Landscape Aesthetics in Practice

this is where the blog finishes - or maybe pauses - while the research is written-up.

The projects and interventions haven't stopped - they have developed and changed and this change in context, in some part influenced by the practice outlined here, continues to influence and change the practice.

So, the blog is stopping at the point where I paused and reflected with partners and co-researchers and the wider community on the work. In a way the writing up is a prolonged pause and reflection, the results of which will be written-up in the thesis. I hope to post it here sometime in 2015. Meanwhile the rawness of this blog is reference for the creative process - working to create a community-landscape aesthetic as a way of engaging people with landscape and influencing decision making processes.

The primary purpose of the assemblage was to make the research available and in doing this, the intention was to enable people to engage by adding to the structure. This could be done in a number of ways - by adding red or green strips of cloth, by making drawings and by weaving drawings into the structure.

as with a lot of my installations, despite the long run-up period of researching, at the time of installing, it is a live event. The time taken to chose and cut the ash, the time taken making the drawings, the time taken working with others to collect information, all inform decisions made during the installation, but it also throws up new challenges. Possibly the biggest unknown in this case was the lighting and throwing the shadows on the wall. There was a large degree of serendipity in this process, similar to that experienced while walking and casting shadows on the drawings.

In the same way that preparing for the installation had helped inform decisions, the activity of hanging and weaving work into the installations was an opportunity to think through how to further engage people with it over the coming days and weeks. This backward and forward looking aspect of the activity is an important aspect for me.

I had help with the installation, Helen Keating, Alison Parfitt and Lucy Guenot had helped cut cloth and write the words that I had taken from the River map discussions onto the strips of cloth. Kel Portman and Alison helped with some of the weaving in the museum. As I hung and wove into the ash frames, adding drawings and sketch books, makes and postcards, I was aware of the shadow drawings appearing on the walls and aware of creating both a structure/space and its projection.

As well as developing the ash weaves, I had been talking with Clive Chinnick, of Chinnick Theatre Services, about making a lamp that could be hung amongst the weaves and as the only light source, would caste their shadow on the walls of the gallery. I had also considered much lower lighting with each visitor being given a wind-up torch. This is probably a good time to mention how accommodating and helpful the staff at the Museum in the Park were.

While the idea of people making their own light was appealing, along with the whirring of the wind-up torches, reminiscent of both bird song and light industry, I decided on the option that for me talked about us all being between the sun and the land, all casting our shadows.

The red and green ribbons became a metaphor for the co-creation of landscape - the red about human activity, the green about landscape's agency. This was also expressed in the book I was making to accompany the installation. The book was about three facets of the emergent practice - collaborating, encountering and exchanging.

Decided to continue with the wood weaving. Although the loom perhaps had a more direct link to the weaving metaphor that I had adopted, weaving wood had a more direct link with landscape and was in its very production, managing the landscape, albeit it in a small way. After experimenting with a few species, chose to use ash - it is supple, good colour and bud's are great nodules. Also much to be cleared and coppiced from a landscape management point of view. Ash die back also a factor as was their frequency as the rubbed tree on the woodland pilgrimage. How much the landscape would change without them.

Using red cloth to tie them symbolised how weaving has co-created the landscape, the landscape represented by green cloth.

Although the massing of the ash weaves was visually appealing, it did not reflect ideas of moving through, being a part of. The overall design for the installation was to create walking experiences, to create an open space. Nevertheless, I was keen to play with the shadows that a the structures cast - an added dimension and commentary on both the affect of landscape on us, and our effects on it.

Tutorial in Stroud with Professor Andrea Liggins, Dr. Rob Newell and Dr. Catrin Webster. Discussion about the two ideas under development. Included visit to the Museum Gallery and discussion about how the work might be hung.

as well as writing, this period is taken up by 'drawing-up' - by that I mean experimenting how to show the outcomes of the research. Two ideas were being developed alongside 1. making a series of looms that would include the various drawings from projects and to which people would be able to add further drawings. 2. weaving with locally harvested branches to which work could be added.

meeting to set out framework for project. Identified a possible role for WtL in revealing participants' narratives.

Skype tutorial

Walk through Lypiatt returning through The Heavens. The desire to incorporate the drawing activity with being in the landscape continued. A continuation of actively finding shadows to be cast on the drawing machine scrolls, drawing books appearing in animations of the 'in-between places' walk.

Skype tutorial

Lily and Lucy

Well attended seminar. Presentations by Mark Connelly from the Cotswold Conservation Board and myself. 'Open Space' workshop confirmed the value of the approach we had taken in engaging people in the Landscape Character Assessment process.

Section of long River map, a collaboration between Kel Portman, myself and participants at workshops.

Miniature Museum of Memories, made by Tara Downs and Bart Sabel with collections from participants.

Recycled Sketch books made by Lucy Guenot and drawn in by participating artists

Exhibition of work from First Friday River Walks.This was the first attempt to show the multi-faceted process:- Collaboration, encounter, exchange and assemblage. There was also an emphasis on moving to action.

Seminar to discuss findings with funders, participants and other interested artists and academics.

Ist Friday walk along the Nailsworth Brook. Making work and setting-up River Map exhibition.

14th October to 1st November

the main activities over this period are writing-up and preparing for the November River Map exhibition and related events.

3rd to 13th

still working on Chapter 2 - sorting references has, as everyone told me it would, taken ages!

Mainly talking to people about various aspects of Folly Wood and Watery Landscapes research.

First Friday Walk in the Newmarket Valley

Absolutely fantastic conservation grazing meeting at the Brewery with thanks to Jade Bashford and Mark Connelly.

9th September to 2nd October

invigilating and taking down Ruskin Mill show.

Inspection at Folly Wood from Big Tree funders

Writing (and Boule) on Corsica

2nd to 8th

Setting-up Ruskin Mill exhibition - installation. Planning walk.

Preparing workshop for Festival of Nature.

Preparing for and running Stroud Nature Network event seminar

Festival of Nature

Ruskin Mill event

26th to 1st September

Taking River Map exhibition down from Exchange.

Making work for Ruskin Mill discussion event/exhibition.

Final Festival of Nature preparation meeting with Steve Roberts

River Map Seminar at the Exchange - good take up, good discussion.

Evening Wildlife Walk as a part of Rodborough Fields Preservation Group campaign.

Still working on Chapter 2.

12th to 18th:

Developing River Map process - direct drawing on "favourite places" Map. Drawing at Wallbridge.

Preparing for Festival of Nature

Visit Richard White and Ali Pretty's exhibition at Devizes Museum.

Writing up.

5th - 11th

Writing thesis continues to be full on - writing main part of most days.

Managing regular drawing

tree maintenance at Folly Wood - some failures due to dry summer

29 July - 4th August

writing stuttering, administration of projects time consuming - making drawings though.

meeting with Kel about River - visit Canal centre gallery...

22nd - 28th

meeting with Abigail Large at Museum in the Park to discuss final show.

Meeting with Kel to develop ideas for River exhibitions and events. Decided on outline idea of people's map for Festival of Nature event and to hold a second River discussion event at the Exchange while the work is still on show.

Writing taking new shape as I concentrate on reflecting upon my process ... full on, including weekends. Sleeping difficult.

15th - 19th mainly writing and reading plus ongoing 'administration' of projects, such as developing programme for 6th September Festival of Nature Consortium meeting, which included brokering between possible consortium project thread holders.

On-line tutorial with Rob and Catrin.

Making Folly Wood sign with Seb.

8th - 12th

Opportunity arose to make Stroud Scarlet Stretchers in support of Saving Rodborough Fields group and as an intervention within the River project - mutually beneficial, overlapping aims, integration.

1st - 6th

Writing most of the time - 5.30 AM start on these great, clear mornings.

Talk to Common Wealth AGM about River Project.

First Friday Walk from Amberley to Nailsworth along the rail path and back along contours.

24th - 30th

re-writing preface, chapter 1 and making a start on chapter 2. Planning First Friday Walk Negotiating further River Exhibitions/venues straightening sticks

17th - 22nd writing thesis, developing diagrams as a link between theory and practice. Still refining focus - and of course this leads to even more possibilities...

Folly Wood core group minutes

10th - 16th

Tutorial with Rob, Andrea and Catrin helpful and frustrating - frustration down to incomplete nature of writing presented and new tangents...

Put River exhibition up at The Exchange (Social Enterprise Centre)

FIrst Folly Wood wooding day plus core group meeting

3rd-7th, mainly writing with usual administration/organisation of ongoing projects.

Writing and associated reading still revealing new tangents or threads to be woven in...

Good from Woods meeting - still negotiating ethics and planning approach

First Friday walk along River Corridor in Stroud - Capels Mill, disused railpath and canal

Stroud Nature Consortium meeting - introduction of 'consortium projects' idea and planning of festival and network event

writing

Walk with Naomi Wright talking about various aspects of socially engaged environmental art practice.

River project management meeting with Kel Portman and Lucy Guenot - Skyped Tara in Amsterdam.

Attended AHRC seminar in Birmingham on recent call - decided against it largely due to time scale.

Coincidentally our neighbour was there, talk about connecting communities and there was a Tate travelling exhibition of William Kentridge Prints in the building.

Meeting with Seb Buckton and Mark Harrison, and with Phil Tidy from Small Woods Association. Good to see the woods again and get away from the computer. Helped formulae plan for next core group and activity day. Ground flora already benefitting from light after the the thinning we've done. Woodruff in profession.

Developing AHRC bid with Sue Porter and Glenn Hall.

20th to 28th reading and writing is firing off ideas for more making - needing to concentrate on writing is hard to manage.

Meeting with Max Comfort at Wallbridge and walk along canal reviewing various community engagements.

Developing AHRC bid with Sue Porter and Glenn Hall based on Derby Walk.

17, 18th - 2nd exhibition at Stroud Brewery.

13th to 16th

meeting with Kel Portman to begin making drawings as part of Norwegian Walking Assemblage.

Thesis coming on slowly - still not sure where boundaries between chapters fall - writing it changes it.

6th to 11th May - writing chapters 1 and 2.

Meeting with Steve Roberts to plan feedback from Spring Green Conference and Networking event.

Helped Suze Adams, Jackie Storey and Michele Whiting install Museum Box exhibition at Museum in the Park.

Community Discussion event, with Kel Portman, Ahrabella Lewes and Lucy Guenot, exhibition up and down plus two walks, all within 24 hours - guerrilla gallery. Not many people though. Some good comments about the Settled Valleys.

First Friday Walk along Canal/River corridor and up to Rodborough Common. Pilot for Saturday's walk.

Set-up exhibition in Brewery with Kel Portman, Lucy Guenot and Arabella Lewes and David Moss

28th, 29th, 30th, 31st, 1st and 2nd - preparing for exhibition. Meeting with Fiona Meadley re.video, shopping to buy materials for video both, picking-up prints, meeting with Kel, meeting with Lucy re. settled valley map.

1st May - Folly Wood, Good From Woods research meeting

Evolving chapters 1 and 2

and oh yes - Nel arrives to create chaos... photo by Tom Keating

meeting with Joolz Bennett, Glenn Hall, Alison Parfitt, Sue Porter ; no particular agenda, more free ranging comparison of experiences of sustainability.

16th. Meeting with Kel Portman, Lucy Guenot and Tara Downs going through SDF project plan and preparing work for brewery exhibition... 17th to 26th printing people's photos and drawings, preparing texts, delivering fliers for River.

18th and 24th - Folly Wood:- Good from Woods meeting with Alice Goodenough, Seb Buckton, Ali Coles and Jackie Rowanly - planning research

Thesis - writing chapters 1 and 2

well attended and supported event.

Support for further networking and collaborative projects.

Tutorial with Dr. Robert Newell - annual monitoring, revised timetable, additional ethical considerations.

9/10/11 finalising Spring Green Festival - meeting with Abigail in Museum, meeting with BBC, Final amends to Watery Landscape article.

Thesis - writing with Guattari quote as a riddle challenge.

final planning of Spring Green Conference with Steve Roberts and Andy Read. Follow-up preparation.

reading, writing and wiring on Corsica.

writing a second draft programme for completion.

Visit to Museum in Corte.

5 AM start for walk between the two River crossings - little owl, bitter wind, owl taking song bird in talons, cold gripping my head with icy talons. Everywhere flooded but frostily firm to walk on. Car pulls up and occupant with tattooed St. George's cross on forehead, camera and binoculars to hand, asks the way to footpath under the second road bridge.

Tom is interested in the remnants of a previous culture, pre road bridges - the turn pike, the former road stopping at the river's edge and the small, now isolated settlement.

I photograph Tom walking. Transition, movement, change.

20th to 23rd - various emailing,reading and writing, preparation for conference.

Tutorial with Drs. Robert Newell and Paul Jeff.

Revised ideas on structure of thesis and developed ideas for final show and viva.

after an enforced break from writing for almost a month, I've re-read the previously sent synopsis and made a few minor changes to it in the attached version for the focus of our discussion on the 19th at 10.30. Apart from spotting repeated misspelling and misspelt author's name, I feel quite secure in what I'd written and have only subtly changed the meaning.

