Bed of Leaves

Walking away from our past,
Let us follow our darkest fear,
Swept off my feet by the wind,
Blowing between your branches,
Silky jaws lap and tear me apart.

Embrace me, branches.
I return once more.
Light has failed.
Children play in echoes;
Vegetation.
Asphyxiated on your perfume.
On every leaf your scent is caught.
Burrowing under the past,
only resurfacing to catch my breath.

Exaggerated whispers keep me
Running, I want to
grow, I want to
entwine with your wooded arms.
My eyes fail and that doesn’t
worry me a second.
Music plays, my ears burn.
Every few miles there is
a shelter built from wood.
Your flesh so starlight,
It’s worth every try.

I always thought that someone would make
you happier. I was wrong.
Fuse me with the trees:
you blew me away with gusts.

My fingers become bark,
seized completely; you seize the night.
Let me drown in night,
it’s the only way I can feel you.

Silky jaws of beasts,
slicing my mind to tatters.
I’ll follow you forever.
The trees glow when I cry,
Illuminated in the moonlight.
The leaves turn red and
the forest begins to take me.
Cooing me, lulling me
into your web.

I’m not the man I used to
be, but I’m not the
man I want to be yet.
Bury my body and never tell a soul,
I’m alone in the ice. Come find me,
Rain on me.

Your nails run down my legs,
Digging deeper with every stroke.
Bones push up the ground.
Fingers clasp my tendons.

I want to lie in your bed
of leaves, let me
be immersed in your
world, let me become
one with you, my love.

It’s been a while since I felt,
Water seep into my feet.
The rage of the wind in
the trees hits my
chest and darling I’m
short of breath. I’ve been
walking to find your heart.
I’ll follow you all my life.

Flesh and bone,
Curling petals,
Witnessing your Spring
Suffering the chill air.
Let me open the door again.
Heavy footing on soft soil.
Your darling face is my obituary.

Dripping leaves, Soaking floor,
Slithering down my mind.
Rabbits run, Badgers fall,
Sweet and wild, untamed
Your hair is caught
It whispers words,
Echoed memories, laughs from birds,
Willow, birch, beach and silver,
The friction burn inside my chest.
The ground calls for me
I lay down and sink.
I become the leaves of my bed.

 

I wrote this last term as part of an experimental web project which isn’t quite complete. I thought I should probably start posting my creative writing on here as well as it’s a big part of my experiments/practice now. My favourite part is the last stanza, everytime I read it I love it more and more. 🙂

Let me know what you think!

Catching up

It’s been a while my pretties, I’ve been extremely busy with all sorts of projects. I’ve moved into doing a lot of creative writing, so if you can bear it, I’ll probably be posting up snippets of that soon.

I exhibited at a delightful little show called Lumière last week on Rivington Street (near Old Street), it was only a short show of 2 days but for the first time I exhibited the piece of work; Shatter. I had lots of excellent feedback as it is so different when showing it on the wall rather than on a website or in a book.

Almost every day of the past 2 weeks has been solidly full from dawn until midnight! There was Ben Roberts’ book launch on Monday, last night was the intelligence2 discussion on Art Photography at the Saatchi gallery and all sorts more! I’m guessing this surge of activity is due to the nights getting lighter. There is an overwhelming amount of excellent photography shows on at the moment, from the Saatchi Gallery, Michael Hoppen Gallery and the Tate Britain.

So much to see, so little time!

Observations on Photography sat outside Notre Dame, Paris

A slightly long title but I thought you might enjoy one of my finds in my notebooks. I wrote this last October whilst on a trip to Paris. I spent a few hours alone wandering up and down the river and sat outside the Notre Dame observing strangers (which I do constantly, but I don’t always write it all down). There were some sketches of what people were doing, their behaviours and poses etc but they aren’t really necessary with my already sketchy writing. I’ve been reading through my notebooks as I have a new brief/theme at University to explore and it is Culture, especially in regards to digital and new cultures. I found my writing quite relevant despite being a mixture of rambling and excitement. So here goes…

I’m sat in front of Notre Dame after walking from the Latin Quarter. Someone is doing wedding photographs in front of this massively historic building. I’m not sure what that means; to be photographed in front of it apart from stating ‘I was here’. I feel like Martin Parr, sat there observing the poses people make, the people in the images and the way they photograph. Some are knelt down, some use tripods, some use flash, some photograph people photographing. It’s madness really .

