Watermarks

17th April - 26th May

Watermarks

Drawing Correspondence was founded in January 2021 by artists/educators Chloe Briggs, Tania Kovats and Anita Taylor as a response and contribution to a growing engagement with and sharing of drawing practice online. It is a structure that takes many forms and is designed to support participants at any stage of their practice in and through drawing. It is a way of forging connections and expanding a drawing community beyond institutions and physical space.

Many thanks to: Matthew Avignone, Gerry Davis and Jo Lewis.

Sarah Adams

Anne-Marie Atkinson

Agnes Becker

Barbara Cheney

Hanne Husa Dale

Ilona

Joanna Leah

Carrie Stanley

Rachel Welford

With a letter from:

Chloe Briggs

Tania Kovats

Anita Taylor

Brook, Barbara Cheney

North Sea, Rachel Welford

St George’s Well, Sarah Adams

River Wear, Anne-Marie Atkinson

Pond, Joanna Leah

English Channel, Ilona Skladzien

Stream, Hanne Husa Dale

Atkinson

English Channel, Carrie Stanley

Skladzien

River Great Ouse, Agnes Becker

Dear Watermarks,

We have spent the last six weeks coming into confluence. Our separate bodies of water have connected through digital currents, and through drawing. This has been a complete immersion into what drawing can be when we go out of our depth. You have bravely drifted on unknown rip tides and currents that have carried you to new shorelines.

Water is life; there is no life without it.

Drawing has its own conversation with water: washes,drips, stains, dissolves, floods, saturation, bleeds, melts, evaporations - and watermarks. Drawing materials can be divided into wet or dry materials.

We invited you to come and play in the puddles. Perhaps this was about noticing what happens when you turn on the tap, fill a glass, or how your body is when you are in the bath. Simply noticing how water moves through our homes. Some of you wandered outside to see what happens when you sit by the river, the pond, the tide pool, the edge of the sea, and draw. Drawing forms attachment. The more you study, observe, and draw water the more likely you are to become a guardian of that water, the stream, river, saltmarsh, or rockpool. Water is part of your rituals from daily tasks of washing and mothering. Or dawn risings and baptising of your sheet of paper in the water. There is the water flowing in your imaginations, dreams and drawings; and nightmares with the fear of flood, storm and drought. All these things collected in the sediments and drying marks you made.

We invited you to visualise your life as a river, from source to mouth. A river that flows like a lifeline. You shared the streams and brooks that have flowed into and out of your life, the obstacles you flow around, your blockages and dams, and the larger bodies of water you are heading towards, telling your story as a river. Any river has its own voice and narrative flowing through it, carrying the stories of the territory it flows through.

As you invited water into your drawing you negotiated with what you understood of your agency in the drawing. Having to wait for a drawing to dry, not quite knowing what will happen if you freeze or flood this drawing.

Water makes us ask the question: are you the artist or are you the brush?

What flows through you as you draw? There is so much to learn from diving deep into water, not least that each act generates a ripple of consequence.

We invited you to engage with your liquid self. Our bodies are two thirds water. As is the body of our beautiful blue planet. Our lives and our seas have high tides and low tides. All these things leave Watermarks.

As your drawings have traced these marks left by water, we have gone beneath the surface together. It has been a joy to swim together.

Anita, Chloe and Tania

SARAH

Pellucid as air, with myriad tricks, Invisible but for evanescent clues. An edge described by light, delicate, The trembling meniscus, tense, concave. Fleeting glimmers on the surface hint at form, Concentric circles race then disappear. Mesmerised by motion, I drink it in, while Suspended fragments drift, spin, and tumble, Giving the game away.

Reflections veil what lies within, Or may reveal a glimpse of shapes beneath, Distorted in this fairground mirror glass And magnified, viewed through the fluid lens. The true colours of sand and stone Varnished by a liquid skin, display Chimera, cast by flumes and eddies, soft. A shadow tracery of warp and weft at play, Then gone.

I trace the act of drawing water

From this well of passing phantoms, Ply multi-layered depths, illusions Spark reminiscence, recognition. I touch the surface, see it alter, And feel the moisture on my fingers. In ebb and flood of texture, pattern, The shapes that echo, lines that quicken May remain.

