i repair in nature.

i need the care of nature.

as i gather from landscapes i am immersed in. i imbibe some energy.

with reclaimed fibres of old and natural colours from plants, rocks and waterways, i interpret damaged and discovered landscapes i pass through and have shared. become a part of. i feel empathy in the missing and the taken. i want for the care given to a planted sapling full of potential.

i want this time to work with potentials.

of taken botanical colours, vistas, horizons, textures, emotions, stories and connections. to relive the raw wilderness when it’s not accessible. to acknowledge and focus on the damage done, as if my threads and binders can help with repair.

when well, i cycle and walk upwards, i crave the welsh mountains, living on the edge of the flatness of cardiff. but i find the bare and industrially scarred landscapes i encounter fascinating and repugnant. vistas of solid blocks of darkness, monocultures, barren swathes, where ancient woodlands should be.

so often a path marked on an old map no longer exists in reality, still i battle through bracken and bramble with feverish determination to follow the path less trodden. we had our common lands taken, now our rights of way are disappearing. old connections and desire lines of communities that took us through woody valleys full of life and potential for gathering and gleaning, for freedom.

i stumble on abandoned quarries and fissures of rocks, containing bands of colour to be ground and dipped into.

perhaps i seek to repair the rape of our fair country; i acknowledge wreckage done to communities and nature. to repair, rebuild, regrow, is climate justice.

in stitch i find solace; it’s a quiet, gentle, accessible way to make new marks and things. when movement and energy is small and weak.

i’m referencing scars – of my body and of earth; the postindustrial, over-farmed landscapes i wander. and the post cancer, older, cherished body i inhabit.