I feel like going around and asking if people want me to photograph them. Just by walking into this area, I must already be in hundreds of people’s family holiday snaps. I wonder if they’ll ever look at the photographs and wonder who I am. The wedding party has gone. Now there’s a film crew doing an interview. I’ve started a game with myself; counting the people that I can see without a visible camera on them. I’m at about 4.

Oh my, someone just used a timer in front of me. They look adorable. Now they move to a different angle of the Notre Dame. Madness I tell you. People seem to have disappeared; the cameras are still out though.

Vivre la Photographie.

Monday 3rd October 2011

After reading through and collecting it all together, one sentence in there sticks out to me and that is; Vivre la Photographie. I cannot quite remember what I meant by that. My french is good at times but I’ll often give it a guess and be wrong, and something about that phrase made me uneasy. I think I was attempting a “Live on Photography” type of line but in fact I said something far more intrinsic to what I was saying.

Vivre la Photographie, essentially means… To live photography. This could be seen as:

• To live through photography
• To live with photography
• To live by photography
• To live in photography
• To live using photography

I asked a friend who knew more about the definition I was trying to capture and they came up with a more rounded answer. Vivre la photography means to live through the idea of and by the ideals of photography.

Cat’s False Alarm – Sample12 Exhibition

Cat’s False Alarm – Jasmine Gauthier (2010)

I’ll be exhibiting in a group show called Sample 12 at ThePrintSpace in London (see address above), from 3rd – 28th Feb 2012 (Mon-Fri). The Private View is on the 2nd February, 7pm until 9:30pm. I’d love to see some of you guys there or perhaps drop me a line if you do visit another time during the week and tell me what you thought!

Thanks!

Annabel Elgar

Annabel’s work was a fascinating find at the recent exhibition at the Wapping Project: Bankside (http://www.thewappingprojectbankside.com/exhibitions/index.shtml). I kept returning to her work more than any of the others as they were dark and beautiful, reminiscent of fairytales and full of strange narratives.

The exhibition had this to say about her work:

Annabel Elgar stages her work in imagined places that might initially appear idyllic, but contain unsettling details that suggest otherwise. Her photographs recall strange fairy tales and cultish activity, but their subject matter is real life torments: relentless s truggle between the rich and the poor, the home as a site of poverty and ruin; the family a source of treachery and despair.

http://www.annabelelgar.com/

Fleeting Other

Here is at last a final edit of a piece called Fleeting Other; looking at pregnancy, the female form and the experiences of pregnant women in their lead up to motherhood. I wanted to explore how women see one another as well as how they see themselves; the forms suggest growth, proportions and perspectives. The work also touches on the isolation of experience of each of the women despite the solidarity as mothers.

Do let me know of your thoughts on the work. 🙂

Pregnancy Series Continued VII (On Location with the Women II)

It’s about a week before I have to have all my images up on the wall and today was the last shoot before that. The girls were wonderfully co-operative and we managed to get the shoot done in an hour which was an achievement in itself. The images above are just a snippet of today’s shots, none of them are touched up or anything but I thought I’d share them with you all.

You’ll get the final line up etc in the near future. 🙂

Pregnancy Series Continued VI (Location Shoot III) Plus Creative Boom Feature

Man, that’s a long clumsy title, I do apologise.

As ever I’ve been busy researching locations, artists and writing lots. If anyone is interested I might include some of it on my blog, even though it’s not made for this purpose.

Last week I was surprised and pleased with a wonderful feature on my work by Creative Boom, do check it out and let me know what you think!

http://www.creativeboom.co.uk/london/lookbook/jasmine-gauthier/

Here are some more location scouting photographs that I find interesting for various reasons.

 

Pregnancy Series Continued V (On Location with the Women)

So here is the first shoot of hopefully a few more of my pregnancy series without a name yet, I was focusing more on the interactions between the women, leaving some to their own devices and others where I intervened. These are just some rough shots to add to my growing collection of content. Photographing such a large group outside, especially with the weather like it was, was a challenge but good fun.

Tell me what you think, of the project as a whole so far or of these images in particular, I love getting feedback.

Pregnancy Series Continued IV (Location Shoot II)

 

More photography from location scouting, these locations have something extra special about them and I can’t wait to shoot in them. More photographs to come soon!