Tidal Pool

Mixed media on gesso panel, 50 X 40cm

Immersion (I dream of drowning)

Letter to the River Great Ouse

I watch your water eddy and surge up from some unseen unfelt force I wonder what is beneath deep in your murky depths where have you been before you came here for this fleeting moment a moment so fluid I can barely capture it on the page

the river under the river

which blocks have you flowed around what do you carry where are you in the channel the path the water the mud I read that although your banks and riverbed can be owned your water cannot I think you are the water filled with silt and run-off and sewage and ashes and pollen and fish and roots

am I like you in constant flux and flow feeling like I am owned and yet in the depths I am water I do not belong to anyone and when we flow to the sea do we reach self-actualisation as Minna Salami writes the ocean as time in constant flux or are we recycled again into the air the clouds the rain the ground water the spring the stream the river the mouth the ocean and back round again

I wonder if the water inside me is also you

I cup my hands in your shallows and carry a dripping pool of you up the mud and silt to the page and you run down spilling into channels finding a path

water to water

BARBARA

Saltmarsh,

No hills space to wander explore

Sheltered by Pebble Ridge

No favourite line

But vastness of Sky

The shock of Breach still resounds

New plants cracked mud channels pooling

Birds busy white flowering who knows what else

SSI diverse

Sea claims Land but wonderment

At Ways of Seeing how you change and adapt

And rejuvenate and blossom

Reinvention new composition

And a walkway helps us cross

Ridge

Packed pebbles draw a line

Tossed trees resting not recovering

Blackberries yellow determined green frames pink

Further along Lone Tree stands knee deep

In leaf

Still growing

Breach

Sea powers its way uphill

Insistent Sea broke through

Cutting sculpting channels ponds Lakepond

Flow transforming the grain of Land

Wetted grass overwhelm cows displaced

A leg or two could be sucked under

Edge

Spongy green snuggly edge

Safe with rabbits

Sea seems higher than Land

But Tide high it’s all one

And Breach is broader

Is Water really above me

Stream

Bobsleigh run racing down

Gushing rushing can’t wait

Singing vitality over stones

Pushing passing flattened past-it grass

Ripples meeting joining peaking parting

Division three clumps three stumps

To watery outpouring

To brush Sea

Where

Barn

Two trees stand high branches wide and long

Ghost whiteness against blue sky

Barn intact ‘keep out it’s not safe’

Stay out of Sea

‘Old wood’ technically dead but still standing

Trees retain community

Planted spaces character closeness

Rooted in waves of purslane

Charcoal watermarks

How they survive

Wonder

Tides

Tide creeps in unheard

Calm and still it deceives expands hightens

Then startles vacant Channel both ends

A distant boom on the other side

Another attempt on Ridge

Sealake surface smooth like ice

Clouded hills show their presence

Fields below a surprise water colour

Fine lines birds paddle

Undercurrent

Stream still flows

Waters meet

Smothered

Unperturbed

Lakepond flat then purple ripple glisten

Big crabs sea bass swimming in for fisherman

Time to change the water!

Tiny pink leaf at mercy suspended

Nudges a six-blade tuft

And minuscule movement negotiates a safe place

New that rooted can breathe again

That loose or made loose swept laid to trace Tide

With colonies of shiny white crablets

Upturned

Du Landåsbekken

Eg tenkte ikkje så mykje på deg før. Eg gjekk gjennom parken når eg ikkje gadd å gå langt men trong å lufte vitet (det blei ofte dei åra vi sat innandørs) kom med syrlege kommentarar om bilvegen som kuttar den av på midten, men meinte den nygamle mølla hadde sin sjarm og gjekk alltid Breivik si steinbru – over deg.

Ein gong vassa eg der det er stillast vatn (og djupast botn), men tenkte på deg som noko liksom-naturleg, konstruert tilfeldig, bølgjande idyllisk engelsk landskapspark. Så feil kan ein ta.

Du kjem frå fjellet ein stad, men er skjult under hus og vegar og fortau før du brått dukkar opp her ålar deg mellom studentar og joggarar kjuagutar og andre raudkledde posar med hundebæsj el-løparhjul og uidentifiserbare papirrestar gjengløymte hanskar og Mango-IPA. Du sit fast i steinar som sit fast i pinnar som sit fast i dei helvetes vedsekkane som ikkje eingong plastsorteringsanlegga vil ta i med ei ildtang og forsvinn like brått som du dukka opp.

