Musings on 'earth' in relation to art and life, part one

In the natural world, that which is most 'earthy' to me is rocks and soil. ​

It was the treeless mountains in central Otago New Zealand that first gave me the sense of the earths body.

Each mountain range with its shadows and contours like a sleeping giant,
like the flanks of the earth mother.

Lying body to body, flat on the earth, is as connecting and soothing
​as a full body hug with a human being.
When I was born I was placed naked on my mothers chest.
Body to body.
Welcome to earth.​​

During the Nothing IS Immediate project with @tonyspencerarts and @christinedoddart I have been experiencing the impossibility of isolating one element from another. Always they appear in relationship with one another becoming something alive in the interaction between the two or more. Today I wanted to mention the association of rock with time. These seemingly inert unmoving objects are shaped, weathered and formed through time. When I was very little I lived near a solitary mountain in Victoria Australia and the closer you got to the top the more you found yourself walking on giant plates of granite. The sheer scale and smoothness of those rock formations increased the feeling of walking upon history, upon layers of time and stories, connecting with the feet to the shifting permanence of the place. A sense of place. A standing place. A place to stand.

The photo below shows me having one of the most pleasurable experiences of my life. Walking under the earth. The ground was so boggy that I sunk into the mud with every step, the earth hugged my legs, and softened by water it allowed me to move freely but also immersed in its under layers. I felt like I was walking underground for my feet were, underneath. Added to which I have never smelt mud so clean and sweet. The black bag I’m holding is a small collection of mud I’m taking home just for the joy of it. The soil is what we grow from, that grows in it sustains us. Healthy topsoil takes something like 100 years to form, because it is not just earth but also air and other things I can’t remember to name.

In this photograph the light of the sun is in dialogue with space and form that is the rock and the notrock, the cliffs and the betweencliffs creating a composition full of sun shot dark.

It looks like the figure is bent over his work. He is working in the elements, in the salty rocks by the sea.

The alchemist is the one who knows how to combine elements to make something more than the sum of its parts. I am learning to collaborate with the weather, to co-create with nature.

​My self prescription for 2020 was to discover how to nurture and sustain my creativity so that intention for my wellbeing became the focus of a year long project in dialogue with five geometric sculptures by @tonyspencerarts and ‘the five elements’ in my life. The project is called #nothingisimmediate

In winter the mud and soil becomes much more integral to the colour palette dominating my films and photographs. I noticed it becoming a textured backdrop, a container, a seedbed for ideas in digital image as in life. The earth, the ground, the soil, is something I can spread myself across. Here I am shadow, and the sun and I both cast our colours on the ground. Before there were mirrors there were silhouettes. Illumination shows us our shapes by the shadows we cast. Winter can be a time of dancing with shadows. Winter is a time when the new year is conceived deep in the dark an invisible spark.

My relationship with earth has been one of disconnection and connection. What connection I have, I find it hard to ground it in the world. In fact that may be why I used to believe art was the bridge between two irreconcilable worlds: the outside world and my inner life.​

The element of earth is slow moving and time bound while my imaginative fire is fast and hungry. I am leaning to rest my body in the earthy substance all around me. To notice was was always here: stable, still, heavy, patient.

To be continued...


What is your experience of the element earth? Comment below, I'd love to know! 

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#nothingISimmediate
www.tony-spencer.com/blogs

Nothing Is Immediate sets out to challenge perceptions of what art is by using the words sacred, wellbeing, and function. It is a collaboration between Tony Spencer, an artist with dyslexia, and four contemporary visual artists. Tony has been awarded Arts Council England funding to showcase his five geometric sculptures and investigate multi-sensory art as an opportunity to embrace neurodiverse experiences and disabilities. He invited four local artists Maija Liepins, Christine Dodd, Kate Street and Terence Noble, to join him in creating new work in response to the tangible and sacred aspects of the five elements earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Their work will be exhibited together at four exhibitions over the course of a year. The Nothing Is Immediate event series also includes streamed events, therapeutic sound baths, performances and poetry.