It has been twelve days since the end of The Labyrinth and the Dancing Floor, the short course I attended at Dartington, and I have only just begun to process everything I saw, felt, heard, and learned. I will be weaving those five days into my life for a long time yet. Perhaps the most impactful thing I was taught during the course came from Caroline Ross. An artist and author, Caroline creates all sorts of marvellous things from found and foraged materials. Among her many crafts is the art of cording- making corded thread or rope.
We started with fathoms of old rags cut from t-shirts and I found myself utterly frustrated. I really wanted to be good at it, but my cord kept unravelling. Thankfully it didn’t take long for Caroline, who is an incredible and generous teacher, to notice I am a lefthanded and to give me the guidance I needed to make it work. It was instantly engrossing, and I only stopped because something followed the t-shirt rags that was even more bewitching: Natural Fibres.
Caroline filled the room with treasures, cord made from seaweed and rhubarb, from pineapple and foraged wool. Nature tables of the finest kind, all laid out enchantingly and temptingly. Then she took us out into the grounds of Dartington and showed up how to assess if a plant can be used for cording, introducing us to vines, brambles and stinging nettles.
I am genuinely afraid of nettles. I have been stung horribly in the past and can have terrible allergic reactions that last for days. I avoid nettles at all costs, scared to even walk near them when hiking. Over the last few years that fear has been battling with my curiosity as I learn about foraged food. Nettles can be eaten, have huge health benefits, and I’ve found all sorts of nettle recipes I want to try. But I haven’t been brave enough to pick them or to bring them into my kitchen.
Suddenly there was a whole new thing one can do with nettles, as the fibre from the stalks make incredible cord. Thankfully Caroline had brought along a dried bunch which were no longer able to sting me. And so, I excitedly began what I now know is going to be an intimate, if cautious, relationship. I spent the rest of the day making nettle cord, not stopping even as I walked back through the woods to my little room. It turns out I can cord and walk at the same time without looking at my hands!
You might have noticed in my Love Letters series that one of the things I get most excited about when creating art is the physicality of it. Using my hands to mould or shape, holding glorious tools, being physically engaged in the act of making. It is the common thread through all the art forms I work with, it is why I shoot on film and enjoy sculpting in plaster or wax. It is what I love about bookbinding. I rarely end a day of creating without messy hands. I am a kinetic learner, a kinetic creator. I am embodied, involved, and more able to create when haptically engaged.
I have always known this, when writing about make art I am often to be found clenching and unclenching my hands, stretching my fingers, rubbing them together as I try and find the language to explain the importance of being creatively hands on. I’ve not yet found the right words.
Even knowing all this, I was surprised by the powerful impact of cording as I walked. Walking has been a central part of my art for years now. It is one of the pillars of my creative process, and one of the subjects of my work. I hike with my camera and a notebook. My feet and body are engaged. My eyes are engaged. I am looking and seeking, capturing, moving, and trying to understand. My mind is also engaged but still not entirely there. Though I am thinking about my photographs, thinking about the climate and environment, thinking about my art, my mind still wanders, strays to other things, worries and questions interrupt my ability to be with the moment and the land around me.
Cording changed all that. The act of creatively engaging my hands in my walk quiets the busy parts of my brain. Suddenly space opens up to listen more closely, to see more clearly, and to think more creatively. It was an incredible thing to have happen, and I can feel the power and potential of it calling to me.
Going on this short course, journeying the labyrinth and the dancing floor, slow walking and cording, beginning a journey of embodied creative practice, was a truly transformative experience. I have reclaimed by hands and feet, and now I want to take them for a walk.
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