The Spring Equinox is always a transitional period for me personally. While many people hunker down in the winter and enjoy the periods of darkness and cold, my African bones find it hard. I can’t wait for the hour to spring forward. I find the dark January hours a torture. Come April, projects swivel into focus and creative ideas become more intense. Perhaps I need the downtime of our dark northern winters and the seasonal travel towards spring to generate momentum. Watery walks around the Harbour connect me to my landscape, the trees and plants on the waters edge fine tuning my awareness of leaf growth and the turning of the seasons. In my internal world, winter walks have less intensive creative dialogues.
Robert MacFarlane writes about thought-movements, or ‘thought-ways’, “…ideas that have been brought into being by means of motion along a path’. He refers to Kierkegaard speculating that the mind might functionally optimally at the pedestrian pace of three miles an hour, and ‘Footfall as a way of seeing the landscape’. In Spring these thought-ways can be extremely intense moments, where ideas and projects roll in and crystallise with a clarity I cannot find in late winter. I find my creative path again having lost my way.
I’ve returned again to anthotypes. The timeframes and inconsistency appeals and is an antidote to the precision of photogravure. Phenolic Acid is found in most plants to varying extents and is part of the plant’s defence system against UV radiation. It functions as a defence mechanism against other aggressors (the pathogens, parasites and predators that plants need to defend themselves from). Phenolic acid contributes to the colour of the plants. Filtered out with a bit of help from alcohol, the phenols turn out to be light sensitive to UV. Which means we can make a light sensitive emulsion and expose the substrate to light. A camera-less camera. What I really love is the concept of closing the loop: nettle emulsion with a nettle leaf as the subject. Magnolia juice with a magnolia. You get the idea.
In my search for a practice that reminds us of our connection and stewardship of the natural world, finding a process with which to make images so simple and non-toxic feels celebratory. And Spring-like.
My nettle jus has had very long exposure times and is still making limited images. The green is very pretty though. I will have another go with perhaps more alcohol in the mix. It is not an exact science at the dimroom level. Phenolic acid in nettle jus depends on the plant, I imagine the terroir, the weather. I do not yet know if phenols rise and fall with the sap. I do know some plants are more phenolic than others. I’ve used both nettle leaves and a positive image to trial the system.
My next big purchase is a UV meter to measure how many units of UV impact how many coats of nettle emulsion. In the meantime, I’m eyeing plants in a different light. The connection to our growing environment and the dynamic characteristics of Anthotyopes are pointing me towards moon albums.
