Dillan Marsh


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The Travels of The Toucher 2015-12-14


With cardboard boxes over their heads and two holes punched out for their arms, they began with wet clay, and without any other idea than to see what came by handling it. What they arrived at was not a sculpture, but a way to begin. The possibility to destroy and remake was always there: it was just a means of getting to the thing.

On a wet and windy day, they journeyed out to Tigh na Cailleach, home of the Old Woman of the Glen, just before she withdrew into her shelter for winter. They were not sure what they might find, or what to do when they got there. They were walking a path that had been walked for thousands of years. They were hopeful that they would make their destination on time, and fearful of regret, lest they should have to turn back. It was not that time or nature were against them; it was simply that the elements continued, and would continue interminably, before them, after them and in spite of them. The night was drawing closer with every step further into the heart of the glen. Colours were changing to soft and rusty ochres, greens and bluey-greys. The form of the land was becoming gentler and more rounded. The deep, broad loch had now tapered off into a trickling stream; yet the wind raged on, and the rain beat with a stinging patter against against their faces.

They were looking for the very beginnings of meaning and making: to connect thousands of years ago with today. They wanted to find it, but when they arrived, they still didn’t know what to do. Not there at the shrine, nor in the studio with the clay.

This work has been kindly supported by: Assembly House Studios, About Time, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Bergen Kommune, Norsk Kulturradet (Arts Council Norway)

The Travels of The Toucher

The Travels of The Toucher



Dillan Marsh & Eleanor Clare
Assembly House Studios 20-29 Nov. 2015
Sat. & Sun. 1-4pm or by appointment




Tags: work / exhibition / recent_work / documentation / photograph / text / collaboration / cycle / video / drive / ritual / darkness / light / installation / publication / time / sculpture / Eleanor_Clare / religion / creation / sound / edition / landscape / 2015 / catalogue / archetype / rock / audio / chaos / Edinburgh_Sculpture_Workshop / future / wall / press_release / nature / Yorkshire_Sculpture_Park / megalith / sound_system / seek / water / creativity / touch / Assembly_House_Studios / shrine / cardboard / Bergen_Kommune / pagan / The_Travels_of_The_Toucher / Norsk_Kulturradet / About_Time / ceramic / site / ancient / Rufus_Newell / Ellie_MacGarry / Mike_Winnard / storm / Matt_Wheeldon / Tigh_na_Cailleach / Lester_Drake / winter / weather / Arthurs_Seat / travel / Face /


Peter_Camenzind 2015-02-20

Hermann Hesse, Peter Camenzind, translated by W. j. Strachan

As this personal love of nature began to grow in me and I listened to her voice as to a friend and travelling companion who speaks in a foreign language, my melancholy, though not cured, was ennobled and cleansed. My ear and eye became more acute, I learned to grasp subtleties and fine distinctions, and longed to hear the pulsation of life in all its manifestations more clearly and at close quarters - perhaps even to understand and enjoy the gift of expressing it in poetic form so that others also could get closer to it and seek out the springs of all refreshment, purification and childish innocence with deeper understanding. For the time being it remained a wish, a dream. I did not know whether it could ever be fulfilled, and I did what was nearest by loving everything visible and by no longer treating anything around me with scorn of indifference. p.84
[...]
I wanted to teach the people to be conscious of the pulse of the earth and take part in the life of the universe; not to forget in the bustle of their petty lives that we are not self-created gods but children belonging to the earth and the cosmic whole. I wanted to remind them that, like the songs of the poets and our dreams, the rivers, oceans, drifting clouds and raging storms are symbols and bearers of our hopes which spread their wings between heaven and earth; whose ultimate goal is the confident certainty of the right of citizenship and immortality of all living creatures.
[...]
But I was also eager to teach men to look for springs of joy and rivers of life in a brotherly love of nature. I wanted to preach the art of seeing, walking and enjoying life, of finding happiness in the present; to make it possible for mountains, seas and green islands to convey their message through their mighty and captivating tongues; to open up the view to the infinitely various manifestations of life as they blossomed day by day and overflowed beyond our towns and houses. I wanted to make people feel a sense of shame that we should know more about foreign wars, fashions, gossip, literature and art than about Spring unfolding its vital force outside our towns and the river that flows beneath out bridges and forests, and the lovely meadows traversed by our railways.



Tags: research / text / belief / desire / quote / field / nature / earth / water / creativity / longing / tree / plant / river / melancholy / storm / Rhine / Hermann_Hesse / Peter_Camenzind /


Phenomenons Below and Above the Earth 2013-07-03


Phämomen über, und unter Erden (Ansichten von atmosphärischen u. a. Phänomenen), Jos. Gabriel Frey, 1878
Phenomenons Below and Above the Earth

Tags: research / system / cycle / darkness / sun / solar / astronomy / solstice / rainbow / magnetic_field / phenomena / storm / weather / aurora / midnight_sun / tornado / moon / atmosphere / earthquake / Josef_Gabriel_Frey /


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