As well as the questions below I'd appreciate updating you on some funding I hope to have raised which can be used to develop two of the projects until the end of the year and firm-up on a timetable for completing the PhD. I have a number of events coming-up or in planning which could be used, although some are in the air at the moment due to uncertainty about the funding mentioned.

The WEAVE: this has morphed into Stroud Nature Consortium which is running a conference on 15th April and Festival of Nature (including launch of walking Festival) on Friday 6th and Saturday 7th September.

A strand of this is the River Walks Project for which I've put in a funding application to the Cotswold Conservation Board. The broad idea is to produce work from the walks by participating artists/photographers and use these as the basis of community discussion groups with local residents about landscape change processes regards the Cotswold AONB Management Plan (Landscape Character Areas). This was an original intention of the project and is coming live now due to 'real world' constraints and opportunities alongside the development of my own ideas through my studies. I am running a workshop for the participating artists tomorrow to prepare for this. Part of the funding application is to present the idea at the April conference and the work at the festival of Nature/Launch of Walking Festival.

I have also been provisionally offered exhibition space in the main gallery of the Museum in the Park in Stroud between 6th and 10th November - they have a very full programme and its a good opportunity. I'd like to discuss the possibility and usefulness of this as a part of my final showing.

Folly Wood: Along with three other members of the group, we have been offered funding to carry out research into 'well being benefits' of being a member of the group amongst the wider membership. This could give me the opportunity to be gathering complementary data or to refer to the interpretation of the paid research. Again, I'd appreciate being able to discuss this with you. I'd also like to discuss the timing of the viva.

Finally, I've discovered that the bursary payments stopped in January although the person I spoke to in Finance agreed that the first payment was made in May 2010 (for April). I had presumed that there would be 36 monthly payments up until the end of this month. I'm not at this point asking you to do anything and hope that this will have been resolved/clarified before I see you.

best wishes Richard

On 5 Feb 2013, at 20:08, Richard Keating wrote:

Dear Rob, Andrea and Catrin... and Paul

I hope that the attached synopsis is helpful in taking forward discussions about my thesis next week. I have a number of questions that you may be able to help with next week, including: terminology in general - do the references to ontology, epistemology and methodology seem to work? I know its hard without seeing more of the actual text but does the breadth of coverage and the way its structured seem coherent - does it begin to build a clear case for the research and potentially lead to a useful set of conclusions? chapters - do the break points in chapters seem about right? Do you feel that sub-chapters for the three projects is strong enough - I'm keen that they hold together and are seen to be studying specific aspects overall content - does it seem to include enough in terms of making the case and addressing it? Are their gaps which you feel should be addressed Perhaps the biggest question - what is your take on the idea of artefact as metaphor. Its not apparent in this text, but I'm aware that many of the words used are all open to debate and discussion - ideas on how to address this without over running the word count would be appreciated My methodology and theories are non-reductive, they look to address difference by say 'and, and, and' - does this seem at odds with academia?

As you will see, this steps back from the way I've been writing and gives a more complete picture of what I'm trying to say/cover/do.

Thanks and I look forward to seeing you next Wednesday

Richard

preparing text for River exhibition and working on collaborative piece

Introduction to thesis

12th to 15th

notes, phone calls and minutes to do with meetings.

Meetings with Max Comfort regards Capel Mill and site visit to Stroud Brewery with Kel Portman.

Writing introduction to thesis

meeting with Helen Keating, Kel Portman and Martin Large to develop content of 'book' for Morten Clemetsen and Jorun Barane, taking their earlier comments into account.

On 7 Mar 2013, at 13:51, Richard Keating wrote:

Hi

following our previous email, here is a bit more detail about Saturday's meeting?

the good news is that Mark Connelly, Land Management Officer at the AONB will be joining us for the morning and will give a good overview of how this project will fit into their work and help develop the brief for our work.

Purpose of meeting:

to review the First Friday River Walks Project purpose of project - Richard and Mark progress and outline of funding application community discussion groups in May, possible exhibitions and additional discussion groups review of work being produced or stimulated by the First Friday River Walks, especially regards SITE13 events at the Stroud Brewery and Museum - please bring sketch books, photographic images, writing, sounds etc. agree next steps for running events at the brewery outline possible future exhibition

I'll be at the Stroud brewery this Friday at 4.00. If anyone wants to join me to look at the space we will be using please let me know.

Thanks Richard

On 5 Mar 2013, at 16:07, Kel Portman wrote:

hi everyone, (and Fiona who we know won't be able to make it) well, after several delays we've finally managed to arrange a meeting place for our event THIS COMING SATURDAY...I know, it slipped up on us.

the forum will help to shape our presence at this years site2013 festival and to plan the event/s that will be taking place.... one of our venues is Stroud Brewery - now there's an attractive thought. Richard will shortly be sending around an agenda and also be updating us on recent funding initiatives. We invite you to bring along to our discussions any work in progress. We'll have broadband access for any research or viewing images and hope to Skype Tara and Bart who will be in the Netherlands

So here are the details: date: Saturday March 9th time: 10:30 - 15:30 (lunch in a local hostelry when we're hungry) place: SVA John Street, Stroud (first floor)

SVA are charging us ?10 for the use of the room and I will be bringing along tea and coffee (maybe a cake or 6) so we suggest sharing the total cost between those who are participating.

Please RSVP back to us

Look forward to seeing you all

Kel, Richard and Tom

7th and 8th - preparing for River meeting and updating people about RIVER project

From: Richard Keating keatree@globalnet.co.uk Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2013 14:21:38 +0000 To: Suze Adams; tom keating; kel portman; Chris Smith; FFIN; <martinlarge; Lucy Guenot; tara and bart Subject: RIVER

Hello all,

its been while since we met as a group and a few people have been asking about the relationship between RIVER and First Friday River Walks Project and I know that there are other things that we've lost track of.

So to clarify; RIVER is a long-term shared initiative between us all (Martin are you still wanting to be involved? I know how busy you are with other projects.)

As well as visits to exhibitions and get togethers to share work, we have also discussed ideas for exhibitions and prepared a web presence. Ideas/projects have included (and apologies if I've missed any, please add them to the list):

preposition proposition - we have unsuccessfully looked at showing work in Cardiff and Newport (unsuccessful as the galleries in question were no longer available over water/under water - we have from time to time recorded simultaneously but remotely our various experiences over or under water which Kel has put on the WtL website Bridge - Chris has put forward an idea about celebrating the return of the ownership of the old Severn bridge to the public sector in 2016(?) The Bore - Chris has put forward an idea for linking the expectation of the Bore with the expectation before a Rugby match at Kingsholm Waiting for the Ferry - Suze has further developed her idea previously performed across the river at the old passage between Arlingham and Newnham Where water once was - Kel and Ffin have started to collaborate over a project looking at where water used to run Watery Landscapes - Kel and Richard have collaborated with Iain Robertson in writing an academic piece based on Purton Ffin has collaborated similarly on another academic article Richard and Lucy have run a project along the Frome with young people Tom is collecting salt for a 'real photograph' project from and about the Severn Between the Woods and Water - Kel is pulling together an exhibition at The Old Passage Miniature Museum - Tara and Bart have run a project at Sharpness to collect people's artefacts and memories about the Severn and are incorporating this approach with the First Friday River Walks Project, with a presence during SITE13 at the Museum in the Park Sketch books and First Friday River Walk - Lucy's idea of using hand-made sketch books has been combined with First Friday Walks along the Frome and its tributaries. This project is now the subject of a funding application - see below and two workshops have been organised at the Stroud brewery as part of SITE13

First Friday River Walks Project (working tittle)

The purpose is to use the work made on First Friday River Walks to stimulate community discussion about landscape change in the context of the AONB Management Plan. It includes a number of us and some other regular First Friday Walkers - Ffin, Lucy, Kel, RK, Tara and Bart (when in the country), Chris (if time allows), Fiona Meadley, Arabella Lewis, David Moss and Jilly Cobbe, Running parallel to this is the use of the Miniature Museum. If successful with the funding bid, it will also be incorporated into a local Green Space and Community Action Conference (15th April) and an exhibition at Stroud's Festival of Nature and Launch of the Walking Festival and I hope to include it in my PhD final show

The work from this project could form a part of a bigger RIVER exhibition

Any other of our projects listed above could look to fund-raise

What next? First Friday Walks River Project - workshop tomorrow - I'll also let you all know if we are successful with fund-raising SITE13 - exhibition and various workshops underway

RIVER - arrange a time to meet and review work/project development - any suggestions which month? June maybe once SITE has happened? Please let me know what you think/want to do next

Very best regards

Richard

Meeting with Ali Coles, Seb Buckton, Alice Goodenough and Jackie Townley about 'Good from Woods' research project, looking at the well being benefits from Folly Wood membership.

Gave presentation to Cheltenham U3A philosophy group - a lively group discussion ensued and it was useful to be reminded of the precise focus I am developing and conversely, of all the lose ends that the research can't tie in.

The group agreed to add their own individual comments to the text I had read from and circulated - it will be interesting to see this assemblage in due course...

A lovely dry day, ideal for coppicing.

Cut, collected, sized hazel, ash, oak and beech sticks. Put to dry.

catching-up, planning and arranging project meetings

minor amends for Watery Landscapes article

Reading for thesis

Unlike the walk on Friday, I did chair the meeting despite grieving. Directors and activity plans for next year agreed.

Feeling very distracted and else where. Kel Portman led a circular walk from Bussage. It was interesting to be a participant. Made one drawing compiled of layered drawings along the route.

8th til end of month

Dad's illness, death, funeral and celebration of life

27th to 5th February

meeting about Stroud Nature Consortium organised with Steve Roberts

meeting to develop proposal for 'Good from Woods' research into Folly Wood with Seb Buckton, Ali Coles and Jackie Rowanly

First Friday Walk around Chalford

Vision 21 meeting in Cold Aston with Julia Bennett, Alison Parfitt, Sue Porter, Diana Ray and Jaqui Taylor

Thesis synopsis circulated to Tutors

Due to the snow and underlying mud, two walks were needed to plan a route for February's first Friday walk. Planning SITE13 events and promotions with Kel Portman.

Meeting with Greg Pilley at Stroud Brewery to discuss holding a 'River' exhibition and community discussion at the Brewery

Preparing for Folly Wood AGM and activity day. In the end I couldn't go to the activity day as I went instead to Denys Hodson's funeral. Denys had been a visionary director while I was working in Swindon and also vice chair of the Arts Council. In recent years he had fund raised for the medieval windows in Fairford Church. A great ally and mentor.

10th to 24th mainly reading and writing. Rather than using writing as a creative (and messy and long) process, this has been a more planful way of writing. I anticipate that its just a means of creating a framework in which I can be messy and freer.

Other ongoing work has included developing the programme for a Spring Green Conference, developing a consortium for the Festival of Nature and preparing a funding bid for 'River'.

Harvesting wood for Animated Walking Sticks - as a part of the ethos of managing woodland, I've coppiced some hazel and put to dry. This will be drawn on in due course - once I've made a machine on which to do it. 'Stick' is an old term for a book chapter as scrolls were kept wound around them in manageable lengths. The intention is to develop this metaphor by combining sticks and newer technology.

rest of week re-considering writing (and usual planning/servicing of community events)

Trying to find a more structured approach to reading and note taking. Much has been done, making use of the internet from which I now have bought a number of key texts that I want to study more thoroughly. (Putting this into practice, I still find a need to visit newly discovered texts on the internet).

Produced a different diagram of thesis structure. What goes where still seems too fluid.

As to central question, I feel I have a grasp on it and then it morphs -

• Are the various engagements the materials/genre and the process, in which case what were the outcomes and how to measure them? Perhaps who to measure them?
• Are the various engagements context for the research which is actually about developing the practice which can enable/engage? In which case how would it be judged? What are the criteria beyond my own initial ones?
• Can it be both? Is such an integration core to my ontology?
• In which case does the practice include a constant research element into itself and how could such research be measured or even known?
• Is it a matter of emphasis – so, for example, more about researching the development of an arts practice through a particular methodology which holds the understanding of what “it all means” than about the engagement findings such as 10 people did this, twenty did that – so how to measure the outputs?
• How would having something in the museum help – it would make the outcomes disseminated knowledge about the place and its people – anthropology? So is the work auto/relational/ethnoggraphy?
• How would this relate to a/r/tography?

Tutorial in Swansea with Robert Newell, Andrea Liggins and Catrin Webster.

Discussed thesis texts in terms of: * time management issues in terms of the integrity of a relational practice and in particular in a resilient community context, i.e. ongoing. * metaphore in both the writing and practice * timetable for submission, viva and show * clarifying central question (which I thought I'd arrived at), finding a way to clarify and write about this * animated sticks

Continue walking the Frome around The Miserden Estate and village.

2nd and 3rd - making animation, learning new programme.

Recci of Miserden and estate for next first Friday walk

writing chapter 1 through until 28th

showing Alison how to use 'Audacity' and sorting out sound files for web site.

Conversations about Sustainable Development Fund possibilities.

