Friday 26 June 2009

Making marks

Why follow the tracks being made by the sheep...  The sheep tracks are now hard and compacted.  They are not straight lines - the shortest route somewhere but they are traced time and time again.   This making of tracks  is seen in any landscape, urban or rural.  In a city a derelict scrap of land will have routes created as people cross through it making short cuts.  The sheep trails are more meandering - I wonder what this says!

I think my looking at the sheep trails is to do with my fascination of how man makes his mark on the landscape. The sheep doing the same.   Buildings in a landscape give a sense of scale, a reference point.  How the landscape is used.  That interaction between man and nature.  How man is trying to tame his surroundings.  How people/animals move through that landscape.  One imposed on the other, how the other is oblivious.  This making of lines, mark making is seen as man tries to make sense and clarify boundaries, borders.  Straight hedgerows.  A wandering boundary between Wales and England.  

Lines are important.


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