Notes from the Labyrinth

An experiment in non-linear time and randomness

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David Nash

A post on the work of sculptor David Nash. Ash Dome and Wooden Boulder have both been influenced by chance and their environment, albeit in very different ways.

David Nash’s King and Queen sculpture at Kew Gardens Photo by Sue Lowndes

David Nash is a British sculptor and land artist whose work I first encountered in verbal ‘translation’ in Roger Deakin’s Wildwood.

Ash Dome, whose location is kept secret, is a sculpture that belongs in its landscape and is an active collaboration with nature. David Nash planted the ash trees in 1977 near his home in…

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Trail/Not Trail

Trail/Not Trail: A musing on a lost path in the Hebrides described by Robert MacFarlane and a non-trail hiked in Iceland.

The path for which I was searching led up the alley of rock and underneath Grionabhal’s face; these things I knew for certain. But I couldn’t find its line. What was it I had been told? You need to look for what shouldn’t be there. This path didn’t exist as continuous track: its route was indicated only by marker stones. But the terrain through which I was walking had hundreds of thousands of…

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Silence

Norwegian explorer, Erling Kagge, discusses Silence in his short and poetic book Silence In the Age of Noise. The book consists of thirty-three ways in which he musingly answers the questions What is silence? Where is it? Why is it more important now than ever?

A lot of things in daily life boil down to wonder. It is one of he purest forms of joy that I can imagine…Wonder is one of the most…

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Via Negativa: seeing deer

Via Negativa: seeing deer

Deer! by Steve Hanna

“Via negativa” is Annie Dillard’s term for a way of stalking wild animals that she finds very effective. She describes it in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and names after one of Neoplatonic Christianity’s two routes to God: Via Positiva and Via Negativa, which is the route that stresses God’s unknowability.

Dillard’s empties herself out in this way by retreating “not inside…

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Place and Exploration

“Our fascination with remarkable places is as old as geography…” Alastair Bonnett tells us from the beginning of Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities and Other Inscrutable Geographies. “Although our appetite for curious tales from afar has been continuous, today our need for geographical reenchantment is of a different order.”

A nameless (‘placeless’?) section of Big Bend

Bonnett goes…

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The Antilibrary and the Field Guide

The Antilibrary and the Field Guide

No, this is not about a fable of Aesop’s nor a romance set in the book stacks! The ‘antilibrary’ is a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book The Black Swan. It contains books about all the things you know that you don’t know, but are curious about: a personal reminder of how much there still remains to be learnt about the world. The shelves of unread books are an acknowledgement of the…

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Plant Life Our human umwelt can make it hard for us to fully see plants. In The Cabaret of Plants…

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Working on an upcoming exhibition during #fotofest #wip #lumen #lumenprint #altprocess #altprocessphotography #alternativeprocess #tillandsia #ballmoss #photogram #cameralessphotography #cameraless (at BOX 13 ArtSpace)

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@hillareehamblin and Grace Zuñiga @box13artspace On view Saturdays 1-5pm through March 3. #contemporaryart #sculpture (at BOX 13 ArtSpace)

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Botanical Garden, on view at @parisjuniorcollege Foyer gallery. #cyanotype #worldcyanotypeday #wwcd2018 #lumen #lumenprint #altprocess #alternativeprocess #botanical

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Moss ball #photogram #gelatinsilver #silvergelatin #darkroom #moss

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Good day in the studio/garden/bathroom. #darkroom #lumen #lumenprint #gelatinsilver #silvergelatin #alternativeprocess #altprocess #wip #studiolife #botanical

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Installing at #parisjuniorcollege #cyanotype #worldcyanotypeday #worldcyanoday #alternativeprocess #altprocess #alternativephotography #altphotography #altphoto #blue #blueprint (at Paris, Texas)

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Roots #photogram #gelatinsilver #darkroom #silvergelatin #blackandwhitephotography #bwphotography #roots

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Back to the darkroom. Photogram of Ball Moss from a Live Oak. #gelatinsilver #silvergelatin #photogram #blackandwhitephotography #bwphotography #moss

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"Strange fields", Cyanotype on watercolor paper, 2017 #cyanotype #altprocess #alternativeprocess #blackeyedsusan #botannical

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Blackberries, lumen print, 2017 #lumenprint #blackberries #alternativeprocess #altprocess