Walk from Daneway to Chalford - floods magnificent and terrible at the same time.

writing chapter one, arranging speakers for April conference, negotiating with County Council about new woodland acquisition.

writing chapter one of thesis

writing extended brief for River

meeting with Sue Reed at Ruskin Mill to discuss our PhDs. Helpful to discuss differences and similarities. Both have a walking and community element. I was aware of Sue's being very much about making as embedded knowledge, made me feel that my work is becoming conceptual/abstract by comparison and reminded me of the need to get back to making rather than holding the idea of making in my mind.

1st, 2nd and 3rd: early Christmas family gathering in Wargrave followed by Auntie Kathleen's funeral in New Brighton. New and old generations, parents mistaken for grandparents, no longer living relatives present in the faces of grandchildren. The Thames filling its valley, overflowing; changing parks, fields and cricket ground to reflected sky, the Mersey vibrant and forceful rushing between the wirral and the city. Both rivers flowing as they have been across all those years.

21st to 30th November: reading/writing most of the time - completing Watery Landscapes Article and getting engrossed in thesis - interspersed with on going commitments to projects

Tutorial with Robert Newell, Andrea Liggins and Katrin Webster, followed by meeting with Mary Davis Turner.

All very helpful and focusing.

writing draft conclusion to article

16th to 18th, writing in Laugharne with Sue Porter, Alison Parfitt, Diana Ray, Julia Bennett, Jaqui Taylor, plus Helen Keating and Glenn Hall

12th to 16th; writing - spend more time reading - internet is both a great help and a hinderance - this can't be - must be a matter of learning how to make best use of the technology available.

No time to join Tara over water, other than over the sink, with view to the Severn...

Activity Day Making new benches, tree planting and managing woodland glade.

photos by Jackie Rowanly

3rd to 9th - reading and writing

Not the first revamp of Thesis- see attached

walked between the Daneway and Sapperton making sketch book work for inclusion in River project. Walked with Tara and Bart, Lucy Guenot, Jacqui Stearn, Jilly Cobb, David Moss, Arabella Lewis

At meeting with Max Comfort, we discussed withdrawing from Canal Forum and Neighbourhood Development Plan working group, me to concentrate on developing work with Cotswold Conservation Board (see 19th October)

received all referees' comments on Watery Landscapes article and planned timetable and process for three way amendments

Naomi Wright who was trying to download information from my website for her MA tutorial informed me that this site was down. Stayed off line until 1st November.

Making woodland pilgrimage animation and developing narrative with colleagues in Aurland.

First gathering, activity day and its great - new members, working on new clearing and making dead hedge - lots of comments about 'many hands making light work'. However, identify need for co-ordination between 'task' leaders - its difficult this enabling without creating a bottleneck. For my wider practice, this also identifies a similar question about many forms of collaboration.

Meeting with Kel about making a piece of work from the Norway walks - we write collectively in conversational style - I add bits and pieces and forward to Morten and Jorun.

Making (slowly) woodland pilgrimage animation

20th to 25th October - reading and writing for thesis and article. Realise that writing is an integral part of the practice.

Writing River proposal to Cotswold Conservation Board.

Preparing for Folly Wood gathering.

River Project meeting and showing of recent River work: Suze Adams, Tara and Bart, Chris Smith, Lucy Guenot, Ffin and Kel Portman.

New ideas from Chris about projecting the Bore at Gloucester Rugby home game, along with people's videos of travelling to the match. Anticipation, build-up, event.

Ideas for collecting people's input to yet to be agreed shows/exhibitions based on Lucy's printed banners

Tara demonstrated her miniature museum which would fit in really well

Agreement to work with AONB on a series of shows of work based on walks along the River Frome, with final show, maybe at the Museum in the Park next Autumn.

Meeting with Steve Roberts and Andy Reed to plan a spring, green-space conference and Festival of Nature. Conference to focus on engaging people with caring for green space. Looking to include workshop on "landscape story" and "River" project.

Reading and writing for Thesis and Watery Landscape article with Iain Robertson and Kel Portman.

Reconsidering breadth of thesis and how to strengthen focus without loosing context and interdisciplinary approach.

Folly Wood filming and core group meeting. Filming for a national conference on Community Green Space in memory of John Davidson, the founder of Groundwork Trust.

Tutorial with Andrea Liggins, Rob Newell and Paul Jeff. Heavily criticised over writing (submitted end of July) with useful suggestions about approach to take. As always, helpful and supportive.

29th September to 15th October. Reading "The Continental Aesthetics Reader: 2nd Edition" Editied by Clive Cazeaux, 2011 and travelling back from Corsica.

completing drawings in River sketch book and reading about continental aesthetics.

Drawing coming to an end.

Reading.

Drawing outside, using colour as the river turns into the sea, as the communication begins to loose its urgency, having made the journey.

Reading. "And what a number of invertible dynamisms there are in this spiral! One no longer knows right away whether one is running toward the centre or escaping." Gaston Bachelard.

Lucy much better. Amazed by Richard's underwater photography.

Reading. "it is only through active transformation of or engagement with the world that people and things acquire meanings." Jean-Paul Sartre

Toulon to Ville Di. WE cross the Mediterranean and our journey ends although we are still travelling with Lucy on her journey to recovery. This again feels like limbo despite being pleased to meet-up with friends Richard and Lorna.

Tournus to Toulon.

St.Quinten to Tournus. Contained rivers, musical rivers and improving news.

"I still don't like the taste of tea." Tea remains for me link to family ties in the north west.

Leave for tunnel crossing, mobile phone contact, onto St.Quinten. Flow of family connection through blood/gene pool (my dad had kidney stones), and communicated values. Technology, communication and subjectivity.

continued drawing Lucy with references to the flow of intertwined lives and families.

still in Limbo regards Lucy and leaving for Corsica. Decide to draw about it in the context of "River" - Bristol Avon and Lucy as the source with rivers crossed in France as an analogy, a flow of information about Lucy's progress. Some practical issues as the travel time has been reduced.

13th to 18th September Lucy diagnosed with a kidney infection - very, very painful. Eventually taken back into hospital and diagnosed with kidney stones. Camping-out in Bristol. After various scares and tests, Lucy home on 18th. I've included this in my blog because? Because its been important and yet not something I choose to develop as a part of my research at this time - although there were links to drawing machines and links with 'experiential caring' and 'cognitive caring', but the overall sense was of concern, limbo and caring about Lucy recovering - so research took a break. In between times:

Writing an abstract about collaborative writing as inquiry/methodology for possible submission to publication, forwarded to Sue Porter.

Re planned and booked trip to Corsica twice.

Circulated meeting proposal and agenda for 'River' meeting

Responded to Max Comfort's invitation to be involved with Neighbourhood Development Plan and to Steve Robert's invitation to Five Festival's meeting.

Updated website.

presented my museum box project by reading from drawing machine. Interesting, if brief conversation about 'nostalgia' - is it positive, negative or motivational...

Heard that Lucy had been taken into hospital and left symposium rapidly...

Michael four weeks old. Third and final appointment to replace broken tooth - smile aesthetics

Reading and writing about friendship as methodology Writing about renewable energy

Preparing to go away

Helping set-up symposium at UWE

Discussions about signs at Folly Wood - issue over insurance and inviting people into the wood hard to balance within the group. Also, new woodlands available to buy. Looking at raising additional monies.

Very well attended event in Stratford Park, upwards of three thousand visitors. A number of contributors came forward to offer to help with future organisation and a number interested in regular information exchange/collaborative approaches.

5th, 6th and 7th.

excellent symposium at Swansea Met. with very good and varied papers.

Useful perspectives on methodology - summary of discussions attached.

2nd, 3rd and 4th, ticking off the 17 day list, including: writing piece for Place, Place and Practice symposium and reading all the abstracts for Practice Makes Perfect symposium.

Outlined 17 day plan to cover things to be done between now and leaving for Corsica.

Visit to see Jenny Saville's show at Ashmolean and MOMA with Alison Parfitt, Sue Porter and Glenn Hall. Good conversations with Sue and Alison about embodiment. Interested in other exhibits such as Oriental Landscape prints and Rune Stones - seemed to resonate with thoughts I'd been having about walking sticks and wood turning.

Long and productive discussion about what to make from the Derby Walk - map, or series of maps, with located QR codes linking to web-based information, particularly sound files. Possibility of making animation and sound track with Glenn Hall.

Visit to Swansea to finalise symposium programme.

Meeting with Kel Portman to discuss making work from Norwegian walk, watery Landscapes article and First Friday Walk.

Folly Wood core group meeting: pouring rain and so we 'walked the agenda' - very effective, experiential.

23rd, 24th, 25th, 27th, 28th: arranging dates for Autumn Folly Wood gatherings and tree planting.

Continuing to transcribe sound files from Derby Walk

Handing out Five Valleys Festival brochures at Farmers Market (includes Festival of Nature)

Reading 'The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts' Edited by Michael Biggs and Henrik Karlsson, Routledge, 2011, Abingdon and New York in preparation for 'Practice Makes Perfect' Symposium.

Further suggestions for Watery Landscapes article.

Initial discussion with Sue Porter and reading regards an article looking at Critical Methodologies on collaborative writing as method of inquiry

With Lu Jian, reading 'One Place After Another' by Miwon Kwon and discussing it by email.

meeting with Steve Roberts to finalise festival. Discussed the possibility of increasing other people's involvement with the event - list of tasks etc. Discussed the possibility of linking to an conference type event.

Suggested and took measurements for making drawings to hang in the bandstand based on Steve's wildlife illustrations.

Visit great show with Helen, Glenn, Sue and Alison in context of Derby Walk. Much discussion about serendipity, nomadcy, biophilia, peak oil and economic crash. MAny comparisons with our groups recent visit to the Grayson Perry show. More political, less joyous, more insightful, less show. Initially daunting to be faced with so much information and intellectual scatter; after first viewing it appeared differently - very welcoming and tempting.

Also saw "Another London" photographic show - was this really our lives? How old fashioned we all looked, not as I remember it at all. Yes, the visual details and imagery were as I remember but it was modern at the time!

having to set-up new computer as internet access has failed on old one. Steep learning curve from PC to Mac.

More transcribing Derby walk sound files.

15th to 18th: Reading Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts in preparation for symposium.

Transcribing sound files from Derby walk along with Alison.

Positive responses from Rob Newell and Catrin Webster on my outline thesis chapter.

Tutorial in Stroud with Catrin Webster and Andrea Liggins.

Looking at Museum in the Park as a possible venue for exhibition in support of viva. Walk a log the canal through Willow Farm and a visit to Folly Wood as a potential site visit for examiners.

Discussions about examiners and areas of expertise/enthusiasms.

just before mid-day on his due date, Michael cried lustily according to the mid-wife in Gloucester maternity unit. Lots to say but not here. All well.

Next few days really pretty well taken-up with Helen, Tom, Emma and Baby Michael...

listened to all 65 sound files of conversations and began transcribing. Long way to go.

Spoke to Max Comfort about the Academy of Urbanism report and next steps and our aspirations now that the Town Council were going for a Town Design Statement instead of a Neighbourhood Development Plan.

Begun writing regards Derby book chapter - In-Between Places.

Circulated framework for Gainsborough writings.

Spoke to Abigail Large at Museum in the Park about possibility of show regards 'River' proiect and final show.

exchange of images with Morten and Jian.

Negotiation with Dr. Jan Parker about publication.

Drafted programme for tutorial in Stroud

Suze Adams dropped off my and Sue Porter's Museum Boxes - short discussion about 'Home', 'Place' and nomadcy.

Worked on Folly Wood animation

Meeting with Professor Howard Riley and Amanda Roberts to discuss publishing papers for the 'Arts and Humanities in Higher education' journal and the symposium more generally.

Train journey under the River Severn.

Met David Bullock on train and talked about Transhumance in various European locations.

writing meeting with Alison Parfitt, Sue Porter and Jaqui Taylor to develop writing for book/map/website as follow-up to the Derby Walk. Agreed that we would initially write-up a number of conversations, as a way of describing our walk, relationships performed along the way and with transition.

Walk led by Tara Downs around Elmore. Saw large, semi mature elm tree. Visited the Elmore estate and saw Tara and Bart's rammed earth wall.

End of week really (nicely) dominated by the forthcoming birth - DIY in Bath Road etc.

preparation for V21 meeting about Gainsborough walk - writing and reading other people's writings.

Re-organised weekly work programme under activities rather than projects.

General catch-up with a number of projects.

Updating this blog, including making a bit of work based on drawings/photographs from Norway..

with Norwegian summer, mountain pastures in our heads we are transported into a very different place. Too much to say about this here.

Traveling and visiting art gallery in Bergen, checking out painters mentioned by Jorun and Morten.

Day 5. Aurland to Stalheim. Ferry crossing, art-walking, rowing boat and meal at museum settlement. Joined for the day by Lisbeth Engebretsen and Dag Nordsveen.

We had a full session of drawing on the ferry - skyline, water meeting land, water and mist, followed by a good session walking along the 'Old Post Road' next to the Fiord drawing sound, writing haikus, drawing without removing pen from paper, without looking at page and hearing Jorun tell the Norse Creation Story.

Evening meal of traditional workers fayre - sour cream with cream, meats and crisp bread - a great background to our review. Also added to by presence of Sue Reed and Jorun's knitted dress, incorporating stories of place and wonderful golden slippers from Stroud.