Kor fer du der nede under supporterbrøla?

Gjennom ein underjordisk kanal og helsar på ånda til Haukelandsvantnet i forbifarten før du hastar vidare?

“Kan eg bli med?”, seier eg og glor som ein idiot nedi rista som skiller skit frå kanel og minst eitt vegarbeidsskilt før du forsvinn ned i mørkret.

Snakkast, då.

Eg sit berre her og prøver å feste deg på papiret, men viss du ikkje kan vente–

To Landåsbekken

I didn’t think much of you before. I walked through the park when I didn’t feel like going far but needed to clear my head (quite often in the years we spent indoors) and made snide remarks about the road that cuts right through it but found the new old mill sort of charming and always crossed Breivik’s stone bridge – over you.

Once I waded in at the deep end (in a quiet bend) but still thought of you as something contrived, artificially random, undulating idyllic English landscape park. Shows how much I know.

You come from the mountains somewhere but are hidden under houses, roads, pavements before suddenly appearing here between students and joggers kids and locals dressed in red and bags of dog poo e-scooters and unidentifiable bits of paper forgotten gloves and Mango IPA. You get stuck between clumps of rocks and sticks and those damned wood sacks that not even the recycling facility will touch with a very long pole and disappear as suddenly as you appeared.

Where are you going down there, below the roaring supporters? Through some subterranean channel briefly greeting the spirit of Haukelandsvatnet in passing before rushing onwards?

“Can I join you?”, I say and stare like an idiot down the grate that separates dirt from debris and at least one roadworks sign as you disappear into the darkness.

See you, then.

I’m just sitting here trying to pin you down on paper, but if you can’t wait–

Scroll, 10cm wide, of great length

Push Pull’ H:230cm W:260cm D:17cm

ILONA

To Water,

In the last 6 weeks, I have been watching you closely in different forms, while fulfilling my everyday caring activities as a mother. I have become more present when pouring you, mopping you, drying you, spilling you, drinking you, boiling you, cooling you, but also while bathing in you, swimming in you, washing with you, cleaning with you, rinsing with you, slipping on you and cooking with you.

As an artist, I have been examining your ways of working in a domestic environment while drawing, painting, staining, mopping, squeezing out and wiping liquids such as coffee, formula milk, baby oil and ink on baby wet wipes.

As a mother, I have been looking at my feelings of guilt in the context of my every day non environmental parenting choices and their footprint, when I:

waste you intoxicate you don’t consider you take you for granted ignore you contaminate you overuse you poison you exploit you abuse you pollute you don’t respect you

While trying to find the best ways to collaborate with you in search for these dreamy, sublime landscapes you have on offer, I began to see you as:

non repetitive repetitive non apologetic collaborative surprising predictable leading non forcing at ease forceful still in flux free limited suggestive concealing opportunistic respectful non sentimental deforming

Having begun to look at you as an element often contrary in nature, I am finishing the course feeling emotionally closer to you.

Yours, Ilona

Pond ‘moteur’

15 x 11cm

CARRIE

The storm drains flowed over that night expelling bright flights outwards..

At once were guided by the lay the swill and the sway of flesh folded rock

Bubble burp your way through milk trickle days of turn and rub of toss and hold

………..,,,,,, \ \. .,.,.,……,,,,

Your growth carves tributaries held by strong arms

fringes of fingers

wort and feather wave your passing

The gurgle and lurch sing your freedom.

Beach Morphology I India ink on waterproof paper, 32 x 22cm

RACHEL

Sea notes. A record of what I see, what I notice – me and my way of being, by the sea

18.5.23

Cayton Bay, 8.30pm, tide going out

Overcast and cloudy, light breeze, felt mainly on my cheekbones

A wide and open expanse of sand, mainly smooth

No-one has been here during this ebb tide. I ponder on being be the only person to witness the detail of this sand as it is now. It will be different next time round.

Water trickles from the wooded cliffs and spreads out across the sand, an expanse of reflective sheen.

