Work published in Stravaig, journal of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics

Stravaig is the journal of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, a body of work exploring the relationship between imagination, place, and the living Earth. This publication reflects an ongoing thread in my work, where landscape, imagination, and psyche meet.

This year the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics celebrates its 30th anniversary with this edition of Stravaig. I am delighted to have two recent works published in the new edition of their journal Stravaig. There they find themselves in the very good company of artwork, poetry, and essays from members of the Geopoetics community.

I joined the organisation following the 2017 conference held on Seil, an island off the west coast of Scotland which is separated from the mainland by a distance of a few meters. This blog post reflects upon my experience there, and introduces the themes and topics covered by a number of those presenting and providing workshops.

You can find out more about this brilliant organisation by visiting their website, and Stravaig can be accessed from the 'journal' section of the main menu: https://www.geopoetics.org.uk/

Art from the edge - A northerly dreaming

In the making of these images pastel is applied by first crumbling it onto the paper in small amounts, and then smoothing it across the surface by hand. The mountain area formed of ink is made using a dip pen with fine nib, and the fine marks in the graphite section utilise a technical pencil. 

Both are available to purchase directly from me. The images are linked to the webstore, and you are also welcome to email me with any questions or enquiries.

And This Heavy Silence

Ink, pastel, graphite, on paper

Paper size: 76 x 56 cm

Image size: 73.5 x 50 cm

2024

I can distinctly remember standing by the water at Ellenabeich, and looking across the sea towards the looming mountains on Mull. This kind of coastline is often in my mind, and the particular feelings that they evoke, which is part personal and part the voice of the place speaking through that language.

"That Nature has devised a way to offer these signs and open these channels should be no surprise, for it has also fine-tuned the equipment required to perceive them." 

P.Prudence - Figured Stones, Exploring the lithic imaginary

A poem by Kenneth White, founder of Geopoetics.

In The Atlantic Zone

On Mull along the Allt na Teanngaidh

among sandstone and schist

on Gunna

with a hundred barnacle Geese

ranging along the coast

on Colonsay

lying on a raised beach in the rain

looking out over

a stretch of windswept dune

on Jura

in a cabin near the Paps

gazing on a lump of rosy quartz

on Islay

walking the salty machair

that the tide has left

watching out there in the grey

the wan waters of the North Atlantic Drift.

— From OPENWORLD, The Collected Poems 1960 - 2000

We Drew Sleep From Stones

Pastel, iron gall ink, acrylic ink, graphite, on paper

Paper size: 47 x 27 cm

Image size: 43 x 23 cm

2024

Expressing the Earth - A Geopoetic sensibility

I have always felt very in tune with this organisation and its fairly unique multidisciplinary ethos, which it develops whilst retaining its independence. Very much open to the cultivation of new ideas and the re-visioning of old ones, but also reassuringly disinterested in following trends.

From the Geopoetics website...

Geopoetics is deeply critical of Western thinking and practice over the last 2500 years and its separation of human beings from the rest of the natural world, and proposes instead that the universe is a potentially integral whole, and that the various domains into which knowledge has been separated can be unified by a poetics which places the planet Earth at the centre of experience.

It seeks a new or renewed sense of world, a sense of space, light and energy which is experienced both intellectually, by developing our knowledge, and sensitively, using all our senses to become attuned to the world, and requires both serious study and a certain amount of de-conditioning of ourselves by working on the body-mind.

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Andrew Phillips is a Visual Artist, Psychotherapist, and Creative Mentor.

If you are also a person who creates some form of work around these themes, or would like to engage in focussed yet relaxed discussion with a like minded person, I offer Online Mentoring for artists and creative professionals. Conversations to enrich your vision for art and life, explore themes that inspire your work, and find a renewed sense of direction. Available for clients in the UK and internationally.

On my website you will also be able to view other artwork, and find available work in the shop.

You may be interested in my regular newsletter Numinous Landscape, which explores these themes, and offers insights from the studio. To subscribe, simply visit the foot of any page and submit the form.