Serendipity and the Owl

FREE original artwork (if you can find it)

Friends,

This week’s story explores new locations, serendipity and making art from places. It also includes a grid reference to an owl artwork I’ve left in the landscape near my studio. If you can find it, it’s yours!

For paid subscribers an audio version of this story is available HERE.

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Hello, I'm James Roberts, artist and writer. Here you can join RIMA subscribers and help me produce books, artwork and illustrations, short and long-form essays, podcasts & more.

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The lane to the waterfall is steep. It winds through oak woods, the canopy touching on either side, forming a dappled tunnel. The trees twist up to the light making strange creaturely shapes. Mosses and bryophytes hang from every bole and branch. Boulders lie at their feet like a sculptor’s works in progress. It’s a remnant of Atlantic rainforest, beautiful and otherworldly and it’s my new back yard, walking distance from the studio.

Familiarising yourself with a new place demands long weaving walks to discover the tracks and paths - some human made, some fox made, badger made, deer made. In this new place I’ve decided to find a focal point, a landmark from which I can explore in ever widening circles. On the hill above is an ancient, leaning standing stone, a needle pointing at a distant, mysterious star. It seems like the obvious place to start, so I’m avoiding it. Instead I’m focusing on the top of a waterfall, a place where a stream divides into many tails (and tales) and begins its plunge to an oval lake below.

I’m looking for somewhere to place a piece of artwork. It’s something I used to do when I lived in the Wye valley and spent thousands of hours walking on a hill, which became a kind of soul map for me. I’d take stones that I found in streams and next to old walls, draw or write something on them, scratches and scribbles, then put them back. This time I’m going to place little ink paintings of the inhabitants of the place, more carefully crafted things. I feel these days that the wild deserves better craftsmanship from me. The waterfall is a good spot, with many rocks and stones piled around it. I could put a thousand pieces of work into the hidden crevices and crannies around the stream and they’d never be found.

I haven’t seen them yet, but I think this place is a good home for short-eared owls. Beyond the falls are ten miles of open moor containing scattered, ruined farms, perfect habitat for them. The only time I’ve ever seen them is at dawn. I once spent a blissful hour on a June morning in the dewy half-light alone on the plateau of Skomer Island watching a short-eared owl criss-cross the abandoned fields hunting for voles. The stiff winged flight, the straight glide, the flickery flutter as it stopped to inspect a high tuft of sedge. That perfect face, those amber eyes.

I’m not up-to-date with mapping technology. I can orientate myself on a map but all the data that comes with the tech: the inclines, miles walked, points of interest, temperature and weather data - all those things you can feel - well, they’re just annoying. But I want to leave a reference to the position of the artworks, so people can find them - so you can find them, if you’re inclined to. They’re gifts to the place, but also to the people who walk there and pay attention (I’ll put a grid reference and photograph of the spot at the end of this story).