A Garden for John Clare

 

I have been making both a garden and artwork here in Ystalyfera since 2001, but have lived in this valley since 1991.

Its industrial past, the hardship of the lives once lived here, and the physical presence of the hills and mountains have all seeped into my consciousness.

Some time back I read about the poetry and life of John Clare, the 19th century poet from rural Northamptonshire, and identified with his working class life and the struggle he had watching industrialisation change and destroy his beloved countryside. 

I have been intending to make an artwork as an offering to all who struggle with our capacity for destruction, and have made a piece called  'A Garden for John Clare' based on my garden and the landscape it sits in and filled with signs and signifiers.

The finished piece. Plaster cast, watercolour, photograph and raw clay on wood panel 50x50cm

A fellow artist asked whether I had ever watched the film about Clare made by Andrew Kotting in 2015, about his escape from an asylum called : 'By Our Selves'. I hadn't, so I did, and really appreciated the suggestion. Thank you @chemhart.

The film and its soundtrack, takes you on a journey into the mind of Clare. 

The following is a stream of prose written after watching the film and thinking of this landscape I live in :

What is a life lived in this flesh and bone? The soft parts and hard parts carried in a water bag frame, through wind and rain, up hill, through snow- and sore heels - pouring liquids in - chewing the fat - dumping it out. Tight skin around bones loosening and sagging - joints stiffening, ears ringing - eyes blurring the boundary between heaven and hell.

Do we hear the voice of God ? Do we tread on toes, stomp over clods that hold memories ? That tree was a seed of a tree of a seed of a tree of a seed. This hill was once swamp - turned over, lifted up to the sky. I was once iron and calcium and grains of the universe.

Why do we find it so hard just to be ? Like the bird with wings that John Clare envied.

We are creatures cut off from our root - always searching or not searching - sometimes we distract ourselves from the ache with bravado - with botox, with alter egos - we stand on soap boxes and shout. We claim territories, we build barriers to keep others of ourselves out.

We sad humans - worse than straw bears - at least they dance.

How do I escape this island of self - of decay of falling back into the earth ? I watch the light play - I hear the voices of children - I see the delight in the robin - of snowdrops pushing up through leaf litter.

By Christ - I try so hard not to see the discarded cans, cups, bottles and food containers in the verdant verges. I try and believe my fellow travellers - my common bags of water and bone - love - love the soul love the soil they come from - love the sky the sea the water - love the sweet smell of spring and their lover. See love be love, not tied to the lie that life is more than this, the lie that keeps us dead to the living.

Here is life - sing the dead, sing the crows in the cathedral trees. Here is life in the green corn and the blue sky, the song of birds the hum of insects.

There was something bubbling up from within

Like a spring

It was these words

Now they're out

Doing their thing.

My dreaming eye - embodiment beyond function alone involves dreams - other realms.

The river - the water once ice carved out this valley.

The coal pits - extraction fuelling industry and 'profit'.

The flowers and grasses - casts of the garden I am making here in my temporal home.

The coal shale - In a circle of clay - the carbon from a three hundred million year old rainforest - dug out and piled high in waste tips which now in turn have generated trees, shrubs, ferns, mosses, lichens, grasses, orchids, and many species of wild flowers.

Paul