Fieldtrip Cove Park

Early Wednesday this week I got in a bus with most of the other students doing Environmental Art 3rd year. We were 14 people, as a few couldn't make it due to other obligations.

We were going to Cove Park to do research, make work and to have fun together! These trips are so good for the social environment in the group. We do some of the work involved in the trip ourselves. Our lecturer have organized transportation and lodging, but we have to organize food. We are also given a brief for the research.
The practical stuff - buying/making food was organized in a routa, so we were five people to buy and cook food for everyone each day. We managed to make som really nice meals together!

On our way to Cove Park we stoped very briefly in Helensburgh to buy food for the next couple of days and to get lunch. From Helensburgh we went to Faslane Peace Camp which is located close to the Faslane Navy Base, just north of Helensburgh. It was quite fascinating for me to see the peacecamp as we don't really have permanent peace camps like this in Norway. We also looked around to see Faslane Navy Base, from the other side of the loch, and at the entrance to Coulport Navy Base. Coulport is on the peninsula west of Helensburgh where Cove Park is.

This first day was very busy. In addition to seeing the navy bases from afar we also went to a studio visit. Christine Borland and Ross Sinclair has a studio together in what used to be a church. They let us walk around and have a look at what they are working on, and talked about what it is like to have a studio practice, when having been without a permanent studio for most of their career. Its just wonderful to get to see their work and to hear them talk quite personally about what it is like for them to be practicing artists.

In the evening we had a great meal together and also held presentations for eachother on various features on the peninsula, among them the peace camps, the botanical garden, Mackintosh and Greek Thomas etc. It was all very entertaining.

The second day most of the group went off to see the botanical garden, but I went for a walk on the peninsula. The wheather was really bad, but I managed to get some photographs I am happy with.

For the Friday we were all supposed to do individual research, but because of work I had to leave early from Cove Park and get back to Glasgow. Hopefully some of the work I did on Thursday is good enough for printing. If nothing else I had a really nice walk in the rain.

My work last term evolved very much around walking as primary research and looking at Richard Long and Hamish Fulton's work. I am still trying to resolve bits and pieces of that term, meaning, how walking might sit within my practice, and how I can resolve it for finished pieces of work.