Sunday 17 July 2011

Dark Mountain


THERE'S A SOUND that comes from the hedgerows in July: a green sound, a great cacophony of young birds with new wings, shouting their proud freedoms over the million wonderful brown rustlings underneath; it's a warm song of summer beginning in earnest, and it sings to our hearts of adventure under the long-eveninged skies. Hedgerows and waysides have always sung to me like this, in their beautiful chords of the season. As a tiny child I keenly peered into the holes made by Who-Knows-Whats and thrilled at the knotwork sorcery of roots. On the verges grew a wild library for me: weeds and truant grasses thrived unnoticed and yet held in their pages stories I was sure were important and ancient and wise. I have never stopped loving those roadsides that flash by beyond car windows, those mighty green kingdoms of undergrowth bordering our highways and byways. And I have always suspected that the feeling conjured in me by an old old hedgerow, gripping the centuries-old earth banks as I walk alongside it, is somehow a key: a heart-sign, deep beneath words in me, calling me to follow.



The congregations of the waysides have always drawn me too: those outcasts and travellers, peddlers, hobbledehoys, lunatics and vagabonds who make their art in the ditches and say their truths to all who pass by. I've long felt this edge-territory home: I make camp behind the road signs, draw faces in the dust where the sparrows bathe, and I watch. And I wonder about them all travelling so fast past... Where are they going? Who are they travelling with? What would we talk about if they stopped for a pee?
Have you ever had your head turned by the wonderful incongruous sight of a Gypsy wagon parked up on a roundabout as you drove by, a horse grazing on verge grass, and a man lighting a fire in the middle of this green island-in-the-tarmac as the unceasing slick of traffic roars on? That's the feeling I'm talking about - the leap in your chest, the feeling of being eye-witness to a still-possible dream, the joy of knowing it.

These are strange times: many many people have stopped really believing in dreams, or at best have packaged them up in a sickly little dollshouse called whimsy. We have been told a fairly grim tale: a grey snake of a tale that eats its own tail to form the 9-to-5 hamster wheel of progress. There's always a but just after a wild thought, a rote-learned reason for not being able to live the life you really wanted, and civilisation put it there.
Yet still there's a truth within us that yearns and hammers at the insides of our chests when we spy something from that other place, that other time and it recognises us in turn. And the ones who paint the poems which cause our inner truths to hammer like this are the artists, the wild ones, the glorious nutters - we all recognise them. Fondest of all perhaps, we recognise Earth's own green poem ringing in tune with our heart-harp-strings.

And these, these are the tunes I hear coming from the pipe of that colourful-coated traveller there in my painting. The tune he plays is in the key of hedgerow and yearning, it is the colour of love and oak leaves, and its words are older and more familiar than the cries we ourselves made as babies.



I'm not a joiner of groups or a follower of isms. I don't like ideologies or the fences they put up. But I was utterly taken recently by a manifesto written by the excellent steersmen of something called the Dark Mountain Project. And not long after I found myself nodding in utter agreement with their words, they asked me to paint the front cover of their second book!




I've struggled somewhat to describe succinctly what exactly the Dark Mountain Project is when people have asked, but I hope that what I've written above conjures something of the spark in me that it feels akin to.
Their flag flies for something they call Uncivilisation (what better thing to fly your flag for?!) - a kind of steep brambly path towards some sort of wild and old truth which we are invited to head for as the citadels of civilisation crumble around us. The thing is, they say, in removing ourselves from nature (as if we were not part of  it), we have forgotten the importance of stories, though they are being woven around us second by second in the advertisement-saturated fast-paced life of now. We are all constantly telling ourselves stories about How Things Are; these stories are tweaked and upheld and strive to keep us feeling safe. But their threads are coming loose and we're beginning to see the face of the Storyteller beyond the woodsmoke. He's reminding us of the old stories, the ones that thrummed in us and in the earth, the ones that were true, and not just sleeping pills to keep the economy "growing".
 


The Dark Mountain fellows cheer the outsiders too, of course - they call for them in fact - to come and climb this mountain, and to bring their stories, their paintings, their poetry to the fireside - so that we can find the old paths again. What I really like about Dark Mountain is that it's not a Way to be prescribed, it's perhaps something more like a language: mutable with time and tongue, adaptable to the speaker. And I like too that they uphold beauty as something important. Their books are an attempt to gather writing that speaks to this realness in us, the truth that recognises that things these days are not quite as we are being told, the truth that offers something different and beautiful.
Their books contain poetry, thought, essays, interviews, recipes, art, stories, histories, futures, all beautifully written. I was honoured to be asked to paint the skin of this endeavour. It's an important and resonant thing, and I urge you to buy a copy for yourself. It also coincides with and celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Luddite rebellion. Throughout the book, there's a focus on an honest acceptance of death, and a hopeful forward-looking, there's earthiness and lyricism. And who could not cheer on a project that promises to write with dirt under its fingernails?

