Moving Between Realms
Melanie Rose
January 2025
The slow rumble of tyres over the cattlegrid is an indicator of my passing from one realm to another, one where the land is shared with our more the human friends, a place of entangled social, cultural, ecological history, a melting pot of witchcraft, ethnocide, bombs, ancient customs, combined with all the trappings of middleclass England.
There is always a mission, whether locating a Chalybeate spring that has the potential to cure dogs of their ills, finding the ancient Gritnam Oak or to observe a monoculture of solar panels hidden deep in the Forest. Each meet-up is different, but once agreed, a pin is dropped and away we go, meeting in all weathers, walking on and off the path, to a destination point, where flasks are opened and cake shared.
The walk is important, affording a decompressive outpouring of life, work, the complexities and frustrations about the industry we work in. Our practices may be diverse but the world we work in is competitive and nuanced. By the time we arrive we have talked and walked ourselves into a different place; literally.
And yet, in a way, we are always arriving, never settling for long, but long enough to enact our practices, in my case drawing and painting. Beginning with the ceremony of unfolding the foam mat, usually laid out onto a damp mossy log, and ritualistically setting out sketchbooks (I always bring two), roll bag of drawing instruments, box of Willow charcoal and putty rubber, pot of drawing ink and a pliable detergent cup for water and if time watercolours.
Continuously drawing without looking at the paper, the place we are sitting in, with a water-soluble graphite stick is totally seductive. The feel of the medium moving against the grain of the paper, offering an intuitive glimpse of an ever changing field of view, everything gently moving or in some instances moving at speed, which is what we encountered in Mark Ash Wood where the Forest floor was alive with small spiders, this was possibly the first and only time I decided to tuck my trousers into my socks, retighten my laces and draw standing up, the shafts of autumn sunshine onto the carpet of orange beech leaves, trying not to think about the millions of spiders, for once my shifting baseline was in reverse offering the sense of pure unsettled delight.
Over time a familiarity has developed as we weave our way through living beings, each with their own disposition, the deer appear as if silent manifestations, sometimes moving in swathes through the Forest, whilst other times standing at a distance as if staring at us; we feel charmed. Or the huge horned cattle who always appear to be sitting down comfortably in Fritham, compared to the busy pigs which are an autumnal treat. The New Forest ponies just stand, cross the road, heathland or Forest, and stand again apart from when the stallions are let loose or when the annual ‘drifts’ take place.
Donkeys on the other hand are a law unto themselves and can be found fornicating on Brockenhurst village green amid thronging college students or climbing high banks to eat choice pieces of manicured hedge. But to be in any of their presence offers a sense of wonder; and yet holding us all, is the web of trees, their canopy and root systems, a solid embrace of continuity and regrowth, offering a settled grounding or possible reset before removing walking boots, saying our goodbyes and driving back across the cattle grid, back to our fast-paced lives.
