Two Tree Island 25 September Helen Terry

Watching the tide turn

September 25, 2015

My previous visit to Two Tree Island a few weeks ago was at low tide, when all the mud was exposed. It was a damp, cool day and everything was grey and green. Revisiting the island today just after high tide, in glorious sunshine, it was all pale blue, grey and silver.

When I arrived the channel was full of water and I walked down the slipway to the water's edge and spent some time looking up and down the river. It is a long slipway and standing at the end, with the water lapping my boots, I could almost trick myself into a sense that I was standing in - or even on - the middle of the river. The water was mirroring the sky but was clear enough that at the same time I could see the bottom and the fish moving within it.

After a few minutes I turned around and was amazed at how much had changed behind me while my back was turned to the island. The edge of the island was emerging from the water, but not all at once. The mud is shaped by the waves into ripples, a simulacrum of the surface of the water itself. What I could see were the crests of these mud-waves which, as they emerged (to my eye), took the form of sinuous hieroglyphs while the water twisted and snaked between them.

As I watched, the relationship between solid and fluid was changing so fast that I almost couldn't see it happening. Positive and negative shapes enlarging and shrinking and shifting before my eyes. I mean, if I focused on a particular point of course I could see the mud emerge as the water receded. But everything was so mobile, the water, the reflections, the light; and as I gazed at the surface, there was simply a general impression of everything changing and moving moment by moment.

I like these ambiguities.

On the wall

September 20, 2015

Having spent weeks finishing pieces for the exhibition in Knebworth, it has been quite difficult to get back to developing new work. I moved furniture around; made cushions (at least that involved cloth); hung pictures; rearranged books ... productive, but displacement activity nonetheless.

At the end of last week, I took advantage of a day at the Committed to Cloth studio to spread things out. Sometimes it is really helpful to just pin everything on the wall, step back and look at what I have. The bigger the wall, and the further back I can get, the better.

I pinned up drawings, photographs and samples, some of which I hadn't looked at for weeks. Then I started to pull out pieces of dyed and painted cloth, looking for echoes - colours and marks that seemed to relate to what I wanted. Trying things out. Eliminating some options - developing others. Some of the accidental combinations that occur as I spread things out on the table generate ideas in themselves.

What works in my head doesn't always look so good in reality. Some of my initial ideas collapsed all too swiftly when put to the test. Frustrating ... but that's the value of doing this. After a few hours of moving things around, I had a stronger sense of what would work. And a list of things to do next.

Green and Grey

September 6, 2015

I have been doing lots of walking. In North Norfolk and closer to home in Essex. August was unusually dull and wet but there were still a few bright sunny days. But now, as summer shifts into autumn, the first mists have appeared ... and lots of rain.

Wet weather strengthens the greens in the landscape. Brilliant greens against all shades of grey. Walking through the pine woods at Holkham, the pouring rain turned the moss an almost lurid emerald. On another day at Cley, mists veiled the ridge behind the marsh, muting all the colours in the background - blue-greys, green-greys.

Back at home, two days ago, we went for a walk around Two Tree Island. A nature reserve, the island is tiny and sits in the Thames Estuary between Leigh on Sea and Canvey Island. Saltmarsh and mud flats edge its northern shore where it runs into the estuary. The skies were pale, animated by banks of heavy cloud - greys tinged with blue and even violet.

Observing the transition between silver water, grey shining mud and the grey-greens of the salt marsh. All kinds of edges.

Exhibition and other news

September 2, 2015

I raced back from North Norfolk yesterday to set up the exhibition with Clive Barnett at Art Van Go in Knebworth, Hertfordshire. I am delighted to be showing some new work alongside Clive, who shares my interest in mark-making.

Lines and Edges Clive Barnett Helen Terry

The exhibition runs from 2 to 19 September.

Secondly, I was honoured when Maggie Grey asked me to write an article for Workshop on the Web about my daily mark-making practice. This has now been published in September's edition (subscription needed).