Dark Mountain pages...



And so to my painting... here on a piece of scrap wood found in a skip I have painted a kind of Pied Piper - a figure and a story which have long lured me - but which also felt apt, as he too, boundary walker and soul-stirrer-music-maker, was heading for the mountains.... He plays an aulos - or diaulos - a double-piped flute from ancient Greece, often depicted being played by the god Pan, or other satyrs. It is a reeded instrument said to sound similar to the bagpipes (as one of the pipes would have played the drone, the other the tune). I gave my traveller a split pipe to hint at the dual nature of things, the alpha/omega, yin/yang wheel, without being too specific. He pipes up a tune for a gathering crowd of misfits who appear to be preparing for a journey. As always in my paintings, these folk are the odd ones. Amongst them are old and young, happy and weary, there's a cockerel, a handcart, conjoined twins of different races, and a certain hound. And the keen eyed will spot the one who was left behind in the original Pied Piper tale, who for me stands for something important too, here he's a misfit amongst misfits...



Their gold coloured road takes them past trees and wooden huts to unknown mountains under a skyful of three pale green wild birds. I was inspired partly in the design of this by Russian lacquer work painting, where warm-coloured figures and scenes are scattered on a black background.
There's debate as to where the children went after they disappeared into the mountain, but for me the Pied Piper is not such a malevolent character as he's painted. His multi-coloured outfit hints at his membership of the motley band of trickster-fools who have danced across boundaries throughout the ages poking at entropy and stagnation with their wit and word-sticks. Perhaps the children and the rats got to see beyond the next bend in the road, and to learn by heart the map-song that the Piper played to them.
 


If you'd like to come and hear a little of the Dark Mountain tune, they are holding an Uncivilisation Festival in August at the Sustainability Centre in Hampshire. There'll be talks by many of the Dark Mountain writers - Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine (the co-founders of the project) as well as wonderful poets/thinkers/writers/doers from the five corners of the map. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing Jay Griffiths (author of the incredible Wild, who has an extract from her forthcoming novel of Frida Kahlo's life in this Dark Mountain book.) Also... my Tom will be doing a most wonderful telling of an Old Russian Folk Tale on the Friday night of the festival - Ivashko Medvedko - Little Ivan, Bear-Child, (he's written a beautiful introduction to this here) and apparently I'm going to be there too, in a mask, illuminating his words with my accordion.... I'm proud and excited and a bit nervous.
We'll be selling our wares for the weekend from our canvas emporium and I'll bring this painting to show; I don't think it's for sale at the moment, though soon there'll be proper nice prints of it available.


But I shall leave you now under the green leaf of your day with this parting gift - a piece of genius poem-music that is for me the most eloquent description of the kind of feeling I find in the hedgerows of this land. It is my Piper's melody and, I think, something like the Dark Mountaineers' battle-cry; in it hums the echo of that oldest tune of all that stirs the bold...

It is an epic poem by bard musician Robin Williamson - Five Denials on Merlin's Grave - set to music in an intoxicating fourteen minute paean to this island of ours, to the magic and story woven through it and under it and by it, and it thrills my heart in a powerful and unique way. I found a second hand copy of the annotated printed poem published in the year I was born. Please, please sit for a while, and listen to this on headphones, or good speakers - it will send tears of remembering down your cheeks, and loose an impossible beauty in your heart.








Uncivilisation Festival

* italicized words in the last two paragraphs are Robin Williamson's.



66 comments:

Ronnie (RR) said...

The cover is amazing, well done. I love the frame you made from the skipped wood.

Charlotte said...

Oh Rima, your posts are good for the thirsty soul. I long to follow the pipes of your teller; sometimes the anchor is a bit too tight to the ground and I cannot quite bring myself to cut the rope.

You are welcome anytime to my less able writings I look forward to the next draught from yours. A heartfelt thank you.

Patti Sandham said...

What a beautiful work you did that gracefully adorns the cover. Another amazing post. I love seeing your progress and the final outcomes all in one post. You spoil your blog readers for sure. No wonder we love to visit here!

You always inspire me.

Hugs

Anonymous said...