Our ideas are to make a book of the slow tourism potential in the valley, a conversation between visitors and local people. Morton is also keen to see this as one of a number of collaborating projects, a circuit board with Aurland and Stroud for example as two points, or lights on the circuit. I spoke about this to Martin in the context of 'micro-utopias', he had a better term 'communities of discovery', perhaps 'communities of hope'.

This ties in with the Derby walk and Transition Towns.

Day 4. We wake-up at the farm to breakfast around a table in a farmhouse in an enclosure in the mountains. We hear stories of blue cows and golden fleeces and Huldra's attempts to entrap the farmer.

We review work from the day before, seeing work made as we approach the farm from above and below.

We draw more and walk down the mountain, passing farms and scenes of personal tragedy, natural wonderment and everyday lives. We take time to cut grass around one such group of deserted farm buildings.

Day 3: Osterbo to Sinjarheim. Bus trip followed by walk down to the only remaining farm in the valley. Walking east to west to meet people climbing up. Overnight stay at farm. Many stories. The farm's future is uncertain; currently used by students from the agricultural college, mainly making goat's cheese.

We spend about half of our time looking and drawing - looking east and west on the hour. Regularly overtaken by emptying bus load of fast moving walkers. We are performing slow tourism.

There is never a moment when we don't hear water falling.

Day 2. Bergen to Aurland via Myrdal and Kardal. Part of the purpose for the day was to agree our programme. Over lunch we heard from Jorun and Morten about the proposals to create a deep water harbour for a second cruise ship in the fiord. The value to the local community seemed slight, especially compared to the disadvantages of tourists - 3,500 per ship - being coached up the mountain and back, spending nothing in the fiord-side village and the detrimental affects on community life, natural systems and the fiords natural heritage. On our journey from Bergen we had encountered this when the whole train filled with tourists and we had to vacate the seats - we later met some of these tourists eating packed lunches in the railway station.

The need to use our visit to explore how we could help develop slow tourism became evident.

Our lunch stop was at Kardal, a farm co-op making and selling goats cheese, itself a traditional way of managing the landscape and especially the summer farms and meadows and whole culture of transhumance.

Study tour to see Morten Clemetsen and Jorun Barane in Norway with Helen Keating, Martin Large and Kel Portman. Evening 1 - Bergen World Heritage Site. So what is heritage for? Is commercialism a central or subsidiary objective - what are we experiencing, heritage,commerce? Are we experiencing heritage as consumers?

Successful contact with 'Arts and Humanities in Higher Education' regards publishing papers from symposium.

Discussion with Sue Porter about Derby book chapter.

Circulated draft chapter three of thesis

worked on and circulated Folly Wood action plan, seeking contributions

16th to 19th: Lu Jian visit from China. Jian teaches modern art at Shanghai University and we have collaborated with a digital exchange about the Dawn Redwood - an endangered tree taxa. Many interesting conversations, especially as Jian is doing a PhD in Shanghai about people and environment and public space. Some really helpful exchanges of ideas about space, place and micro-utopias. Some great green tea too! And Khrushchev's socialist meal of potato and beef that Jian made while I continued writing my thesis.

It seems to me that the state, as with our capitalist system is the elephant in the room. Can any system satisfy our community needs and individual creativity?

'you live in paradise', says Jian stepping onto our balcony overlooking the Severn Vale. Later, watching the news, he asks why there is so much crime in England - 'you have everything.'

We visit the Cotswold Water Park, seeing landscape restoration and interpretations of our history and culture. We see shops, hotel and lake-side second homes. We also see the dinosaur skull found there. We visit Cardiff, see David Nash pieces in a landscape exhibition at the National Gallery. On our return we visit the William Morris stained glass windows at Selsley Church and wait for Jian's train back to London and on to Shanghai on Selsely Common.

'I've been inspired in England these four days, the environment, the freedom and the conversations.' I've been inspired by Jian's resilience.

12th and 13th - good writing routine. Interesting how the writing itself remains an important part of the creative process - a part of the practice.

two day workshop with Stroud schools cancelled.

Writing-up field work going quite well. This blog has been so useful. Hard to imagine writing without it.

Writing - good news, the new 'shape' is being well tested and seems to be surviving with just minor amendments.

Folly Wood insurance and risk management creating email discussion - interesting from a 'micro-utopian' point of view - tensions with larger framework and interested bodies.

Weave meeting with Max to discuss way forward in light of the Town Council having decided to produce a Town Design Statement or Landscape Character Assessment for the time being instead of a Neighbourhood Plan. We took it in turns to draw a diagram of what role the Weave might play.

meeting with Alison, Sue, Jacqui, Dianna, Glenn and Gordon. Discussion on our relationship with the Derby walk and what next. Agreed to collectively write-up our individual thoughts as a 'learning history' and present it to the Transition towns as a hand made book.

Dianna described her success at Northleach with the Old Prison/museum. We discussed her facilitative role - building relationships.

Heard fromJian, Chinese artist and friend that he is in England and would like to visit the week after next. Wrote a short note about Vision 21 meeting and Derby Walk - woke-up with a clear idea for how to progress.

Lunch at Avebury Extremely wet walk around the stones and to Silbury Hill with Helen, Kel, Lucy, Fiona, Claire, Clare, Tara and Bart. Passers by kept asking if we'd seen the latest crop circle which had appeared on the internet.

A bit wet for drawing and even taking photos. Good conversations about history, farming and biodiversity.

more reading and writing. Still clarifying overall shape of the writing. Breaking it down to make more manageable. Putting on paper to help see it all together rather than hidden away linearly in the depths of the computer's hard drive!

With reading and writing together, I'm still coming across things which effect the overall shape. Re-wrote the structure later today and feel its far more robust - and manageable. Circulated new shape to tutors.

Provided images to Intellect Publications - needed to reformat and re size them all. Planning for Friday's walk and more writing. Evening meeting at Folly Wood - rather dominated by insurance issues - corporate manslaughter...

there's going to be a lot of this. Also a bit of thinking about external examiner and proof reading Watery Landscapes. Also read all submissions to Practice Makes Perfect Symposium and emailed SAGE about possible publication from symposium. Bits of organisation about First Friday Walk too.

updating this site and writing programme for Norwegian walk

deadline for EoI in Derby book - submitted 'negotiated writing' piece with Sue Porter.

Meeting with Kel Portman to plan the walking workshop in Norway in July.

Discussions with Steve Roberts about 'I-Spot' and planning Festival of Nature walk in September.

Circulated information about forthcoming V21 learning group and Derby Project.

writing abstract for Derby book, researching into publications for SMU conference papers.

Workshop by Capel Mill with Woodcraft folk and Lucy Guenot, Helen Keating; finding materials, boat building in small groups, sailing boats, drawing event and hanging work in improvised outdoor gallery.

all day pilot show at Corsham Court - show, readings and discussion.

Interesting discussions about relationship between theory and practice in the context of next group project.

heard interesting key note from Daro Montag and presentatons from other phd candidates. Helpful too in terms of 'remembering' what not to leave out, e.g. my own motivation in terms of biodiversity etc., definitions such as Transition Towns, and not taking understanding for granted - e.g. explain the importance of the Guattari quote.

meeting with Sue Porter and Alison Parfitt to discuss Derby walk, in particular: 'closing the gap' - meeting with other colleagues to decide on how to 'complete' the project and in particular 'honoring' our commitments to Transition Towns folk. Also discussed two pieces of writing and in detail the outline chapter for a book from the @Affective Landscapes' conference.

hanging show at Corsham Court - left elements flexible to be able to respond to other artist's pieces - seemed important to me because, as we all had a museum box as the starting point, their was some sign of dialogue, which of course there had been over a number of meetings.

No disabled access

Meeting with Lucy Guenot to detail plan both the River Walks, that's with Woodcraft folk and High/Marling schools

planning and advertising July's FFW, in conjunction with the Ridgeway project - outing to Avebury.

More reading and writing about Derby Walk and Watery Landscapes.

gathering information, reading and writing for Derby Walk chapter

Hang piece in show.

with unforeseen intervention from xavi, need to re-make museum box which becomes a development of the idea rather than a 'copy'.

Meeting with Lucy Guenot and Karen Whitehead to develop ideas for River sketch book project with the High and Marling Schools

re-engagement for many with the progress in the wood. Summer solstice readings and celebrations.

making a start on writing for the Derby book/article. FInding additional references for watery landscape article following informal referee's comments.

14th, 15th, so many 'bits and pieces' about all projects...

Making work and presentation for WIRAD symposium.

Tutorial at Swansea Met. with Prof. Andrea Liggins and Dr. Catrin Webster. Planning show and timetable for writing.

updating this blog, downloading sound and images from Derby walk.

Cheltenham to Stroud with Lindsey Colbourne and Alison Parfitt as far as Cranham, then with Helen Keating and Martin Large to Stroud, via Folly Wood and with Kel Portman up and over Painswick Beacon.

Reminiscing, returning home, finding local scale within a regional landscape.

Winchcombe to Cheltenham with Julia Bennett and Lindsey Colbourne, meeting Glenn Hall, Alison Parfitt and Sue Porter to walk through Cheltenham.

Being in the moment and thinking of the future and the past.

Evening meeting with representatives of Transition Cheltenham, Alison and Morgan.

Chipping Campden to Winchcombe with Julia Bennett, Lindsey Colbourne, Tom Keating and Alison Parfitt. Scents, science and art. Met Sue and Glenn briefly but not Kel.

6th and 7th - Up dating after a long and busy time - one weekend at home since March.

planning and arranging last leg of walk - Chipping Campden to Stroud along the Cotswold Way - with Julia Bennett, Lindsey Colbourne, Glenn Hall, Tom Keating, Martin Large, Alison Parfitt, Sue Porter, Kel Portman. Conversation with Transition Cheltenham arranged by Alison.

writing-up draft programme for symposium.

Kel Portman led walk around Edge and the Pitchcombe valley with Ffin, Lucy, Bobbie + Bobn + and son, Kate, Martin Large, Sally Lester, Claire Nayegon, and Debbie Locke. Noticed that the conversations with others had an affect on my work - not so much an influence as motivation. After a few warm-up drawings I became interested in drawing on the move, 'capturing' glimpses of what I was walking through, towards or around.

submission for WIRAD symposium

Making amendments to previously submitted article.

25th and 26th May: 'Affective Landscapes' conference. Presentation with Sue Porter. Also there with Alison Parfitt and Glenn Hall.

Burton on Trent to Derby

Making Museum Box piece for the 'Space, Place and Practice' show in Corsham Court. Also writing description of the process for inclusion.

Folly Wood core group meeting.

meeting with Sue Porter and Alison Parfitt to prepare Derby presentation.

Lichfield to Burton upon Trent with Gordini

Middleton Hall Farm to Lichfield with Alison Parfitt.

Shurstoke to Middleton Hall Farm with Alison Parfitt, Glenn Hall and Sue Porter.

Evening meeting with Eco Sutton.

compiling pages for article publication with Iain Robertson - three columns - 'outsider' 'insider/outsider'/place, words and images.

Alcester to Shustoke with Alison Parfitt, Glenn Hall and Sue Porter.

Alcester to Henley in Arden with Alison Parfitt, Glenn Hall and Sue Porter.

Evening meal and conversation with Transition Stratford, joined by Jacqui Taylor.

Chipping Campden to Alcester with Alison Parfitt.

Meeting with Ffin, Lucy Guenot, Kel Portman and Chris Smith. Visited John Piper and David Jones Exhibitions.

Continuing writing of Watery Landscapes article with Iain Roberts and Kel Portman.

Meeting with Max Comfort to review progress with the Weave, Academy of Urbanism and input to possible Neighbourhood Plan. Agreed that the Weave becomes an annual event to help pull together issues relating to the canal corridor.

submitted progress report and completed 'Vitae'. Also short paper on methodology.

Uncle Frank's funeral

Tutorial with Dr. Catrin Webster. Viewed 'Johny Cash' video - good possibilities for schools walk along the River Frome. Agreed to prepare a short summary of methodology etc. Also met briefly with Amanda Roberts about the September symposium and quickly with Howard Riley about papers coming from the symposium.

Gainsborough on horse back, Derby walk on foot and by wheelchair, Swansea park and ride.

Meeting at Compton Verney with Alison Parfitt, Sue Porter, Dianna Ray and Jacqui Taylor to see the Gainsborough in Bath exhibition and develop all aspects of the Derby walk.

further drawings to reflect on reading and writing. The choice of background reflects the slightly more grounded stage of the illustrated thought process. Three of forty eight images. Idea to make into a stop frame animation.

Further development of drawing process for Derby. Walk in le Desert des Agriates.Three of twenty one drawings.

drawing to develop thesis structure. These are three images of twenty with a word added for each idea. The sky provides a suitable backdrop for a fairly airy stage of thinking. The yellow pages (pages jaunes) are a comment on the written word as a being just a part of communications; the phone number enable real conversations. The pages represent the difference between understanding and information.

14th to 25th April; Reading and writing introduction to thesis

developing drawing process for Derby walk. Towards Monte Tollu.

