ART IN THE LAND Genius Loci Some of the work that I find the most exciting and satisfying is the work I do out on the land, with visual artists (I am very inspired by land art in general). I am a member of the occasional environmental arts group ‘Genius Loci’; members are Michael Fairfax, sculptor and public artist; Jacy Wall, painter, printmaker and textile artist; Jenny Graham, painter and printmaker; Penny Grist, printmaker; Ben Emmett, architect; Phil Shepherd, filmmaker, and Tony Stallard, installation artist. Hestercombe We worked together on a Year of the Artist project over a year at Hestercombe Gardens in Somerset. Much of the work we did at Hestercombe was temporary, but a lasting record is a little hand made book consisting of Penny Grist’s beautiful cyanotype prints of natural objects, paired with my short poems.

viridian eye of water its secret country light swanning across breaking, remaking the morning   Cotswold Water Park

Later, some of us also worked at the Cotswold Water Park, the old Thames flood plain, a source of quite astonishing fossils. Our first project was to install a number of cat’s eye sculptures, some with etched text, some incorporating ammonites, along the cycle track.   One poem thus etched was:   The land shifts is the slow drift of water its secrets beneath our feet

Since then, Michael Fairfax and I have also collaborated on other work, where my poems have been incorporated into his charred oak sculptures, sometimes with accompanying sound, such as voice.

how   might   we   step   on   the   earth's   thin   skin   if   not   by   treading   lightly