Being present at the set

I woke up early feeling the energy that accompanies the beginning of an exciting day. I have a list of things that I will achieve today. Having not learned the lessons of the last week my morning list equates to a set of tasks that would sensibly take a week.

• Create an image of a badger in photoshop that I can send to the print unit to test out grayscale printing for quality and the textures of black that are possible. This takes several hours because it is so long since I used photoshop that I have to watch 3 tutorials before I can start work on the image.
• Borrow badger images Take my kind friend Kay up on her offer of downloading her badger photographs from her computer for my experiments. I forget that this will involve a cup of tea and a chat and a cuddle of Skye her sick dog
• Retrieve SD card from hide at badger set and try out the hide for drawing in. This is my first unaccompanied walk to the hide. It takes me a while to prepare – flask of tea, drawing materials, wait for a break in the rain, suitable clothing i.e. wellie boots, comfy mud and barbed wire proof trousers, jumpers and a mac. It is early afternoon before manage to complete all of the above and set off. I try a new more direct route. This way I can avoid bumping into neighbours who may be curious about what I’m doing, walking without my dogs. I don’t want to tell anyone except Kay that badgers live close by. The difficulty with this route is that it traverses 6 barbed wire fences and burn that is cut so deep into the rock that it could be called a small ravine. By the time I arrive I feel sick and dizzy with the exertion, perhaps I am not better yet. I climb into the hide and sit until I recover well enough to unpack my drawing materials and my flask. Thank goodness for the tea. It makes all the difference. It is peaceful. There is a damp smell of autumn. I sit. I wonder if my need to draw, to have a project is a distraction from just sitting in the moment, what is it to be? Why am I trying to capture this? What is this? A few minutes indulging in existential crisis is enough. Its not fun. My intention was to experiment with sitting with the land and draw for the purpose of deepening my understanding of what it is to live with the land and with the others that live here. Trying to figure it all out without the doing of it is pointless. Drawing is very enjoyable. I forget time. I choose a view of trees that is directly in front of me. The hood of the hide, which helpfully keeps the rain off, frames the gaze. It is messy, unkempt, wild. My eye and hand have been trained in thinking of drawing as an aesthetic exercise. One to please others in their role of audience. I struggle against the conditioning. I want the page to be an echo of the damp, of the smells of the unvisited nature of the wood by human beings. When I get home, I show Simon my sketches. It seems I have achieved something of what I wished. He says that they are messy and not very appealing. I think that pleases me.
• make an ecoprint of the badger environment, who am I kidding? Its dark when I get home. I am exhausted that will have to wait for another day and anyway it is a full day’s activity in itself

The retrieved images from the wildlife camera are wonderful. So exciting. There is a small doubt about whether I am endangering these wonderful animals by visiting them and documenting them. I’m too tired to really address the matter today.