Arctic expedition
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Endings – 17/18 October 2017 – back to the begining
Monday 17/10/2016 8°C, light wind 2m/s, overcast, low fog. Sunrise 10:49 - Sunset 16:34 Early morning we take leave ofPyramiden. In dark grey green sea ruffled by a light wind, I watch the glimmer of dawn appear over mountain tops, the moon still hanging above us. I stand on deck watching mountains and glaciers passing, and the last time most of us will pass this way for a while. We are all subdued. A few hours later we sail into Longyearbyen and moor up. 78°13.7´N, 015°36.3´E; we’re back and it’s the end of the expedition.After the chaos of packing and disembarking, pulling luggage back up the steps of the hostel, I retire to the peace and warmth of the Miner’s Bar for a cup of hot chocolate topped with cream. So we are back in civilization; people and cars and shops, even if it looks far more insubstantial than brick-built Pyramiden. In two weeks time the sunlight will disappear and there will be darkness here for the next few months. Even now the sun doesn't clear the tops of the surrounding mountains, and the amount of daylight is less and less each day. Back outside I walk to the top of town with my kite (ever hopeful), to where the road disappears into wildness and polar bear territory. There’s a suggestion of wind so I find a relatively flat space amongst the rocks and lay out the strings, untangling them, which takes a while. Turning on my GoPro I walk back and launch it into the air; a few seconds later it falls to the ground, the wind has gone. Frustration, my verbal responses disappear into the ether; fortunately there’s no-one around. I try again but by now the strings are stuck to the permafrost ground and snag on rocks. I give up; it's really not going to happen. I think that maybe I should have gone with the helium balloon idea. Too late now. A drone would have been even easier - but where's the challenge in that? Instead I wander down town and visit the local art gallery to discover a selection of old maps of the Arctic, complete with illustrations of past activites and creatures to be found in the waters of Svalbard.An old book jacket shows the preconceptions that most people held of the region - as a bleak, dangerous, inhospitable terrain of ice and rock - the borders of the known world. -->It’s trying to snow/rain. Everyone is remarking that it is far too warm for this time of year. Where is the snow? In the night the snow comes.Tuesday October 18th Climbing high. Making our way over boulders and loose rocks, pools of ice and snow, we head up into a blanket of white. We are climbing the mountain at the far end of town. A steep gully on one side falling into a snow-covered glacier at the bottom; I glimpse a glimmer of blue ice at the edges, a monochrome landscape rising and disappearing in front of us. Strips of brown-black and white, small peaks rise out of mist, smooth white slopes and edges, and lots of snow. I dare not look down, keeping my balance more by luck than skill. Ahead Sarah, her rifle at the ready (just in case), keeps up a fast pace; we follow in single file. Sarah Gerats, our guide, and Nemo, surveying from the topReaching the cairn at the summit level with the tops of mountains, we stand surveying a world of whiteness. The air feels wonderfully pure and cold. Below us Longyearbyen is a map of textures and lines.It's as though I’m in the midst of an abstract drawing - how can I compete on paper?Summit posingLater in the dark we gather together under a street-light and take turns to read a few lines of prose/poetry. I read:‘There is hardly anything that shows the short-sightedness or capriciousness of the imagination more than traveling does. … We measure the universe by ourselves… We remember an infinity of things and place… Out there we can experience the new, even if such knowing means only to touch at nature’s vast strangeness’ (taken from Henry David Thoreau, ‘Redemptive Imagination’ – on Walking, written in mid 1850’s).Walking… thinking… drawing… erasing… overdrawing… pausing…erasing… pausing… time slipping… remembering space… silenceHere is a link to the poetry reading held in Longyearbyen, 78 degrees north, October 2016 organised by Ersi Sotiropoulos as a part of the World Poetry Movement's Global Action:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=lghwVlimvd4 In his introduction to ‘The Idea of North’, Glen Gould, a Canadian artist, writes:“Something really does happen to most people who go into the north—they become at least aware of the creative opportunity which the physical fact of the country represents and - quite often, I think - come to measure their own work and life against that rather staggering creative possibility: they become, in effect, philosophers". Postscript….. Trying to absorb and grapple with all this, and then make work has been interesting – challenging. In my studio I have the mass of drawings and paintings I made whilst traveling. Some of the things I attempted to do didn’t come off - like all those early attempts to fly in the Arctic (in their case their aim was to reach the north pole) my attempts at flying a kite with a camera failed - it was either too windy or no wind or it was raining or snowing or there were Walruses, or the strings stuck to the permafrost… Using ice with frozen watercolour pigments sort-of worked; what I produced was ephemeral and that’s okay since it was all experimental and will feed future work. --> but perhaps also partly relates to Arctic melting. The impact of the landscape, its sheer scale was pretty - to employ a word that the Americans used a lot – awesome! And it was certainly immersive. How to convey all this in a moment on a piece of paper I’m still trying to figure it out. I can still feel the frustration of trying to draw a series of peaks with the mist moving over them - to get at least something down on the paper. In my notes I wrote ‘I can’t put down what I’m seeing… it seems quite insane to be trying’. My notes are full of colour descriptions… ‘white isn’t white, white is many whites’… Work will emerge in the coming year, so watch this space…Thank you all for your support
• Arctic Blog: Friday 7th October – ‘Værfast’ (Ymerbukta)