Your posts and artwork are always an opportunity to step into another place and time. One that begins with your offering of words and images and leads places in own my imagination just waiting for a little push.

Beautifully done as always.

Unknown said...

This is one of my favourites of all your posts, Rima - these are important words, woven beautifully. You are a wordsmith and a truth-speaker, for sure.

You touch so many lives with your words and make the constant clarion-call for the remembering of our souls. I bow deeply.

So proud of all you do!

Tom

Pixie said...

As always such beautiful art work Rima, i enjoy your blog so much and always look forward to reading it....its wonderful...

Pixie x

Martin said...

You never disappoint, Rima. A post that will strike a chord with many, I'm sure. Dark Mountain is feast for thought and, it's interesting to discover that the Uncivilisation Festival is to be held here, in my home county of Hampshire.

venue X said...

Yay. Lovely.

Crafty Green Poet said...

what a beautiful painting, I love all the meaningful detail you've included in it. I really admire the Dark Mountain project too

Lecte said...

Your paintings and words tug painfully at my city-dweller's heart with a fishing hook. This "hedgerow" feeling is familiar from the earliest childhood, when it seemed so natural, and it makes me so sad to realize how little of this beauty enters my life now. Yet, every glimpse of it is thrise as precious.
The peinting is wonderful, and the allusion is recognizable at once - I thought of Palech immediately at the first glance.

Olga Ю said...

Excellent! Beautiful work, I want to review every detail.

Anonymous said...

Dear Rima, thank you once again: what a joy this is to read of the inspirations and visions behind your stunning Dark Mountain cover, the whisper and wisdom of the hedgerows, and how they tug and beckon at that wild green overgrown corner that sprouts somewhere in all our souls. All this, lurking behind that unfathomable, otherworldy gaze in the piper's eyes.

Daniela said...

Rima, now you've put into beautiful words what your beautiful cover expressed. I love that you also think of the "misfit amongst" misfits - because they are important. There is always an edge further, isn't there? And what you speak of wild thoughts and the civilised BUT that comes down on them. Thank you for this lovely lovely piece of writing - I'm really looking forward to Uncivilisation and spending time amongst the hedgerows.

Heather said...

Your painting for the book cover is amazing - I love the graceful swans and all the tiny detail among the little folk, as well as the piper. The two books sound like excellent reading and very thought provoking. Hope the Festival goes well - I am sure you and Tom will be well received there.

Mademoiselle G said...

Your work is simply amazing. Love the cover of the book, but the original painting on this old wood panel is so great, just love the used effet :-)

Anonymous said...

It's a gorgeous painting, Rima - I really enjoyed seeing it in the flesh at W&W.

The very best of luck to you and to Tom in your performance. I'm sure it will be exceptional :0)

Much love to you
Pxxx

Elderberry-Rob said...

It's a lovely piece of work Rima and there's plenty of empty corners in my mind for new thoughts so the book is something I will investigate. Blessings, Betty

Jenny said...

Oh Rima, that poem. I am shedding tears of remembering. I will not forget. Not again.

Tiffany D. Davidson said...

Rima, my friend, you have stunned me once more with this painting. There is an empty spot on the wall below just waiting for those flute pipes of duality!!

The fellow and I have followed the links to the Dark Mountain pages and they have sparked lots of conversation around here today...
I plan on piecing everything together on that later this evening.

All the best to you'uns over there on that lovely island, from under these Appalachians here ;)

Pseko said...

ahhh - I've enjoyed looking at your work here and it is all lovely but this one - this one speaks to an urgency within my life. A sincere and timeless urgency if that makes sense.

thank you Rima (and the Dark Mountain folks)

Von said...

Thank you again Rima for another wonderful post.Posting a link to share with all.

Amy said...

Rima, certainly your most layered work that I have seen, woven with the tapestry threads of real life. I love this, and I love all the links and proclamations of real living versus commercialism. Beautiful...beautiful. ~Amy

Lynn said...

A post to make the heart sing. Thank you!

Cherry Jeffs said...

Thank you so much for this post, Rima. Your site is always full of soul-food but today you articulated most beautifully - both in painting and words - a feeling that has been bubbling in my mind and heart over the last few weeks...Something I knew before and had forgotten. Again, thank you for re-illuminating it with your talent and your soul :)

Unknown said...

Beautiful artwork. I love the fluid feeling, the movement throughout! I am enjoying enormously..... :)

Lunar Hine said...

Sometimes I get so lost in this wood. In desperation I eat my own crumbs. Your several presences in my life help me re-find my way, my self. That is such a gift. Thank you.