Drawing over River passing through Ville Di Paraso to coincide with group over water in England - 10.20 local time to coincide with high tide/bore.

Rivers and Mediterranean to cross. Not the only person photographing the Durance and not the only person photographing someone else photographing the river.

More Rivers crossed

Rivers crossed - Somme and Seine

under the Channel - to coincide with Kel Portman over water in Venice

meeting with Jorun and Sue Reed about collaborative projects in Norway and walk to see Cotswold Lions, knitting and fleeces.

Visit to Folly Wood

preparing for trip to Corsica for writing and walking/drawing. More preparation for Derby walk and River projects.

River drawings, Wye walk and Lucy's and Tom's birthdays

Tutorial with Robert Newell in Swansea. River; project book drawings on the Wye

amended paper to Transition Towns, more words and imagesfor web site/proposal for River. Iinvolvement with felling at Folly Wood.

Final tree plant of the season. Start made on erecting the compost loo. Celebratory lunch

Meeting between Sue Porter, Alison Parfitt, Glenn Hall, myself and Seb Bucton, videoed by Glenn. On-going negotiations about River and SMU symposium.

preparing for Derby Walk and River initiative - writing article for Transition Stroud

planning and preparing for the walk to Derby and River initiative

planning for June show, discussions about work in progress.

Tree Planting - Andy, Jackie, Helen, Nadine and me. Great conversations - tree planting as a positive commitment to the future and trees as repository of the past. Bird song.

River meeting in Bristol. Project development and sharing of sketch book work plus visit to Arnolfini exhibitions. Left hand image below from video installation, part of an exhibition by Sophy Rickett, 'To The River'.

Revisiting the Vitae framework having reinterpreted criteria. Added to Amanda's timetable for the later phases of the symposium and publishing.

Stitches out.

10th to 14th, time in Swansea drawing with Phoebe, including 'Synchronised' over water photos, meeting with Amanda Roberts and Paul Woodland, tutorial with Drs. Rob Newell and Andrea Liggins and talk by Andrew Carnie.

Writing meeting with Dr. Iain Robertson and follow-up writing. Good progress. More questions than answers? Found a way to deal with this.

Writing and circulating Folly Wood AGM draft minutes.Downloading Vitae Researcher Development Framework tool and completing it ready for tutorial next week. Overcame problems with security settings and macros.

Making images for woodland pilgrimage animation. Good to be finding time to make work amongst on going 'relational management' aspects of my practice. I wonder why as they are all a part of the process? A feeling of completion perhaps? Although I know that making the work is only one step of many along the way.

Attended Dr. Robert Newell's lecture on 'Solitude and the Sublime' followed by a tutorial with him.' Situatedness of self in the world' as theoretical basis for landscape painting.

Meeting with Amanda Roberts about SMU Symposium - method and methodology. Unable to help with finances but agreed to chair event.

Interesting looking back over what was achieved today - so much is about keeping projects and relationships moving along. I am aware of a tension between project management/co-ordination and making work. Making work as a way of facilitating community engagement in landscape change. It very much reinforces the need to be a part of a team and to be clear about expectations regarding the length of any relationship - this carries its own issues as so much of the work is exploratory.

Preparation for and chairing of Folly Wood's First AGM. A good turn-out and three additional people agree to be directors. At the last moment I decided to convert the piece of paper that Lucy Guenot and I drew tree's on into the agenda/presentation sheet. The idea being to bring the woods into the room.

Responding to Paul Fong's suggestion for Canal Forum to make joint submission to SDC on Core Strategy regards valley bottom option.

First Friday Walk to find the source of the Painswick Stream. Part of River Project for me both geographically and in terms of experimenting with zig zag sketch books as an alternative to drawing machine/scrolls.

Training on Mac with Kel Portman

Minor surgery at Stroud General. Reminded me of the similarity between the drawing machine and an electrocardiogram - the value of life.

just to say it happened

completing and circulating Directors Report for Sunday's AGM. Co-written with Ben Spencer. Thinking about how to make the AGM convivial and yet formal enough.

Tree planting, compost toilet planning and rope swing construction.

Warm, spring-like sun. People appeared happy to play and talk. Grace (11) had baked a cake. A convivial gathering. People very appreciative of the changes in the wood - "it looks loved", Jade.

Meeting at Folly Wood with Richard Lewes and Simon Penna about felling and timber conversion. Marked trees to be felled by Simon, hopefully this March. Doing it reminded me of reduction drawing, where there is say a charcoal field and a rubber is used to make marks. It was especially similar as the tree removal will let in light where other things can then grow.

Meeting with Tom and Kel to review Countryfile experience. We felt we could have been a bit clearer about what we wanted to get out of it, although recognised the need for flexibility. Also hadn't expected such a lot of involvement in post production. Over all felt it was a good thing for the arts in the Stroud Valleys - haven't yet seen the programme of course - and in particular a way to spread our message of being in the moment in the landscape.

Still more input to Countryfile - providing frames from animation for BBC to generate animation of suitable resolution.

Circulated River discussion Paper produced with Ffin.

Contact with BBC post production team about images and animation.

So interesting to get a feel of the resources available to the BBC for making programmes - what a great national asset. I can't help but contrast it with me making animations using a hand held sound recorder to interview people and at the same time taking photos of the drawings being made on the DIY drawing machine and then days at the computer making the animation. I have learned a lot about broadcast quality which has helped consolidate my ideas for future practice.

Preparing for Folly Wood weekend events and AGM.

In box: 17 relevant emails Sent: 17 relevant emails

Meeting with Alison Parfitt, Sue Porter, Diana Ray and Jacqui Taylor to develop ideas for the Derby journey and take on board people's aspirations for the journey.

A number of issues were discussed; an example discussed was the discrepancy between the scale of local projects such as community orchards and the scale of the global challenges around oil, water, food. Could our journey begin to help address this question of scale between community resilience and global resilience? Our original idea of animating conversations along the route would be symbolic of this weaving together.

A particular issue is the way that landscapes and water-scapes, the places in between projects, are often unconsidered. It is perhaps an appropriate metaphor for a journey into Derbyshire to say that the landscape is still 'mined' for goods and services as if doing so has no effect on the landscape or affect on people.

A strong thread linking Gainsborough's paintings and community resilience is the idea of taking food to market and common land.

Meeting with Adriaan Luijk about european networking of artists involved with landscape and rural development.Interesting research in the Netherlands - J.F.Coeterier - about how people both categorise and value landscape.

Photographic journey to the River Severn at Purton with Helen Keating, Alison and Roger Arnold. Each visit reveals new layers of how much this place is about resilience and thankfully, alongside the attempts to safeguard the land, the tidal Severn continues to provide a unique habitat for a wide selection of species.

Filming Walking the Land walk on Rodborough Common with director Mark Scott, presenter Ellie Harrison and crew, plus Kel Portman, Tom Keating, Chris Smith, Jilly Cobbe, Nik Taylor and Lucy Guenot. If used (we think 4th March), it will be interesting as it raises my concerns about art as entertainment and yet would be a good way of broadcasting the message. Not that there is a problem with art being entertaining - so long as it doesn't stop there.

meeting with Sue Porter, Alison Parfitt and Glenn Hall to plan for people's input to the journey and to develop "the offer" to transition towns. Route confirmed, clearer idea of who is doing what and strengthened concept of us all weaving our threads and what those threads might be.

updating website

Helen and I decided that the ground was too hard to lift the trees so instead cleared an area for future planting.I'm enjoying the pace and feel of making work on the ground rather than on a computer.

No one else came - interesting the effect of snow. Personally I love being out in it.

Met local people; young teenage lads out taking photos - nice chat. There has been a lot of national and local coverage of 'Big Cat' sitings lately and they were hoping to get photos of one. This appetite for a more wild aesthetic is interesting.

Sad news about friend and colleague who died last week - Chris was the leader of a team of landscape architects in Swindon who came up with this daffodil planting scheme in 1980/81

Snow - but the WtL meeting to develop River Project still goes ahead - see attachment one

Continued writing the Watery Landscapes paper and forwarded to Kel and Iain. Mainly a question of reformatting into our desired column structure - this was a very interesting way of interrogating our ideas. In particular it became clear that our observations were both about the WtL process and outcomes from the process as we experienced it. This seems to reflect the issues raised at the Swansea post graduate forum about research methodologies.

Afternoon spent with Kel and BBC researchers, Mark Scott and Leila Finikarides looking at the potential for art walking as a possible article on "Countryfile". Message to give is about experiential learning. Photographs reflect the gradual journey from in to out.

a day administrating most of the various projects, preparing and a bit of re-writing the academic paper about the Drawing Symposium.

Particularly welcome positive response from Seb Buckton about the links between the Derby Walk and Transition Towns. Water seems to be a theme that we have in common.

Circulated 'River' project proposals from Ffin, Suze, Lucy and me.

Tutorial with Dr. Rob Newell and Prof. Andrea Liggins. Agreed temporary change of supervision; while Rob is on sabbatical for the summer term, Catrin Webster will take his place.

Also post graduate forum with presentations by Amanda Roberts and Paul Woodland about the proposed Swansea Met. Conference in September with a provisional theme of: Methodologies in Visual Research - Practice Based and Practice led Research Models

Photo in the context of the paper Dr, Sue Porter and I are presenting at the Derby Conference.

Weekend at Center Parcs, Longleat. Interesting illusions of inside and outside created by "sub-tropical paradise", with "inside" places opening onto another layer of inside space. Similarly, the design and location of chalets makes the outside very apparent from within and landscape dominant over built form, increased by traffic free cycling for much of the time... and the snow

preparing for next Walking the Land meeting with River project group. Responding to invitation from BBC to contribute to 'Countryfile' programme.

Its interesting that my visits to see Dad in Cheshire rarely get a mention - yes, I'm not producing work for my thesis based on these very personal events, yet they couldn't be more pertinent to my line drawings, themselves a metaphor for time passing, my own home made electrocardiogram/"envirocardiogram". Which makes me think about my drawings as a kind of carbon footprint readout... Maybe this is because Dad worked as an electronic design engineer...

Writing article with Dr. Iain Robertson and Kel Portman about our first Friday walk to Purton. Interesting discussion about content and format of article in terms of intertwining multiple voices, including images.

Agreed to ask the publishers if the page layout could be three columns - observation, facilitation and participation - with common timings or distances running left to right.

Meeting with Max Comfort to discuss next steps about community engagement and collaboration with the Town Council on their Neighbourhood Development Plan.

Made a drawing together to help think through various ideas.

Tree Planting event went well - some sound recording - interesting realisation about how I was directing/discussing/advising people about where to clear and plant, thereby changing the landscape, creating new spaces etc. Where does this aspect of my practice fit in with a relational aesthetic, making art? Also very aware of ethical issues arising out of this and need to research this more.

Morning in Folly Wood with tree felling members of the group and preparing ground for tree planting on Sunday. Some sound recording for possible use in animation.

Discussions with Amanda Roberts about her ideas for Swansea Conference in September

Developed ideas and outline itinerary for Gainsborough Walk. I'm taken by the notion that we will in effect be walking between the Rivers Severn and Trent - the Trent historically being the boundary between northern and southern England. More an more thinking about locating a place as a part of its sense of place.

Picked-up on a piece of outstanding work for the Weave - Neighbourhood Development Plan - suggested agenda and meeting with Town Council

uploading more images for possible use in animation - my original intention had been to respond to the place and being in company. As I upload these images I am reviewing this.

Writing additional copy for the Watery Landscapes article in response to Iain Robertson's writing - this is the process that we've adopted.

Scanning tree rubbings for animation - as I do this. I'm still imagining/thinking about how the animation will work

Preparing for WtL River meeting.

Early planning for Norwegian Walk with Morten Clemetsen and Jorun Barane

Arranging Trees for Hawkwood

Visit to Slimbridge with Helen. Bewick Swans visiting. Great drawing opportunity. So much movement, so hard to capture. This as a part of the WtL River Severn project - interested in the comparisons between my walking journeys and bird migration. Through the woodland pilgrimage and Folly Wood project, I'm interested in the ideas of settlement and journeying, community and travel, sense of place as an inhabitant and visitor... this seems to be mirrored by bird migration. I'm particularly interested in Slimbridge's Crane Project in the Somerset Levels as this falls within the wider Severn Project.

This won't be included in my Thesis although the process is appropriate.

preparing for meeting between Joolz Bennett and family members regards co-habitation and Passivhaus

Making Amendments to Drawing Symposium article and adding to Watery Landscapes writing.

Discussing Derby Walk with Alison Parfitt.

emailing about Folly Wood tree planting.

"Watery Landscape" writing.

Outlining suggestions for Norwegian summer walk with Dr. Morten Clemetsen

updating blog and completing online tax return (with Helen, well Helen mainly really)

Writing session with Kel Portman and Dr. Iain Robertson based on our experiences of our First Friday walk of the year. Iain had written and emailed his initial thoughts. We all read them and discussed. We wrote again based on the discussions. We discussed each writing and then wrote again.

After lunch we agreed to our next steps having pretty well identified the focus for our joint writing and the overall shape of possible article for Journal of Arts and Communities.

