Visual Art Group Monograph 2022

VISUAL ART MONOGRAPH 2022

Nicki Gwynn-Jones FRPS

EDITOR: Nicki Gwynn-Jones FRPS (flychick110@googlemail.com)

DESIGNER: Paul Mitchell FRPS (paul@pmd-design.co.uk)

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VISUAL ART MONOGRAPH 2022 Nicki Gwynn-Jones FRPS

Since 2016 I have lived in Orkney, an archipelago of seventy islands that lies ten miles off the northeast coast of Scotland, at the point where the Atlantic Ocean meets the North Sea. Of these islands, sixteen are inhabited and the capital city, Kirkwall, has a population of around nine thousand. We have some of the best-preserved Neolithic sites in Europe, as well as the most northerly cathedral in Britain. We are world leaders in renewable energy research and have the highest number of electric cars per capita of anywhere in the UK. Our beef and scallops are world famous, and the islands are rich in myth and folklore. We have abundant wildlifeand we also have weather.

Living on the 59th parallel does not come without challenges; we are three degrees of latitude north of Moscow and one degree south of St Petersburg, but our climate is influenced by the Gulf Stream; ours is a landscape forged from relentless wind, waves, and rain.

At this latitude, and with the islands battered by endless weather systems, the seasons have a different rhythm to those on the UK mainland. Winter can seem interminable, often merging seamlessly with what can pass for spring. Constant gales leave us wrung-out and scoured, and by April, just when you think things might finally improve, the lambing snow arrives and the daffodils are ruined. Summer is brief, although it does not get dark at all, and we have few trees, so that in autumn the ubiquitous wind will see to it that the leaves are on the ground before any colour can develop. However, living on the margins of a continent comes with a heady kind of allure, mercurial at times, but intoxicating and enthralling.

SPRING

By March the cliffs are alive with the cries of returning seabirds. I marvel as the fulmars, the supreme masters of wind and ocean, reaffirm their vows and ride the updrafts again and again, whilst the dainty kittiwakes’ distinctive greetings echo off the solid rockface.

Early-breeding shags, the dark angels of English literature, bring gifts of seaweed for their lady loves - amusingly clumsy on land, these offerings rarely make it as far as the nest. In soft light, the iridescence of their breeding plumage looks its very best, while on sunny days it glows like burnished bronze. I watch, thrilled, as gulls surf the last of the big waves, and as the Atlantic weather fronts submit to the changing season, my world is painted with jewel-like brilliance.

I love seabirds. For me, they possess a charisma - their mysterious nomadic lives on the edge of our understanding strike an uneasy balance between land and sea, suffering and success. I return to my secret places day after day, drinking in

the frantic energy and the sheer exhilaration of observing their lives - their ‘seabirdness’ - with all its joys and sorrows.

The woodland bursts into life to the backdrop of the plaintive descending song of returning willow warblers, and spring flowers carpet the ground, my clothes infused with the scent of wild garlic as I lie amongst the bluebells and celandines, seeking out the magical hidden spaces, wondering what will be revealed to me.

The days lengthen. Curlews, lapwings and oystercatchers return to the sodden fields to begin their spring courtship and brown hares race each other at break-neck speed.

Summer is the season of eternal twilight, or simmer dim, as we call it here, the echo of one day travelling across the sky to become the dawn of the next, mirroring the lives of the seabirds as they cross briefly from their world into ours.