A mermaid in the attic said...

Wonderful painting Rima, and yes, yes, YES, I've always felt the same pull, looking out the car window as a child, at the patches of wildness in the urban landscape, little patches of magic surviving against all odds, looking for places where I could 'make camp', put my billy on, roll out my sleeping bag. And Robin Williamson's poem has been a soundtrack playing in the background of my life for almost 30 years, it has surely SHAPED me. I was 16 when I first heard it, on a folk music program on the local radio. I happened to have a tape (remember those!?) in the tape deck, and so I pressed record. I lost a precious few seconds when the tape ended and I had to turn it over, but I wore that tape thin, and I can quote great chunks of it even now. I sent away for the annotated book of the poem, and it is well thumbed and dog-eared, and highlighted and scribbled in the margins. When I was about twice 16, I finally bought the CD, and for the first time, heard those magic few seconds lost in the tape turn-over. There are phrases that I only have to say to myself in my head, and they weave more magic than anything else I have ever experienced. I was lucky enough to see him perform live on my first trip to the UK, and he was even better than I dreamed. He is my archetypal storyteller and bard.

Luna said...

How totally beautiful... lost in it .. thank you for showing the detail.. :~)

laoi gaul~williams said...

amzing work and words Rima, thank you.
i have had Robin Williamson in my life for over thirty years now and i never grow tired of his words and music.
now to go read more on uncivilisation...

jen said...

a beautiful painting from a beautiful place. your words paint as vivid a picture as your hands. truly inspiring

nà from the treehouse said...

I just got back from early music recorder practice when I read your post and saw your musical painting. How beautiful it is indeed.

Thanks so much for sharing the Dark Mountain project too - always good to find similar-minded souls. I'm off to read their manifesto now.
Thanks...

Breenee said...

Rima,
I have been madly passing this article out among friends and we are all feeling so refreshed/overwhelmed/exhilarated by it. I want to share with you, so timely with this entry!
Breaking the Spell of Money by Scott Russell Sanders, as featured in Orion Magazine here in the States.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6343
Thanks for sharing Dark Mountain and , as ever, your work!!

Unknown said...

Such a treat to see your work. Such a beautiful cover! I love love love how you show the progress, so much work and care goes into each and every piece that you create (not to mention super talent and imagination).
Inspiring workspace too. Looks so earthy and textured/worn. I hope you are enjoying the summer:)

artymess said...

Rima your Piper certainly led me a merry dance of memories this morning .....chasing half forgotten songs from an age ago ......he did a good job entwined with magic of course ...x

gz said...

Dear Rima, My Man felt this in his heart and lived a simple life on his mountain. He knew that things are not right with the way most people live.
I walk his mountain and tend my garden and make my pots and his spirit is with me.

Your window and view is inspiring, it must be good to work and think there.

Anonymous said...

I spent long years stifled, surrounded by people apparently happy with 9-5 office jobs, shopping in characterless malls and an annual holiday in a sunny resort somewhere locked away from any indigenous population. This sort of life left me, at best, unsatisfied and hungry for something else and, at worst, made me miserable. Through a combination of lack of courage and lack of luck I found scarcely any like-minded souls and so came to think that I was at fault for my inability to fit in. Thankfully I eventually managed to forge a sort of hotchpotch path of my own away from the hemmed-in too-neat paved streets I’d inhabited for so very long. And now, thanks to the internet and blogs like your own I find there are thousands of like-minded souls. As many others have said, your blog is an inspiration and delight in itself. In addition the links and recommendations lead to more and more enchancements. Thank you. It is an utter joy to learn of so many people following their own wild paths especially those much younger than myself who have had the bravery and wit to do it from the start. Hats (multi-coloured and be-feathered of course) off to you all.

Lou Smith said...

I will follow the red coated piper down the lane and over the hills into unmapped territory. What will we find there? I'm not sure but my heart is excited and tells me it will be beautiful earthiness and anyway, it would kill me to turn back now...

Wonderful post - I will purchase the darkly, deeply nurturing book and have a piece of your strange and beautiful artwork in i one, blessed.

May be we shall meet along the way, in the stories perhaps, behind your mask...

Gwendolyn said...

I still believe in magic, tearfully, quietly. Yes, I hear the piper, always did. Now I hear it through your words... a little taste of magic, a little glimpse through a window of light and possibility.

mama p said...

i am so excited & inspired to find this 'uncivilisation manifesto"!! suddenly my mind is running like applause after a well-played song... i cannot wait to contribute. what joy.