First Tree Planting at Folly Wood. Upwards of 25 people planted, staked and put shelters on over 100 trees. Great soup and camaraderie.

Photos by Ivi Szaboova of Stroud Valleys Project

Heard that the proposal that Sue Porter and I had sent regards presenting at the Affective Landscape Conference in Derby at the end of May was successful.

Preparing a planting plan for the tree plant on Sunday. Adding hawthorn, hazel, field maple, guelder rose, bird and wild cherry, crab apple and wayfaring tree into the edge along Folly Lane - colour, scent, food, habitat, texture, variety..

Visit to "The Weaving Shed" in Stroud - ‘The Weaving Shed’ has been be set up in an empty shop in the High Street as a reconstruction from 1931, with looms, shuttles, fleece dye plants. Sally Hampson continues to ‘fulfill her dream of being a village weaver’ as SVA's resident artist will weave cloth from Kitty Lake’s travel journals from the Outer Hebrides. The Weaving shed continues through to spring. Check venue and SVA for opening times.

Visit to British Museum to see the Grayson Perry exhibition - Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman - with Vision 21 Being Feasters.

Centre photo by Glenn Hall

Weave Animation uploaded onto Town Council Website

Circulated next steps for the WtL Severn Project

Meeting with Kel Portman to review WtL website, blog and facebook.

Preparation for Tree Planting

Completed first draft of Drawing Symposium article

Tree delivery and heeling in with Seb Buckton and Ivi Szaboova of Stroud Valleys Project - great plants, lovely roots. Quite taken aback by the number of stakes and tree guards ...

activity day and experiment with new format 'core group' meeting. Thinking about artist as fire lighter, largely due to local writer and fellow director of Folly Wood, Martin Large's motto, quoted in his book "Common Wealth" that I've been reading- "Its better to light fires than fill buckets". For me, that would depend on the situation...

preparing to heel in plants at Folly Wood with Helen Keating, Keith Patterson, Andy Freedman and Ruth Illingworth.

family event in Manchester including a visit to my late Grandparents old home after a gap of forty years. Dawn from the train.

Preparing next steps of the WtL Severn Project

16 participants. Additional input from Dr. Iain Robertson. Walk along the Severn and Sharpness canal and around the Purton Wrecks, in particular looking at our process regards representing resilience in a watery landscape.

3rd, 4th and 5th Writing an article following November Drawing Symposium for for possible publication in the Journal of Visual Arts Practice.

Email dialogue with Dr. Iain Robertson about his input into our upcoming First Friday Walk and the ensuing article for possible publication in the Journal of Arts & Communities.

Attempting to finish the Christmas cake.

work planning and uploading website

uploading images to Flickr

Walk with Keith Patterson through Hawkwood and Folly Wood; discussed poetry, gardening, vegetarianism, aesthetics and guitar playing.

trip to Cardiff Museum to see Ffin and Joseph Beuys and David Jones exhibitions.

Very interesting to see Beuys' work in the context of contemporary situationist work and relational art. For me t particularly raised the question of me making more use of contemporary social media in ways that continue the thread of "everyone as artist", but would need to address sensitivities around "self promotion".

While I find many of his images intellectually interesting, I find it hard to respond to many of them emotionally. The pieces I most responded to emotionally were those showing his work with the White Horse and Coyote. I've been thinking a lot about white horses in the context of Ridgeway Project.

First walk from Barbury Castle to Avebury via Overton Hill and Sanctuary

Weave Advisory Board meeting with Max Comfort, Dr.Val Kirby,Cllr. Ben Spencer, Neville Nelder and Stella Yates.

Folly Wood Christmas card printed.

Submitted abstract for University of Derby "Affective Landscapes" Conference

Walking the Land Seminar with Kel Portman, Tom Keating, Suze Adams, Ffin, Lucy Guenot, Chris Smith, Dr. Franz Krauze and Martin Large. Great range of work and ideas. Agreed on Severn based collaboration.

still finalising Derby abstract, meeting with Dr. Sue Porter and Alison Parfitt. Making card for Follywood, lecture/improvised performance at UWE - Dr.Rachel Sweeney and Marnie Orr. Improvisation and being in the moment.

finalising abstract for Derby Walk, planning Follywood tree planting and Christmas card. Inviting people to Ridgeway Walk. Writing Thesis

Meeting with Ivi Szaboova to discuss woodland planting programme for winter/spring.

A day of storms and very high winds - boughs crashing down - wished I'd taken sound recorder. Photographs do not show this.

Further developing ideas with Dr. Sue Porter on the walk to Derby - see attachment

Weave advisory Board agenda

Writing about landscape planning aspects of Thesis

Reading Nicolas Bourriaud on Relational Aesthetics

Tutorial at Swansea Met. with Dr. Rob Newell and Prof. Andrea Liggins. Discussion about suggested work programme. Suggestion that agreement should be sought to make Thesis between 45 and 50,000 word.

Interesting discussion about square format photos and use of this blog as part of the thesis.

Time to write-up the landscape planning and localism aspects of the research.

Web training with Tom Keating and Ben Spencer, updating Folly Wood website

Telephone conversation with MAx Comfort re. Weave Advisory Group Meeting

Updating this website

Walk from Stroud through Hawkwood and Folly Wood and back with Kel Portman,

Meeting with Max Comfort and Dr. Val Kirby to discuss the Weave Advisory Board.

skype with Dr. Sue Porter exploring common ground around some of the themes coming from the Gainsborough Study Day in the context of "Affective Landscapes"

Attendence at meeting on the Localism Bill and in particular on Neighbourhood Development Plans as the production of such a plan is likely to be a response to the AoU visit.

updating website

Presentation of cheque to Severn Area Rescue Association. Funds raised in lieu of commission to The Old Passage on sales from recent Waterways exhibition, curated by Walking the Land, on the initiative and effort of Kel Portman and Sally Pearce. Photo by Kel Portman.

Following earlier work on the River Severn and involvement from Kel in an earlier conference, WtL were invited to join a group of academics and artists in writing for the Journal of Arts & Communities. We planned a walk with Dr. Iain Robertson for 6th January in a flooded place to look at Resilience, Representation and Embodiment.

meeting with Ben Spencer to discuss next stages of Folly Wood, implementing links between the Canal and Museum and our PhD theses. Commonality over working with people and existentialism.

delivery of event. Walking, talking and photography with workshops to site building etc. and develop design principles.

final preparation

writing draft thesis - reflecting on practice so far, recognise that phase one is complete. Has helped identify the following needs/next steps:

make a "prospectus" for Weave phase 2 for local use

have started uploading work onto Folly Wood website

have started to plan long-distance walk taking on board learning from woodland pilgrimage

have planned seminar with WtL first Friday walkers to share learning

am looking into upgrading computer to cope with as yet unmade animations

Drawing Seminar with Professor Howard Riley, Associate Professor Mary-Ann Kokosa, Richard Monahan, Drs. Natasha Mayo, Rob Newell and Catrin Webster. Regards my own presentation, helped me identify some gaps in my thinking and information presented and some superfluous information.

Final preparation for Drawing Symposium at Swansea Met.

Presentation of "Museum Box" project at UWE. Making links with next steps of the Weave project by clarifying relational, participatory process and identification by AoU of raising the awareness of the Museum in relationship to the canal.

preparing for Place, Space and Practice Forum, Architecture walk and Drawing Symposium

Gainsborough in Bath Study Day at the Holbourne Museum, Bath. Serendipitously, the exhibition will be at Compton Verney over the time that V21 colleagues had agreed to meet as a part of the walk. Looking for threads from Gainsborough's drawing practice to my own.

A week of reviewing, writing and planning next steps for projects, such as: walking the land first friday walks seminar and collaboration, Ridgeway walk and collaboration, Derby Walk and collaboration.

Walk to Nailsworth with WtL

Developed ideas for walking as a process to develop ideas with an architectural design team.

Writing weekend in Laugharne with Sue Porter, Alison Parfitt, Diana Ray and Jaqui Taylor. Focused on project at Northleech where the local authority appears to be imposing ideas without due community engagement in the process. Serendipitously: museum focus. Archive as sense of place.

Academy of Urbanism visit day two. For my practice, the two elements that came through strongly were: to develop the physical and cultural link between town and canal and museum and to work in the context of community area plans.

Academy of Urbanism Visit day one

Preparing for the Academy of Urbanism visit - planning guided walk and making presentation. Briefing people.

Inaugral meeting of Transition Town's ESI, led by John Meadley, Representing Wtl, the Weave and Stroud Nature.

Reading Merlot Ponty on the train and drawing with quotes in mind.

Interesting presentation from Dr. Catrin Webster who shares walking as a part of her practice and community engagement A lot of the painting appeared to be questioning painting. Surface representing texture... photographic in a way.

Tutorial with Dr.Robert Newell. Drawing as community engagement and performance. "Rea"l experience - resonance between subject and object. Gerard Manley Hopkins - inscape, instress. Spinoza - transcendent, A.N. Whitehead - the experience in the moment. Beuys.

Preparation for AoU visit and presentation.

meeting with Sue Reed whose practice led Phd research at Derby is about space, event and body with her work being walked and knitted. Especially taken by stories of miners knitting while walking.

Meeting with Lizzi Walton to plan presentations on the arts for the AoU visit.

Meeting at the Exchange to detail plan the Academy of Urbanism visit with Carol Garfield, Max Comfort, Steve Roberts, Gerb, Stella Parkes, Lizzi Walton, Val Kirby and Kevin Cranston.

First Folly Wood activity day. A good turn out with people taking responsibility for designing a compost loo, play features, paths and tree felling and planting.

Visit by Norwegian World Heritage Site team and agricultural college staff looking at Landscape and community engagement. Interest in using the Weave animated drawing process. Good discussions about embodiment with Sue Reed. Walked across Rodborough Common and into Stroud, through the farmers market experiencing Stroud's first Apple Day. A successful way of linking ideas of town and country, people and place. Photos by Jorun Barane.

Meeting with Tom and Kel to plan seminar. I recognize the difference between working with the first Friday walkers and other people in the community - First Friday Walkers is a Wtl project, while my work following on from the seminar will be with other people. Our 100 mile walk was/is a hybrid.

writing-up notes of AoU visit.

Academy of Urbanism public open meeting. Arranged with Max Comfort of Stroud Commonwealth and Carole Garfield of Stroud chamber of Trade. Not very well attended but good discussion and commitment from some good people - Lizzi, Stella. Gerb, Steve, Alan and Val.

The Weave has developed its own momentum and my role has shifted. It needs to shift again towards my initial intention of working with the wider community through drawing. The AoU visit will provide further framework for this work or point to the need to be outside of the processes.

Tutorial with Dr. Robert Newell in Swansea. Discussed submitted introduction to Thesis and book of reflective drawings. A number of the reflective drawings have been made on boats and trains and other journeys. I've been thinking about how this relates to walking and drawing to develop an understanding of a sense of place. The later is more about the performance of drawing and is done with other people rather than making drawings of them.

preparing for the open meeting and Academy of Urbanism visit. Briefing Lizzi Walton from Stroud International Textiles.

11th and 12th October - preparation of slides and presentation to symposium at a post graduate forum from across Wales. Noticed the commonality with production designers engaged in consulting potential users on the designs of a range of goods. Also noticed differences which suggest to me some differences between design and what I'm doing.

11th September until 10th October,

good to be in a different place, a different culture and language. It helped to focus and shift perception.

11th September until 10th October,

reading, writing and drawing on Corsica - using drawing as a way of questioning and understanding. Also videoing as a way of seeing.

Unfortunately pretty shattered by the day of the festival but did use "mother nature's drawing machine" to invite people to make drawings around the festival site and made some sound recording. Interested in capturing the aesthetic of the event and some of the ideas behind it.

Most people I approached were happy to join in and draw and liked the machine itself, on the whole people were amused by it. I didn't lead specific walks, just hung around with the machine, walked with it and engaged people as I came across them.

A surprising aspect of the "performance" was my "invisibility" amongst so many parents with their young children in similar buggies to the one I'd converted to the drawing machine.

Took hours to dismantle the festival. Really felt as if I was doing too much at the expense of making the most of the opportunity to make a drawing. However, this is the nature of co-researching with communities.

setting-up festival site, marquees etc.

7th and 8th - making drawing machine for festival of nature and preparing for Weave Advisory Group.

Have moved away from the idea of the drawing machine being based on Edwin Buddings original lawn mower - the idea of "mother nature's drawing machine" seems a simpler message for the Festival of Nature.

Meeting of Weave Advisory Group

Preparing for Corsica

led a Rodborough Weave walk as part of the walking festival. No photos, no sound though...l

Afternoon with Ben making parts for drawing machine

Meeting with Kel Portman and Suze Adams.

Nature and Nurture Walk. Led by Steve Roberts. Opportunity to make some work - video and sound - this work is the next phase of Weave walks.

Led by Lucy Guenot and Valerie Coffin-Price (Ffin) as a part of the Stroud Walking Festival. Walk was at Critchley Hill Country Park and focused on the writing of Ivor Gurney.

Great that other people had led the walk. Also a stunning day and opportunity to make some work. Video and sound.

