There’s an accumulation of notes and images that I’ve made over some time (and are continually added to)  that are loosely about ‘place’, and had thought would become a single post on this blog. They’ve been drifting around for while now – certainly since writing an earlier post on ‘particularity‘; but I’ve been waiting to unearth some keystone of information to bring the strands together in a coherent story-arc. No such thing has yet emerged and some de-cluttering of the desk and head are needed.

Although some might become focused and considered pieces of writing with illustrations, I’m going to put most of the notes and images in a series of occasional posts largely as they are, a hotch-potch of thoughts, memories and images about places; places I’ve been to, or that I’ve seen or heard of through other people via paintings, prints, photographs, writing, music…often those places are landscapes but they’re also town streets, marginal land, gardens, places in transition such as demolition sites or scrub clearance in fields; or ‘temporary places’ where something stays only a while but transforms a space, like a temporary public artwork, or a street market. They’ll be under the category of Placescapes.

For decades now I’ve been having continuous conversations, usually with myself, about what makes a place and why I’m attracted to, or disenchanted by, particular places but I’m beginning to regret that I’ve not talked about or shown things that have caught my imagination or given me pleasure. I’ve been looking at some great blogs lately, not all place-based, but blogs where people share their quiet passion for their subject, show their creative processes or think aloud, engagingly; for example, two Bristol-based people, Eddie Proctor and Landscapism, and James Russell who blogs about 20thC British art, Artlog by Clive Hicks-Jenkins from Wales, That’s How the Light gets in, Jerry Cordon from Liverpool and London-based Spitalfields Life. I’ve really enjoyed, and been inspired by their posts to be a bit more public myself and maybe make some links with other …’lociphiles’?! All these blogs are by men, I think (uncertain about gender of The Gentle Author of Spitalfields Life!) – pleased to hear of women blogging in these territories.

No academic analysis or thoughtful critique, the posts will be more of a reflective sketchbook – notes/musings, memories, pictures from exhibitions, photos of outings, links to websites, references to artworks or writing – the kind of stuff that gets thrown up while burrowing around a sense of place.

Photos: top – Easton-in-Gordano, below, Kelston Hill and fields near Bath.