It reflects the bright sky as I walk towards the water’s edge, but becomes dark, reflecting the woods, as I turn to look where I’ve come from. Other trickles meander their way round occasional rocks, carving channels and forming mounds of sand in repetitive but irregular patterns. Note to self - find out about the physics of this…

The sand on Cayton Bay is not uniform, some pale, some a gorgeous dark chocolate brown and sometimes black with larger grains. The map of the receding tide is drawn by the mixing of these sands.

Some tiny pebbles are sitting in hollows, the sand around them taken, the pebbles left behind. The colour of the sand changes to accentuate this – a pale arc around the top edge and a darker tail that points to the sea.

There are hundreds of worm casts. I am intrigued by their squiggly curves and draw them. About fifteen centimetres from each one is a small and perfectly circular hole or crater. Note to self – research the what and why of this.

I’m at the north end of the bay, and the waves here are gentle and lapping. The wind is ruffling the sea’s surface. The small ripples move north and are perpendicular to the pattern of grooves in the sand beneath them, making a lovely criss-cross. Further south the waves get wilder and begin to crash.

The tide is going out and each wave deposits its delicate border of foam and sometimes a faint line of sand. In the shallows the two-tone sand is being pushed to and fro to the rhythm of the waves, making soft-edged bands that are constantly changing.

I walk back up the beach to find the last wave line, a record of the highest wave of the high tide.

Biographies

The artist’s portraits were drawn by their peers on the program during our last meeting

SARAH ADAMS

Studied Fine Art Printmaking at GLOSCAT and the Royal College of Art, before returning to painting. Based in Cornwall, the main focus of her work is coastal landscape, with a particular interest in geology and the intertidal zone.

@sarah.padstowstudio www.sarahadamspainting.co.uk

ANNE-MARIE ATKINSON

My interdisciplinary practice includes installation, mark making, and digital media, often with a socially engaged focus, and asks how art can call in better futures and more authentic connections. I am based in Leeds and am a lecturer at Manchester School of Art.

@annemarie_atkinson www.annemarieatkinson.co.uk

AGNES BECKER

Artist, science communicator and creator of We Are Stardust - a place where art and science collide to enrich your experience of and relationship with our messy, beautiful universe. I create artwork that inspires connection with the more-than-human world and online adventures that encourage you to rewild your soul.

@wearestardustuk www.wearestardust.uk

BARBARA CHENEY

I am inspired by the landscape and seascape to make abstract and semi-abstract works. Current interests include flow, overwhelm, and boundaries meeting and being crossed; and environment and development issues.

@barbaracheneyart

HANNE HUSA DALE

Born and based on the Norwegian west coast, and lives in Bergen. Her creative practice has long revolved around drawing, photography and textiles; she is interested in the stories we tell ourselves and others, and the interactions between nature and culture, inner and outer worlds.

@hanne.dale

www.hannedale.com

JOANNA LEAH

An artist, researcher and academic whose practice explores choreographic tactics in diagrammatic drawing, writing, installation, and performance. Often no distinction between word and line; her work is concentrated on line-making that embodies and facilitates material forces such as gravity, rhythm, liquid and pulse in movement motifs to harness environmental and cultural materialisms of the ‘moteur’ in place, to configure specific notation of spaces.

@joannaleah.art

www.joannaleah.com

ILONA

Born in Poland, studied interior and furniture design at The Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. After moving to the UK to live and work, she pursued for her MA in Fine Arts at Arts Bournemouth University in 2018. In her recent drawing practice, she is looking to mediate her day to day experiences by investigating a variety of materials and exploring new working processes; looking to attract the viewer’s attention to the intricacies of everyday experience.

@ilonaskladzien

www.ilonaskladzien.com

CARRIE STANLEY

A contemporary figurative artist focusing on the human condition. She uses a variety of media and prefers to work on a larger scale to have physical connectivity to the work.

@carriestanleyartist

RACHEL WELFORD

Artist based in Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coast. Originally trained in fine art (BA(Hons) Fine Art,(Painting) Wimbledon School of Art). An interest in transparency, reflectivity and ephemerality led to a Masters Degree and PhD in Architectural Glass at the University of Sunderland where she now teaches.

@rachelwelford www.rachelwelford.co.uk