Aired the idea of a joint exhibition as part of PhD show

Preparation for Weave Advisory Board and Festival of Nature

Meeting with Ben Prothero, artist blacksmith to make drawing machine - also more reading, writing and amending animation.

Interesting to work with Ben in the context of making; I was particularly aware of how much he relied on making fine judgements by eye. As part of the process I bought some drive belts in a specialist shop in Gloucester (AC Belting) and had an interesting conversation with the shop keeper about standardization and deskilling of sales people - "they don't know anything about what they are selling and just look at computers." This thread of ideas about making, real/unreal, standardisation is reflected in the reading and writing.

22nd to 30th - Reading and writing plus numerous minor amendments to animation. Also found a push chair abandoned on the edge of Gloucester which will make an ideal chasis for the Drawing Machine needed for the festival of nature.

Walk with Sue Porter around Lydney Docks exploring the liminal and other ideas of edges, boundaries and transition.

Wrting and circulating draft programme for Open Meeting

Making alterations to animation and uploading to Vimeo. There are still problems with the online version and I will need to review the way I either save the animation as a "movie" or the way I upload to Vimeo as the source material is as it should be.

In making the alterations I experimented with projecting my drawings onto live foliage and videoing the projection and also with projecting video of moving water onto my drawings and videoing this. My purpose is to emphasis the nature of being in a place, to directly portray the landscape. Technically the later approach was more successful but I want to develop the first approach as I feel it would be more direct and less obviously a collage or overlay, a real outside event in itself.

Large animations taking time to upload, useful reading time.

Meeting with Tom Keating about developing projects in Corsica.

Drawing with Seb Buckton in Folly Wood, exploring the relationship between cognitive and subjective appreciation of nature - marking-out and drawing/surveying species in various square metres of woodland floor.

Meeting with Max Comfort about upcoming public meeting

More reading

Drawing with Lucy Guenot near to the Heavens. Experimenting with using drawing machine so that the images scroll up and down rather than side to side so as to give a feeling of approaching something rather than passing by. It also rained and the drops on the paper are an interesting aspect for future exploration in terms of engaged aesthetic of place.

Walk with Kel Portman, Lucy Guenot, Anna Gillespie, Martin Clarke, Sally Lester and Steve Mansfield along the Ruskin Valley out of Nailsworth,climbing to Horsely and returning over the top into the Newmarket Valley.

We discussed collecting work from the walks. Thanks to Kel for posting on http://www.facebook.com/pages/walking-the-land/284723460929?sk=wall

2nd to 4th August

Making WEAVE animation and putting online. I have found fifteen changes to make, some minor, some more fundamental. There are a number of technical issues to resolve such as speed/length of captions. When put on-line, the space after the captions is decreased and all need more space after them. On the whole the animation is a few minutes too long and I've thought of ways to shorten it. The whole end section needs re-shooting to enliven it. There is an end caption which didn't show.

Arranging Folly Wood "into action" event and also a time to draw with ecologist. Its important to be aware of the time it takes to co-ordinate/facilitate the drawing aspects of the research. There are of course also issues of how these roles will be fulfilled into the future. It raises a question of "capacity building" as opposed to simply raising awareness and engaging people.

Thinking through role of Corsican project in relationship to PhD. Feel that it may be best to use it as a place for making reflective drawings rather than another series of walks with people. This would complement its role as a place to write.

Reading the Handbook of Qualitative Research and beginning to write about my philosophical and methodological framework.

After a time away and then ill, much to catch-up with - meetings for the Weave and Folly Wood to help arrange as well as catching up with this site.

Meeting with Val Kirby and Max Comfort to plan the next steps of the Weave. It was important for me to clarify my role in terms of my PhD research and to find ways of contributing whilst staying focused. Undoubtedly I will also "gift" time that falls beyond the strict remit of my PhD but this needs to be carefully watched and seen as "additional to" rather than "taken for granted". This relationship with co-researchers is a central issue to my practice as an artist/action researcher and I have been reading texts on it from the Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research.

22nd and 23rd. Preparing for and running Yoga and Drawing Walk with Amanda Sultan-Black. Collected images and sound recordings. Many participants said that they were nervous of drawing but the progression through breathing, stretching, slow walking, standing, listening, looking and drawing seemed to work well. There was an enthusiasm to do more. I felt we need a quieter wood - traffic sounds intrusive and constant making it hard to hear the wood.

Possibly the most interesting walk from an engaged aesthetic of nature point of view.

Walk with Tom Keating and Kel Portman to complete the 100 mile walk thinking. Decided that we would invite a number of people that we work with to a workshop in December where we will discuss our and their work - using the 100 Mile walk as our example.

Meeting with Erik Wilkinson and Seb Buckton of Transition Stroud to discuss their possible input to the Weave. Their interest is to work with local projects to produce an "audit of resilience". This seems to be very fruitful generally and in the context of my PhD in terms of researching cognitive and subjective senses of place.

Meeting with Steve Roberts, co-director of Stroud Nature. Organising the Festival on the 10th September, in particular the role of volunteers and setting-up an information tent - a place from which to start my and other people's walks. Also agreeing accounts.

18th and 19th. Making animation. Very aware of the time taken to make work on the computer compared to the initial time taken in walking, drawing, photographing and recording sound. This raisesimportant questions for my work about time spent outside and time inside, time preparing for events/meetings with co-researchers, time actually spent with co-researchers and time making work on the screen. Its interesting to consider the core, creative parts of the process - the idea, the drawing. making the drawing machine, establishing the network of people, walking and talking, making the animations, reflecting and reviwing, reading around the various theories...

The River. Walking the Land curated exhibition at The Old Passage, Arlingham. Sales in support of SARA - Severn Area Rescue. Good work from invited artists (see http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2231128 ) but I especially like the link with the Severn Rescue; a good link between the work and people using the River. The work I had in the show was not for sale.

Meeting with Kel and Tom, planning walks.

Folly Wood Core Group meeting - agreed on the next step for mapping the wood as a way of moving from the plan into action.

Reading the Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research and writing about research methodology and philosophical framework.

Visit from the Academy of Urbanism. Reviewing brief and developing plan for "diagnostic visit" later in the year. My reflection on this as an outcome of the Weave Symposium has lead me to review the effect of my drawing, particularly in light of the "External Perceptions" of Stroud exhibition and what I see as a return to "expert lead" processes or maybe more accurately, a dependence on "someone else" doing it for us. The drawing process has certainly been a catalyst to generate action but there is pressure to return to a more tried and tested (but not necessarily successful) paradigm.

The AoU "diagnostic visit will be process focused but for me there may be shortcomings similar to other Stroud community engagement events so it is important to put it into context and see it as part of an ongoing process. My efforts need to concentrate on the arts practice as a way of engaging more people in whatever collective vision is arrived at - developing a relational aesthetic based on a place sensitive approach.

Meeting with Rob Newell to discuss philosophical framework of thesis based on text previously emailed. Interesting that what I have been thinking/feeling/saying about what is and isn't real is core to much philosophy - so my practice which has been developing the importance to me of experiential learning (Rob suggests this is similar to a phenomenological approach) has lead me to explore these questions more deeply. The tutorial also allowed me to explore and voice ideas about the "shape" of my research - the theory and practice, the simultaneous broadening and widening of community engagement. I was taken by an egg-timer shape, with me holding it at the neck and choosing when to turn it - it was the shape that seemed to reflect how I felt the relationship should be - the introduction of tension, contrast, dynamism. Serendipitously, the Drawing Research Network had thrown-up a diagram of DNA as a description of the resonance between theory and practice. Thanks Nina Baker and Karen Wallis.

We also discussed the work shown on this site, particularly the "tree map" video.

Meeting with Max Comfort, Carole Garfield and Val Kirby to prepare for Academy of Urbanism visit. Making animation and uploading on Video.

8th to 10th making animations and uploading onto Vimeo.

Meeting with Max Comfort and Val Kirby to look at funding.

Ongoing work with Class 2 at Leonard Stanley PrimarySchool relating to their nature area. Preparing poster display for parent open afternoon. The original project, funded by The Ernest Cooke Trust, was aimed at using an arts based approach to supporting a class with a large percentage of boys and a large percentage of pupils with a range of learning issues by practical engagement in learning about the world around them and each other. They helped design and build a "cabin in the woods", used tools such as hammers and spades, weaved dead hedging, used digital cameras and computers, learned about wildlife, appeared on video and drew a lot.

Report to Stroud Common Wealth about the WEAVE.

July 4th and 5th.

Invigilation at "External Perceptions of Stroud" exhibition and writing about my research as an example of how the arts can engage communities and influence landscape change processes. The exhibition is off work produced by architecture students at UWE. Visitors interested in the work and it provided an excellent catalyst for a number of conversations.

The exhibition and associated meeting was hosted by Mills Cafe and organised by Max Comfort and Carole Garfield of Stroud Chamber of Trade and Commerce as a next steps in The WEAVE. The meeting was very well attended with both the leader and vice-leader of the district council and mayor and deputy mayor of the town council in attendance.

In discussion, it became clear that the assembled group, while interested in longer-term solutions, were keen to see some "quick wins", one of which related to signage, walks and gateways. I am left considering whether this should become a part of the brief for the next phase of research. There is likely to be a funding implication.

Meanwhile I continue to read and write about sustainability, citizenship and the role of the arts.

visit to the Park to listen to brass band and Stroud choirs. Visited SITE art exhibition and the Museum in the Park to research lawn mowers. The first lawn mower was invented in Stroud by Edwin Budding; an offshoot of the machinery used in the wool industry. I am hoping to make a drawing machine very roughly based on a lawn mower for a participatory drawing workshop at teh festival of nature. I'm aware of the (not very positive) links between lawn mowers and biodiversity but not yet sure if this will be the focus for the workshop.

network meeting - presentation of work - our places brought to Little Solsbury Hill. Toy record player and discs by Lida Ashe as a part of a remembered place, picnic by everyone, display boxes by Suze Adams, donated by the Natural History Museum.

Making work for Space, Place and Practice artist research group. A growing sense ...

as I garden I have a growing sense

not just a sense that it makes sense to grow food

but a sense of being

the feel of the soil, warm in the afternoon

the sound of the rain, percussive and loud

the smell of the plants filling the air

the taste of the fruit, mouth-wateringly fresh

and in seconds my eyes take it all in, colour, space and things to be done.

As I garden I have a growing sense of what is real

Making animation of the canal walk.

Development of Draft Plan - "Looking After Folly Wood". This has included a template at the end to enable people/groups to take responsibility and make decisions rather than being dependent on a central or otherwise controlling agency. Although my intention at Folly Wood was to explore the relationship between aesthetic appreciation and biodiversity in the woodland, I have been reading various texts on citizenship and participation in the context of sustainability and am also interested in the role of art in providing "the space" for discussion and engagement.

23rd, 24th.
making animation.

Developing programme for Yoga Walk with Amanda Sultan-Black and making flier. The idea being to use walking, drawing and yoga to develop the relationship between the inner landscape and the outer landscape. To use both drawing and yoga as ways of developing an engaged appreciation of place and developing thoughts about "disinterest" as a positive approach to aesthetic appreciation.

20th and 21st - making animation of Weave Symposium and canal walk. Aspects to include are: weaving, inside/outside, feeling and knowing. Overriding imagery is walking as engagement with place, line as both a route and representation of heart beat, light as both evidence of presence and nature/ photosynthesis. Light and line as an allegory for nature and human nature, internal and external landscape.

Folly Wood Solstice gathering and WtL Woodland Pilgrimage exhibition.
Aware that numbers of participants were a bit low. Taking stock of whether our process is as enabling as we intended.

People produced own tree rubbings in response to those exhibited by WtL.

Good discussion about woodland management principles.

17th and 18th - preparing for exhibition and gathering in the woods.

Developing thinking about the structure of the thesis.

12, 13, 14, 15th June. Development of WEAVE Advisory Group, Briefing for Academy of Urbanism, Papers Canal Forum.
New map for Folly Wood gathering and making work for woodland pilgrimage exhibition in the woods. Making and circulating invitation.

Meeting with Max Comfort and Val Kirby to develop the scope of the WEAVE. Discussions about the preparation of a brief for The Academy of Urbanism regards their Place Partnering, preparation of a Green Infrastructure Analysis, ongoing community engagement and fund-raising.

Walk with Alison Parfitt discussing, amongst other things, her involvement with re-wilding initiatives. To me the issues remains to rewild our psyche.
Planning meeting with Andy Freedman and Seb Buckton to prepare for the Summer Solstice gathering.

Tutorial with Doctor Robert Newell and Professor Andrea Liggins.

During the journey I was very aware of speed, passing through places in hours that it had taken me days to walk through the week before. The trees were out of reach, a blur rather than a world in which to slow down and become engrossed. A feeling of unraveling. A feeling I often get when driving over a route I've recently walked. Unraveling and somehow disrespectful. I'm not clear if its disrespectful of the place or the effort it has taken to walk.
Which ever it is, I seem to value the walking experience of place - whether I feel that the effort makes the experience more worthwhile or whether the value is increased because of the closer contact with what the place has to offer at a walking pace, I don't know. Theoretically, I could value the car and train journeys as much as I do the walks; I could consider the preciousness of the fossil fuels being used for example and enhance my experience by being grateful, even bringing a feeling of pathos to the experience. This doesn't seem to be a substitute for actual close contact with place. It seems as if this "knowing" is less immediate than the "sensation of place".