--> Friday 7/10/2016 2°C, Ymerbukta. 20m/s; Sunrise 09:21 – Sunset 18:06. Sea state – moderate; wind speed 7-8, gusting wind, speeds of up to 20 knots predicted. Grey-green sea, small waves break the surface.A hint of spindrift. Mist hovering, mountain shapes disappearing re-appearing. We are moving yet going nowhere. Last night the boat was moved closer to the entrance of the fjord, but despite two anchors we've been pulled half way back to where we originally moored on the northern side of the fjord. In the morning we reach a speed of 0.5 knots despite two anchors and 270m of chain out.The wind howls and gusts; a lull before it starts again. This isn’t a full blown-storm, force 7 is not so much - a moderate gale - but for this sailboat it is and we can't venture out into open sea, can’t leave the safety of the fjord, we are ´værfast´ so we stay put. We anchor. Some of the hardier amongst us jump into the sea from the boat with ropes tied around their waists. Not for me, therein lies madness!A small break in an otherwise grey overcast featureless sky. I make out dark shapes of mountains, no detail. It clears a little; snow on peaks, a few tiny buildings - trapper huts - on the shoreline. Waves racing towards land, white foam breaking, swirling, twisting. Colours change. Close to land there’s a strip of brown sea, on the far side of the boat the sea is a pale blue. The glacier reappears in front of us. Later, an apricot glow in the sky over the glacier, the sea looks much greener. On deck I make four paintings, well they make themselves as paint is blown across the paper by wind, washed by rain. ink, charcoal and pastel washed with rainpastel and charcoal and rain waterink, pastel and raincharcoal and pastel with rain waterEarly evening the sea becomes brown; a heavy sky, cloud and mist moving rapidly over the mountains. Every so often a loud gust of wind sweeps across the sea sending large waves racing shore-wards. The air is full of sound – anything that’s loose is moving, banging, rattling. Click on link below to see short film I've posted on Vimeo:https://vimeo.com/201751970?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=29220In fading light I am drawing composites records of our movements. Very small drawings in a cut-down sketchbook. I start to worry I might run out of paper.Early evening we travel back to the southern shore, and anchor. A few hours later it’s clear that a single anchor is not holding us, a 2nd anchor goes down; we are still stuck in the fjord Maybe we will escape tomorrow. The northern lights put in a brief appearance.
• Arctic Blog: Wednesday 5th October 2016 Tunabreen
--> Wednesday 5/10/2016 Tunabreen 4°C, 2m/s Sunrise 09:05 – Sunset 18:23The Antigua remains anchored in front of the glacier. The day is overcast and raining which makes for dramatic cloud, drifting mist hanging in the mountains, the sea brown against a mass of luminous chunks of blue and white ice floating on its surface. The Belugas reappear, five white backs breaking the surface in unison. Last night I was sure we were moving since the boat was swaying so much. All that thudding and scrapping and shifting can now be attributed to glacial calving creating swell that rocked the boat. Most people go on the shore, a few remain inside writing or working on their computers. I remain on deck and try to paint – not very successfully, but later I lean over the side of the boat and hoist up seawater in a bucket and add it to pastels and charcoal, and the drawings start to work. Tunabreen - glacier from the Antigua charcoal and graphite on paperusing charcoal and sea waterusing ink, pastels and sea waterApart from the crew working or loitering on deck for a quick smoke I’m pretty much on my own. It’s peaceful; every so often there is a glacial calving, and we all stop and look towards the sound. I can never get to photograph one of these happening - you just never know when and where... but the sound is always startling and disturbing. According to Wikipedia glacier carving is a form of ice ablation or ice disruption and caused by the glacier expanding, which causes the sudden release and breaking away of a mass of ice from a glacier. The ice that breaks away can be classified as an iceberg, but may also be a growler, bergy bit, or a crevasse wall breakaway. I guess this depends on where it happens. Everyone piles back onto the boat – lunchtime. Later Ellis joins me on deck and we work side by side on the only table on deck, and we both marvel at the landscape and feel overwhelmed and wonder what on earth to do with it all. Ellis O'Connor and Janette Kerr - drawing on deck (pic by Spike)charcoal and chalk and a bit of seawaterwatercolour, chalks and seawaterwatercolour, chalks and seawaterWind increasing, the boat swings and shifting, the view changing so my drawings become combinations of different vistas. I draw fast - even more so now we are moving to another location. Early afternoon - anchor up, there are strong southerly winds. Three hours later we arrive at Gipsvika, 78°26,2´N, 016°25,9´E. The snow has gone, the mountains dark, softened by hanging mist.On shore at Gipshukodden, our rifle-toting lookouts form their usual triangle around us marking the area we are allowed to inhabit. As we arrived in front of the glacier three reindeer grazing on the hill make a quick exit. On the beach I walk to the highest place I’m allowed to go, sit and make drawings. Cold fingers.Around me others are occupied in their own tasks; a few draw, the poet and writers slowly pacing and pausing; sound artists donning headphones listen, photographers peer through cameras, tripods spread on ice and even in the sea, others just sit and look. We gather on the shore in the gloom, awaiting the arrival of the zodiacs to transport us back to the Antigua. Photos It definitely feels colder – but probably because I’ve been sitting for so long on the ground drawing. A few hardy folk stay to skinny-dip; I’m tempted but I’m not that mad! They don’t stay in very long. It’s been a busy day, anchor up, we sail out of Isfjorden (which apparently is the largest fjord system in Svalbard), and travel north through the night. Night view - just before we raise anchorOut on deck I can see the far shore and lights of Longyearbyen again. Strange to see them; I feel such a long way from civilization, yet it’s only been two days. I love being out there in the dark. A sky full of stars; the northern lights are out again (not as strong as the previous time).
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