I take the ferry to the island of Westray in search of puffins. It is 3 am; I am sitting on a cliff overlooking the sea and I am the only human in existence. There is not a breath of wind and the world is awash with light. The path is a dew-soaked tumble of buttercups, red campion, sorrel and clover, glowing and quietly radiant, and in my sleep-deprived state I realise with sudden clarity that I am sharing this moment with everyone else across the ages who has sat and watched this scene. I feel a moment of intense connection.

social - there is plenty of interaction with their neighbours at the tightly-packed colony - but when they preen they turn inwards, as if harbouring secrets never told. If only they would…

My obsession with the visiting seabirds continues; they are often thought to be the souls of the dead, but I like to think that arctic terns are angels, albeit fractious, argumentative ones. With their disproportionately long and elegant wings they are ideally suited to the life nomadic - theirs is the longest migration of any creature on earth - and I try to capture what they ’be’ rather than what they ‘are’, seeking their soul within that 4000/sec. In spite of the feisty behaviour, last summer’s colony failed. I arrived one morning at dawn to find that the local hooded crow mafia had taken every single chick. A handful of adult birds were disconsolately circling the nest site and I shed tears for their loss.

They were considered by the Celts to be the reborn souls of monks, and with their serious, somewhat formal behaviour and bowed walk it is perhaps easy to see why. They are intensely

At the end of July, my beloved birds end their brief stay in our world and return once more to theirs, and I am overcome by melancholy.

My first puffin of the summer is always a thrill.

AUTUMN

An Orcadian beach in autumn can be a lively place. Stonechats flit around in the marram grass, their plumage accentuated as the sun sinks lower in the sky, the colours so fine, and long-tailed ducks chat amongst themselves, their off-key major triads ringing around the Churchill Barriers.

As the days rapidly shorten, the sweetness of shorebirds brings me solace; plump little plovers and sandpipers, like tiny liminal wind-up toys, somehow coexist amongst the larger oystercatchers and marauding gulls, a motley crew on sand that promises a tasty meal. Dusk falls and the little waders gather in large flocks as they prepare to roost for the night - safety in numbers - the sound of their softly beating wings reminding me of swishing silk.

As the mothers-to-be haul themselves ashore, I hear their haunting disembodied cries echoing around the cliffs like the sound of grief in a hollow vessel. Looking for safe spaces in which to give birth to their pups, they must keep well away from the hungry orca patrolling the shorelines. To catch sight of a pod is the ultimate thrill - if you’re a seal, not so much.

In the wood the leaves are falling. Light is draining fast from the northern skies, and winter storms gather under brooding skies and mounting seas.

Along the coastline, grey seals luxuriate in gin-clear water, moving with a languid grace that is the envy of any swimmer.

WINTER

Winter is the great darkness of the year; at the solstice we are gifted daylight hours of not much more than six hours, but mid-winter is when the light can be at its most spectacular. As the sun traces its low arc just above the horizon it creates the deepest shadows, and colours become saturated and incandescent, fitting for marking the beginning of light out of darkness that many cultures celebrate.

Sunset comes just after three o’clock and on calmer days the embers of the dying light illuminate the cresting waves, an alchemical miracle turning them to molten metal. During storms I head west, to where the mighty North Atlantic thunders into land for the first time in 3000 miles, slamming so hard into the cliffs that I feel the vibrations deep in my chest. Plumes of spray are hurled into the air, rendering the friable cliffs treacherous as an ice rink and prone to landslides. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be part of that turmoil, to be swept up by the storm. Probably like being in the chaos of a creation event. Putting these thoughts to one side, as hail and sleet sting my face in cruel squalls, I live for the all too brief moments when the union of sun and storm

gives me my favourite winter light. It is a visceral, awe-inspiring experience of great beauty, but it is harsh - the bodies of many young seals and seabirds are washed ashore at this time of year, the fierce conditions proving too much, even for those built for a life at sea.

February eventually comes around. The sea is at its coldest, the ground at its hardest, and even the lapwings are at the shore, desperate for a meal. I scour the muddy woodland, impatient for first signs of the snowdrops that will defy the frozen ground, and when eventually the huge skies echo with the sound of geese heading off to their arctic nesting grounds and the song of skylarks fills the air, I know that winter will beat a grudging retreat.

Orkney, this place that I am lucky enough to call home, has woven a spell on me and I am changed.

Nicki Gwynn-Jones FRPS Orkney 2022

www.nickigwynnjones.com

https://rps.org/groups/visual-art/