The art of capturing light

The recently published book Capturing Light is Bath-based painter Catherine Beale’s first art book. Launched in May by Search Press, it recently reached a top-ten bestseller list on Amazon. Catherine has painted for nearly 30 years full-time, 20 of these in watercolour.

In the book Catherine uses the landscape around Bath to talk about her innovative painting methods. “I want to share watercolours’ behaviours and how I manipulate them through experimentation,” she explains. Catherine has won awards for her oil portraits but moved towards watercolours in recent years and now paints family portrait commissions. Catherine’s artistic practice is “all about capturing light”, she says, “from the drama of a face shrouded in shadow to the fleeting dart of sunbeams through trees or the flicker of sunlight on the surface of a river.”

Catherine works from her hillside studio in Bath but travels widely as well as teaching, from sunny Mediterranean art holidays to the Drawing School at Bristol’s Royal West of England Academy. Her book contains nine painting projects of subjects within the UK to help painters create light-filled watercolour landscapes. Catherine says, “My methods aim to free up painting styles, embolden colour choices and help painters enjoy creating vibrant pictures full of dramatic light.”

Capturing Light is available from online bookstores and shops. catherinebeale.com

‘Art on the Street’ project

Two public spaces in Bath have been dressed with bespoke artwork to celebrate the city as part of a summer events programme. The Art on the Street project has been installed at Milsom Quarter and Kingsmead Square, created by local artist Zoë Power. It features overhead flags, decorated planters, contemporary bunting and window designs.

Gaia artwork at the Abbey

Bath Abbey is hosting Luke Jerram’s touring Gaia artwork from 18 September –29 October, as part of the Treasuring Creation Festival, which focuses on appreciating and caring for our planet. Measuring seven metres in diameter, Gaia features detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface and provides the opportunity to see our planet floating in three-dimensions.

Gaia will be suspended underneath the tower in the centre of the Abbey, providing an awe-inspiring view as people enter the building. Gaia creates a sense of the Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987. Common features of the experience for astronauts are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment. A specially made surround sound composition by composer Dan Jones will be played alongside the sculpture. bathabbey.org beta.bathnes.gov.uk/regeneration

The project is funded by the West of England Combined Authority’s Love Our High Streets programme and is part of a wider High Streets Renewal project for Bath city centre, which in part aims to support the Milsom Quarter and Kingsmead Square with improvements to the high street and a programme of animation and events to increase footfall and support local businesses. The programme will also support the Great Bath Feast which runs from 22–24 September with a buzzing market across Milsom Street, Quiet Street, Green Street and New Bond Street.

Notes On A Small City

Richard Wyatt

Columnist Richard Wyatt loves a bright moonlit night. This month he talks to Isabelle Ficker of Bath Starlit Skies who says that LED street lighting negatively affects nocturnal vertebrates and invertebrates who rely on lunar and seasonal rhythms of light for their survival.

Robbie Burns didn’t only write about a mouse. His ‘wee timorous beastie’ might be a famous poetic phrase but so is ‘it’s a braw bricht moonlit nicht’ which –to us living south of the border –means ‘it’s a lovely bright moonlit night’.

Back in Burns’ day, the moon would certainly have been the brightest object in the 18th century star-lit sky and the only light to guide all living things through the darkness.

The natural alternation of night and day, light and dark is essential to the continued existence of many life forms. But for us humans, since Victorian times, when the population shifted to town from country, working people had gas and then electric street lighting to guide them to the factory or shop floor.

We take it for granted now that, as the sun sets, its rays are replaced by humankind’s artificial lighting to extend the commercial and social day and banish the darkness. But why are we now continually hearing about ‘light pollution’ and why did a worried deputation of local experts recently seek an urgent meeting with Bath and North East Somerset Council?

It seems our local authority, like many others in the UK, has been busy replacing sodium lamps, used in street lighting, with LEDs. These more compact devices were regarded as ‘eco-friendly’ as they use less power and last longer but, it seems, at what cost to the biosphere?

Our deputation came armed with details of recent research on the subject and had also all signed a ‘joint letter’ which pointed out that the most commonly used LED lamps to be installed by local authorities emit a blue-rich spectrum light which is apparently having a devastating impact on nocturnal insects and mammals.

It’s said the light from these devices works like a vacuum cleaner –drawing insects from their natural environment to die of exhaustion or be eaten by predators. It creates confusion, taking away their natural sense of direction, and can also interfere with their mating. Our dusk ’til dawn illumination –as well as being unnecessary and excessive –seems to be a real ‘no-no’ for many species of insects, causing populations to crash and upsetting the natural balance of important ecosystems in our environment.

One of those attending the B&NES meeting was local resident Isabelle Ficker who as a member of Bath Starlit Skies has written her own well-researched report.

She told me: “The natural lightdark rhythm is important for flora and fauna, including humans. Many vertebrates and invertebrates, such as vital pollinating insects, are nocturnal. Darkness at night is essential for them to thrive: they rely on circadian, lunar and seasonal rhythms of light for foraging, migration, pairing and reproduction.

“Artificial light overrides these natural rhythms and blue rich light (i.e. over 3000k) is particularly disruptive. Its effects cascade through the eco system, affecting day-time organisms and their ecological function. Artificial light at night is an additional, but avoidable stressor, on already stressed biosystems. It should properly be considered a form of pollution but it is one that fortunately is easy to address.”

Unlike other pollutants such as Carbon Dioxide, you can deal with it quickly by turning lights off or reducing their intensity. You can also get LED’s emitting red spectrum light which is less disruptive or you can buy filters to fit over the blue-spectrum type.

Following the meeting, Councillor Sarah Warren, Deputy Leader and cabinet member for Climate and Sustainable Travel, told me: “In 2020 the council began a five-year lighting maintenance programme which included upgrading 2,000 street lights to LED as part of our commitment to addressing the climate and ecological emergency and reducing energy use. We are aware of research into the impacts of lighting on natural organisms –in particular the benefits of warmer light on animals and plants –and we will look to replace lights as we need to, when they get to end of their life.”

Not maybe the quick response the deputation was hoping for, but Bath Preservation Trust also has some practical lighting advice for ‘Rewilding the Night’ that we could all follow Darker skies over our World Heritage city would mean a happier ecosystem and more of a chance for us to see the stars! n

Rewilding the Night light advice

• Install outside lights at lower levels, directing fittings only where needed and angled downwards.

• When buying bulbs look at the colour scale on the side of the box and go for warm red and yellows below 3,000 Kelvin.

• Switch external lights off when not needed, avoid the use of illuminated signs and adverts, and close your curtains and shutters at night.

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