Pragmatism and preconceptions

Resembling the stubbly rump of some ancient beast having crawled from the sea and into the marshes to die, spared from the swelling suburban tide only by its SSSI status, Bryn Euryn was not always thus. 

The brief was simple enough. Here’s a trig point, go, make work. Negotiating between pragmatism and preconceptions, on site, between the charms of the location and my latent intent for the work, Is proving, here at least, to be quite another matter.

Tempting were the domes, waves and arches of a peculiar valley near the summit, swathed, Dr Seuss-like, in traveller’s joy, storm light and, to my surprise, raspberries. Tempting too, the precipitous battered crags immediately over dark and brisling yews with the A55 snaking through the valley, and on towards the mountains, against the evening sun.

Nope. No footing here, too low there, too distant, too familiar, in the wind, in the way, where’s the sweep? How does it fit? What’s the point? Where’s the spot? 

With soliloquy approaching cacophony I stopped, at a crossroads, in the rain. A curious confluence of five paths intersecting at improbable angles. My interest is piqued. I can’t remember how long I stood there for, turning over compositions, aspects, and approaches to this scene before me. One path in particular appealed to me. The middle path, which, by some trick of the light appeared to be the focus of concentric circles, formed by the tangle of branches criss crossing this forgotten path, this hidden, hanging, valley. How could I resist.