Starting my final year as a fine art student is a daunting yet exciting time, with the prospect of a degree show at the end of this year looming I am feeling the pressure to become as engaged with my art practice as possible. After focusing on the mind and the soul in my second year I felt it was time for a fresh start, though questions regarding the mind and human thought still inform much of my work.
Over the summer months, I had dedicated my time to travelling as much as possible to gain inspiration for my next project.
After spending a week in the Yorkshire dales I found my love and connection with for the countryside and natural world reaffirmed to me and also found this experience to be a great source of inspiration for my current body work. However one experience in particular has remained prominent within my thoughts.
Whilst walking to Malham cove in the dales I came across a log which had been studded with coins. This was the first time I had come across a 'wishing log' and it was fascinating to me. Almost instinctively I got a coin out of my pocket and began to hammer it into the log with a nearby rock. Whilst doing this I started to wonder what this act meant and who began this almost ritualistic tradition. Furthermore, why people like myself had also joined in and left their mark in the log. Was it to create a legacy, to leave your mark in this hidden place? Or was it something spiritual?
Wishing tree- Malham cove. (The 10p is my coin.)
More details on these at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036581/Mystery-wishing-trees-studded-coins-illness-away-sick.html
After researching this coin log I researched them further to try to understand the meaning of these. From this I discovered that the logs could be found all over the country in various rural places. This increased my interest in these mysterious objects as I wondered more as to how this tradition began. This idea also linked with the topics I was hoping to address for my dissertation.
My initial dissertation idea is to focus on 'how art can continue to function as a secular religion'. Within this I am very interested in the impact the decline of religion and 'death of god' had on the arts. Furthermore as a result of researching and reading around this topic area through researching this I have become extremely interested in the Romanticists ideas on nature.
Whilst travelling more, I visited Lalaria beach on the Greek island of Skiathos. The beach can only be accessed by boat and upon arrival the form of this rock arch way is overwhelmingly beautiful. As we told by our Greek friends there was a myth that if you swim through the archway three times you could be eternally youthful. This was again a precious experience to me as I found the notion of superstition which as humans we repeat and invest to be very interesting, especially in our contemporary technology fuelled culture.