This chain of thought coincided with the discussion in the tutorial about the nature of photographs; whether they are of a place or about a place. For me this also includes thinking about the relationship between photographs, drawings, video and sound, especially as all are combined within the animations. On the woodland pilgrimage, the photographs I took, or in some cases asked Tom or Kel to take, were of the activity of drawing/tree rubbing. Some that I took were also a record of how it felt to be doing it. In terms of slowing down and sensing place, photography and drawing can share the aspect of stopping and looking. Both can also be a record of a fleeting moment, not seen but nevertheless recorded.
Digital photography is really the development that enables photographs to be so much "quicker" than drawing. Previously drawing was instant whereas the photographic process was slower.
Useful discussion about applied art and artistic intention. How to balance the purpose of the work with the artistic intention? I feel that the role of aesthetics in participatory art is what distinguishes art from other participative, cultural situations and events. Its as if the artist "brings" this aesthetic consideration to the situation, or maybe more accurately, holds responsibility for incorporating the aesthetic in life. As with much of our "silo-like" organisational structure, art has been placed in its own silo. Which is tricky because aesthetics are often thought of as secondary to aspects of life such as finances and technology and the art silo has increased this separation between people and aesthetics and in some cases has itself suppressed the appreciation of beauty and nature.
One of the aims of my work is to try to develop an exemplar of how this aesthetic appreciation of place can be integrated with other values.
It seems to me that it all comes back to really knowing as well as knowing conceptually.

5th to 7th June, Catching up with emails, downloading images from pilgrimage, getting used to not being outside all day.

Day 6. Edge to Folly Wood. We spend an hour or two strolling to Folly Wood to complete our circle of 112 miles and 105 tree rubbings. We made it, I could walk the distances and suddenly its over.

Day 6. Longhope to home. Our walk today feels like drawing a section through a map of Gloucestershire. We climb May Hill and see the River Severn almost everywhere, turning,twisting and glistening - and in the distance the Bridge or is it our memory? We walk out of and down from the Forest of Dean and its red soiled hills. We see the Vale of Gloucester that stretches ahead, we feel the morning heat beginning to rise from it. We cross unmarked fields, following lines of trees where we guess the path used to follow a hedgerow, pushing, swishing through the crop, both annoyed and sorry. We nervously cross railway tracks, appreciative of the high quality stiles and signage. We walk the Severn flood embankments wondering about the houses below. We cross back across the Severn again on Telford's original bridge and enter Gloucester's green space below the grey road system thundering above. We rub tree 100.

Gloucester has its own diversity, maybe not as biodiverse as the landscape we've crossed but ethnically more diverse. We complete our crossing of the vale and climb back into the Cotswold Hills, swapping the colour and hot tarmac of Gloucester for hot, colourful and insect filled meadows on the Cotswold Edge. We reach Edge and stop.

Day 5. Parkend to Longhope. A day in the Forest. Tree rubbing talks of trees for timber. Tom carries a developing photographic negative on his back, using sunshine and a solution made from flowers picked during the walk to develop it into a print - photosynthesis.

Towards the end of the day we take the wrong route and add a couple of steep miles to our journey, ending up on the wrong side of a hill. Shadow drawing of the hill feels like a similar response to rubbing trees. Throughout the walk we talk a lot about the signage being inadequate in many instances, not really executed with the user in mind, more as a legal minimum. We talk about being lost and finding our way and the similarities with the creative process - just when do we retrace our footsteps as opposed to remaining outside of our comfort zone? We have developed a good process with regard to our walking, especially where maps and signage have been lacking. But we are not adverse to be lost as another word for it is exploring.

Day 4. Elberton to Parkend After yesterdays walk of getting on for 25 miles, much on roads, including walking to the pub in the evening, I find the walking hard but have developed the ability to "get into the zone". So my approach to coping with the pace has developed from day one and I am aware of "being", but at times slightly apart from my surroundings.

The bridge crossing is fantastic and is a project in itself. We are already planning to revisit. In some ways it is the most elemental, even sublime of the places we have walked despite being built. I certainly would consider climbing almost any tree we rubbed over climbing this structure despite the foot and hand holds.

We walk through Chepstow and, until we reach the centre, only meet a dozen or so people on foot - most of these waiting for a bus into town. We are passed by hundreds of cars just during this short walk through the residential areas. How far are people driving I wonder. How many could walk instead if only time was on their side? If only they had allowed time. I know that more people drive to work or the shops than walk to them, but by walking into the town as a part of our 22 mile walk today, I really know it, really feel it.

Leaving Chepstow we cross the River Wye and climb into the Forest of Dean and the contrast with the mornings walk across the bridge is immense - I am at once aware of being in a different sort of place, one where forestry dominates, where the pace is so different from the road bridge, where settlements are set in woodlands rather than trees planted in town.

Day 3. Little Sodbury to Elberton. We discovered that Yate has been built over our route and so we spent too long walking on roads. We also had to cross a golf course - strangely over domestic and manicured yet slightly dangerous. We also had to cross too many fields that were unmarked or in which no attempt had been made to provide a footpath.Thankyou to the farmers and landowners who do mark these routes.

But it was the road walking that made me realise the importance of (well signed) footpaths and the like. I felt as if we were dicing with death on some of these roads and where else can we walk sometimes? Of course I know that roads are dangerous but walking them really made me know, I know that walking over twenty miles a day is hard, but doing it really made me know. This way of knowing and doing relates to my practice led PhD. It also relates to Pragmatism which is a philosophy based on learning by comparing theory with practice.

A footnote to this day and the following one were the glimpses we would get of the Severn Bridge, today in anticipation, tomorrow as a reminder of where we had been. Walking the Land work a lot with the River Severn and this crossing was important to us all.

Day 2. Tetbury to Little Sodbury. Each rubbing caries a story. Rubbing of a Highgrove Yew hanging over the wall talks of shared values despite class, privilege, power and responsibility. We revist and collectively rub Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides remembering our "Aboreality" project here at Westonbirt Arboretum about endangered trees and the follow-up digital exchange with Jian Lu in Shanghai. We rub dead trees, tree rings, timber trees and telegraph poles thinking of other values of trees and the temporariness of these huge, woody plants.

We get lost in the rain at one point and stray too far into Wiltshire - at this point the regular tree rubbing is comforting and gives us back some control over our predicament.

A foot note to the day is that in our B&B overlooking the Little Sodbury Hill Fort, we watch "Spring Watch" on TV only to turn off the invasive chatter and instead, on looking out of the window next to the TV see a Hare sitting on the outer bank of the Hill Fort, silhouetted against the darkening sky. As happens a lot on this walk, the sense of what is real is to me is heightened.

In terms of aesthetics, I wonder whether beauty is in the eye of the beholder or more about a process of being aware of my relationship with nature.

Day 1. Folly Wood to Tetbury. The entries for the walk is written after the event and some of the points are general rather than about specific days.The comments and observations recorded are limited to my thoughts on the walk, especially about walking and walking as a way of experiencing trees and landscape. So, sorry, no mention of where the best bath or shower was, nor where the best breakfast or most comfortable bed was, or even who had the best blisters...

Sense of anticipation setting off - looking forward to the experience and also unsure if I will be able to walk 100 miles in six days - or even complete day one.We won't actually know how far it will be until we've done it.

Within the first couple of hours we were walking through woodland I'd not previously seen and from time to time emerging to cross roads that I know from a car but now they are barriers to our movement rather than routes to our destination. Feeling rushed by the pace of the walking itself, the tree rubbing and posting. Less time to be aware of "being" than I'd expected. Seeing a lot that I'd normally stop to sense and/or record. We discuss the possibility of a variation on the project whereby we wear a video camera and skype direct to a screen in the SITE exhibition in the Museum. I think we only discussed this on the first day.

23rd to 28th May. Printing and framing work for the Walking the Land "WaterWay" exhibition at the Old Passage. The exhibition builds on the work of the Weave in as much as it continues to celebrate and explore the value of waterways in our lives. PV attached (RSVP). Designed by Kel Portman.

Developing animation from the drawings made in the Brecon Beacons and adding sound extracted from video made on site. I still feel that the part of the drawing photographed as stills for the animation are not necessarily the elements I would want to include - i.e. I need to refine the drawing machine to include the whole drawing. At the moment the machine is "making" random decisions as to what is included in the animation, To an extent I'm happy about this but at other times I'd like to have a bit more influence, particularly regards composition and content. However, I'm happy to continue to explore this relationship between me and the machine. This builds on the ongoing "Train Lines" series of drawings. This concept seems to be one of the underlying issues that I want my work to address. Individual and machine. I also see the ways we organise ourselves in a similar light - enabling and at the same time restricting. Individual and community organisation. This seems to be a core issue for enabling creativity in communities and for me, both are about individuals and nature.

Preparing for woodland pilgrimage, checking accommodation, route etc. Also developing interface with Folly Wood membership, inviting people to do their own tree rubbings. The idea being to seek "sponsorship" in the form of tree rubbings and to include any resulting work alongside the tree rubbings made every mile on the walk. Work to be exhibited at Folly Wood gathering on 19th June.

emailed Amanda Sultan-Black a suggested walk/yoga/drawing session for discussion. The question I'm interested in is the similarity between what Kant referred to as "disinterest" and the meditative approach taken by yoga which holds a distance between self and the world which at the same time enhances appreciation and well being.

Produced discussion document for Folly Wood core group meeting.

Also developed thinking and planning for Walking the Land's one hundred mile woodland pilgrimage.

thanking speakers etc. Some discussions as to next steps. At the conference the Town Council agreed to consider hosting the Weave Vision. My intention is to make an animation based on the Weave Drawing and sound recordings from the symposium. I intend for this to be the start of the content for the online vision. I am then considering taking this vision out to the wider community through a series of "artwalks", adding to it and developing a relational aesthetic.

Tutorial with Rob Newell and Andrea Liggins. Journey by train - the River Severn still attracts my attention. Questions about colour and choice of Chinese paper used with the drawing machine, especially its scale and similarity to toilet tissue. Is the disposable appearance of the drawing a meaningful statement? My own reflections on the appearance of the drawing at the symposium was similar in as much as it had been very much the outcome from a process rather than a product which the meeting focused on.

A number of analogies arise which seem to be about the role/purpose of the drawings, there meanings and their appearance : 1. can the drawing be seen as part of the weave of activity undertaken by the local community and if so, what is its particular and maybe ongoing role? Does it play a similar role to the warp and weft? The paper is quite similar in appearance to that used in sewing/tailoring patterns. 2. If the disposable nature of the drawing is to be emphasised, what would happen next? Is there an analogy to be drawn with flowers and their process of decay and the casting of seeds? 3. I am aware of the line in the drawings representing life, rather as with an elector-cardiogram; both its vulnerability and resilience - taking this further in terms of environmental fragility and resilience, what might reference to disposability or weft and warp be saying? 4. It feels to be about a creative driving force, some shared framework no matter how subtle and irregular, even invisible - maybe nature. Is it coincidence that this element of William Robinson's landscape design is currently receiving a high profile on the Chelsea Flower Show TV Coverage?

seasonal meeting of Vision 21 Facilitators network. Sharing writing, thinking and feelings about Pragmatism. Sue Porter, Joolz Bennett, Alison Parfitt and Jaqui Taylor.

Symposium: images showing Elena Marco from UWE feeding back with architecture students on their Stroud based project, Cllr. Ben Spencer introducing ideas for Apple Town and traffic management and informal networking

Setting-up at the exchange, meeting with Max Comfort, Val Kirby and Tom Keating.

8th to 11th: making work for symposium. Collating photographs from various walks, transcribing sound recordings of interviews, making presentation including video, sound recordings and animation. Finalising programme, attendee list, briefing notes etc.

making a drawing from First Friday Walk for the exhibition at the "Old Passage".

walk with drawing machine and sound recorder around the River Frome and canal behind Lodgemoor Mill. Tom Keating, Kel Portman, Lucy Guenot, Valerie Coffin-Price, Anna Spurr, Jan Thomas, Sybil Edwards, Anne James, Kazz Hollick

three days with students from Swansea Metropolitan University responding to place. As well as group walk, walked about a quarter of a mile with drawing machine undertaking a detailed observation and also a similarly close detail walk along nearby stream. Also videoed stream and working landscape.

Canal walk with drawing machine

Canal Walk with drawing machine

Finalising programme for the symposium. Liaising with speakers. Issuing final reminder and circulating papers to attendees/participants

canal walk with drawing machine

Canal Walk with drawing machine

reading, writing and drawing and arranging for future courses.

Visited Valerie Coffin (Ffin) Price's exhibition at The Oriel Canfas in Cardiff - INTIMATE CARTOGRAPHIES 1: Landscape Explorations. Walked and drew with Kel and Lucy through Bute Park and drew on the train. Exhibition map from Ffin's exhibition.

Walk with "drawing machine" from Ebley footbridge to the Lake at the Lawns.