful geological feature. It is a rocky escarpment that runs for several kilometres, never particularly high, but offering a selection of climbs on gritstone that is unrivalled in this country. The edge is sliced through regularly by narrow clefts and gullies, and I hoped that several of these would yield ideas that related well to the other pictures, already completed, in the series. I have not had the time to review the results of my walk since coming back home, but I’m hopeful that there will be some nuggets (or event grains) of gold in the sand.
It was a very encouraging experience in the context of the general sense of being “beached” with which I have been afflicted recently. I suppose that there is a kind of “parable” in our garden, relevant to this situation. The lawn really was burned brown and dry by the recent spell of hot weather. I can not remember there ever being in this country a period of nearly two months with hardly any rain. The weather has reverted to its normal British summer time mode during the past week, namely, it rains regularly. It has been quite astonishing to see how quickly the vegetation has recovered. I would like to think that this is a kind of “omen” for my art.