Yarrow said...

Goodness me! I live aong a twisty road and over the hill from the Sustainability Center!!! I'll come and say 'hi' to you and my hound can say hello to yours :D

Love the painting and also the progress pictures, it's facsinating to see how you put it all together and your thinking behind the individual elements is amazing :D

Hita Hirons said...

This painting is one of my favourites, Rima, balanced in every way, with a lyrical movement suggesting the piper's snake-charmer notes. I always wondered what they would sound like! And nature dancing all around him to the same melody. Thank you for including the little child who was left behind the first time round; he must have been haunted by what he lost. As for what happened to the other children when they disappeared inside the mountain, I think the piper turned them into apprentice pipers to carry on the tradition and lure more children to a permanent music making, story telling, good food eating summer camp, similar to the one you will all be going to in August : )

Lovely to see the progression of the picture; natural, methodical, well-paced; a good example I shall try to follow, in my slipshod way. You must be very satisfied with how the book jacket turned out. As we know, a good picture does not always guarantee a good cover, but someone gifted has exploited your image fully. Particularly love the inclusion of the goose hovering over the text on the back cover.

All brilliant!

Griffin said...

Ah yes... and 'the revolution will not be televised' either! Vive le Revolution!

Back to the Land, the Trees are come!

Anonymous said...

Your work is stunning - so thankful to have found you! I am in awe.

teresa said...

blessings. love. thanks.

Erica-Jane Waters said...

Rima,
I always relish in reading your posts. I'm feeling a little unhinged at the moment, and reading your wonderful words help me find my spirit again. So much so I've dedicated a post to you and your wonderful world from mine. Lots of love, lumpy throat xxx Erica xxx

herhimnbryn said...

And so, Lady Rima.....Here I am across the world, sitting by the fire before the sun rises and it's dark and the rain is falling and I listen, listen to Robin Williamson's words. Tears are falling now, I miss the green hedgerows of England, the history of it's travellers, visitors and makers.

Thankyou for this. I shall find the book.


Your words and painting shall stay too with me today. Is that your hound in the foreground of the painting?

Vickie said...

sister of the hedgerow, sharer of luminous words, painter of the visionary ages - kudos and a toasting in friendship with sparkling cider to Rima

Owen said...

I'm speechless, breathless, thrilled to the quick...

Thank you deeply for spreading the word about the uncivilized dark mountain. Resonance rings out like bells, ancient bells...

I shall be off shortly to find a book or two from them, but your words already about all this are magic, just as your painting is pure magic...

I think I've belonged to this philosophy for a long time, without knowing what to call it, and alone with a handful of friends expressing our discontent, out profound conviction that nearly everything we've been sold over the span of our short lives is hollow, crass, commercial, empty, and doomed, plain wrong, and far, too far, from the past that brought us here.

I'm wishing already i could make the trip in August... don't know if possible, but would love to...

At one point here you said, "I don't like ideologies or the fences they put up." Just a couple of days ago I put up a piece on the Magic Lantern about a fence to nowhere, a fence falling down in the wilderness... a fence of futility. I would be delighted if you took a look and let me know what you think of it. The place this fence was found may be France's soul equivalent to Dartmoor, a wild and lonely, forgotten place...

I would love to see what you would paint around this fence, adding creatures, sheep, a shepherd, a dog perhaps... but forgive me, I am dreaming out loud. But if ever you did wish to paint something about this fence to nowhere, I'd be happy to send you the original, much larger image...

all best wishes to you Rima, may your cup runneth over with fine dreams and magic...

Avus said...

My daughter (HHnB) pointed me to this glorious posting, Rima.

I am at present re-reading (for the nth time - well recommended) "Country Boy" (Richard Hillyer) and came across this paragraph just after listening to that wonderful poem/song:

"At other times the imagination, roaming around in search of something to feed on, had to find it where it could. There wasn't much. The secure heart of England in which we lived had no history to speak of. But there were old buildings, and they, like old clothes, carry the stamp of their previous owners upon them. It was easy to populate the brick barns, and outhouses, weathered by the centuries, with the people who had once moved in and out of them, as I was doing every day. The worn cart tracks, made by hundreds of years of coming and going, called up all those who had passed along them, and died, leaving behind no other signs of their having been alive than the marks of their going to and fro, and a sagging mound in the churchyard. And yet the feel of them was everywhere; the unspoken loving, hoping, dreaming of past generations, life indestructible, created by the dead. It poured itself out continually, this life; bubbled up in every generation, insatiable in its desires, irresistible, and yet above all things vulner­able; something that possessed people, and made them capable of entering into both pain and delight, and then left them, deserted and dirty, as a bird leaves last year's nest." (all this from an untutored farm boy!)

