How this collection came about, and the poem that emerged with it. [Click the dropdown arrow below to READ MORE]
This new body of work brings together landscapes from my home in Pembrokeshire, alongside paintings shaped from studies, made 'en-plein-air' during recent visits to Herefordshire.
This new body of work brings together landscapes from my home in Pembrokeshire, alongside paintings shaped from studies, made 'en-plein-air' during recent visits to Herefordshire.
Although the two places sit along the opposing edges of Wales, they started to speak to one another through the work. Informed by a magical series of shared observations and experiences, a theme began to emerge.
When I was visiting Herefordshire, making studies for the show, I heard skylarks singing high above the rolling landscape. It's a sound I know well from walks with my dog along the coast. Lately, with the nice weather, my studio doors have been wide open and I've also been hearing them singing over the neighbouring fields as I've worked.
That sound is one of those small, precious gifts; easy to miss when you're not listening, but quite magical when you pause long enough to notice it. Somehow the sound has become a thread running through the collection, linking the two landscapes and bringing with it an uplifting feeling of freedom and space. Poetry also emerged, making this a very personal collection.
I am always interested in the point where a landscape becomes more than a place and begins to hold memory, atmosphere and emotion. And of course, that quiet sense of being in nature, taking a moment to notice things, like the relentless singing of the skylarks.
Skylark Horizons
These landlocked hills pale into light, dissolving in atmosphere,
as though earth and sky have kissed and gently lingered here.
The land rolls out like patchwork quilt toward distant greys and blues,
and hedgerow seams weave neat constraint through gold and emerald hues.
The shifting wind stirs earthy scent, borne up from rain soaked ground,
Then sunshine gifts a generous pause to hear a clear fresh sound.
As skylarks stitch the air with song, so light and bright and free,
somehow, in their exalted tune, the world seems wide to me.
Fluttering above the fields, their unceasing music drifting,
threading down through warming light, then up again they're lifting.
Against the clouds invisible, yet in full choral flow,
they spill their notes from high above to bless the ground below.
And listening here I feel again the familiar sense of ease,
as when I walk the coastal edge, inhaling wind-blown seas.
There too I've watched the sunlight and its shadows cross the hills,
I've stood beneath wide open skies, alive with skylark trills.
And whether looking out to sea, or over field and stone,
the sense of wonder wakes inside and makes me feel at home.
Not home in any earthly sense, not somewhere I must stay,
but home within a moment where the noise has slipped away.
Where air and breath unite in joy and light outshines concern,
and all the small and restless thoughts grow quiet in their turn.
Perhaps that's why we seek out views, where distant boundaries thin,
not for the place upon a map, but for the space within.
Not in the hills, nor in the sea, nor in the skylark's celebration,
nor in the widening of the view, nor sense of elevation.
But as each horizon opens us, beyond our petty fears,
it draws the heart outside itself and worry disappears.
For when distant ridges gather light and melt into the weather,
All earth and sky, thought and song, seem momentarily together.
Sarah Jane Brown