Also Edmund Blunden's "Forefathers" came to mind (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/forefathers )

Thank you for this

Rima Staines said...

I am very touched and heartened and blessed by all your words... so glad this has struck a chord. Thank you for your honesty and kindnesses and interesting thoughts and for tipping your hats at me :)

Yours in stitchwort
Rima

Victoria said...

I hate to not read your words immediately you wrote them, but I do enjoy every single thing you shared in this one.

Maybe this is silly, but I think you painted your man, Tom.

Anyway, you just made another beautiful piece of art.
(:

Pippa said...

so beautiful rima!! one of my fave paintings by you definitely <3. such a cauldron of wonders to spy! just fantastic. hope you are so moonbeaming this monday morn x x x x x x x x

Yoli said...

This is just outstanding Rima.

Joel Le Blanc said...

Your words and images have sparked magic in me today, and I will carry them with me as I go about my weekend. Thank you so much Rima for always sharing so heartily.

Velma Bolyard said...

it does appear that many of us are uncivilized--in the very best way.

HKatz said...

I don't yet know much about the Dark Mountain project. I do however love your art.

Ciara Brehony said...

"the feeling conjured in me by an old old hedgerow, gripping the centuries-old earth banks as I walk alongside it, is somehow a key: a heart-sign, deep beneath words in me, calling me to follow."

Just beautiful Rima. My heart expands as I read your words!

I've never heard of Dark Mountain, but Paul Kingsnorth's 'One No-Many Yeses' is one of my top three, all-time-favourite how-to-live books. Just incredibly uplifting and mind-expanding.

Upholding Beauty is, I believe, one of the most important ignored lessons that parents can teach their children, and something I strive to do.

Thanks so much for this post, Rima, I do believe there is much in it for me. :-)

Cxx

LittleInsect said...

just the mere mention of hedgerows sparked something in me. I spend all of my spare time exploring these wonderful islands of ours on my motorcycles.
I hate motorways, with the exception that, when I see a little kestrel hovering over a motorway hedgerow, or a red kite gliding gracefully along such a busy road, it reminds me that the sides of these great highways have become havens for all sorts of creatures, great and small, and actually do some good in giving safe areas for our wild flowers to flourish.
From every evil, a little good CAN grow.

But the one thing I hate to see on my travels, is the local Council's huge tractors cutting the grasses and the hedges alond roadsides - often simply to make things look 'neat and tidy'.

Once again, a thought-provoking, and beautiful post Rima.

Ester García said...

Rima your last post and works are amazing... Congrats for your art! I love to come and see you, it´s always a pleasure.

Ester xx

Acornmoon said...

Your artistry is amazing, it goes from strength to strength. In your writing and your painting, it all comes from deep within your soul and it shows.

Anonymous said...

Lovely to talk to you and Tom at the festival and see the wonderful performance too. Please keep on writing about the marvellous storytelling, myths, painting, playing and writing about life in Devon (which I miss dearly). The Dark Mountain print we got is a fitting reminder to a great weekend.

Matt
strangepixel@gmail.com

Owen said...

Hi Rima,
Just wanted to let you know that thanks to your beautiful introduction here I ordered the Dark Mountain book with your painting on the cover, and they sent it very very fast, so I've started reading it.... it is an amazing book. Thank you so much for doing this piece here about the Dark Mountain people. I wasn't able to get to the festival, we were out in Brittany, but will continue reading the book, and maybe next year, who knows. And we are doubly happy, as we now have one of your paintings in the house !

May your fall season be lovely and colorful and full of inspiration...

mixdbrew said...

What your words, your colours, characters conjure within me i cannot describe. It's like a soul-stirring after being dormant for thousands of years, suddenly waking up and finally seeing...in every sense of the word :) Thank you, my dear friend for taking me to that enchanted place in my soul, every now and then :)

Jennifer said...

Thank you so much for this. Now I've found my way home.

girls who like to gorge said...

What an incredible blog! The illustrations are so cool.. Very whimsical and magical, a lovely corner of the internet! x

Shelley Rickey said...

Beautiful as always! I saw this post over at Retronaut and thought you would enjoy it. The Tudor's Pattern Book: http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2011/09/the-tudor-pattern-book-2/
Friendly greetings,
Shelley.