Inscape - Why is my site called Inscape?  Well it was Gerard Manley Hopkins, the poet who invented the word and he said it described writing about the landscape of the soul and spirit, which is what he did in his poems.

 O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap

May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small

Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,

Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all

Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

This is from a poem called 'No worse, there is none,' and it is about grief. If you have suffered grief and depression then you will recognise the landscape or inscape he describes.

When I paint, it may be an image of the sea or mountains but I am also painting my experience of that landscape and what I felt as well as what I saw. I think 'Inscape' is an excellent description so I borrowed it.

I spent many years teaching, painting, organising, applying for grants etc and have only recently come back to reading poetry. It is such a simple art form but so complex to describe. it says things between the lines and I paint meaning between the paint and obvious subjects as a lot of landscape painters do.. think of Maggi Hambling or Mary Newcomb or Joan Eardley.

We can each only paint our own truths, write our own poems. So let's do it as well as we can because otherwise our witness will be lost...

The angel's wing below was made up of 612 feathers all recording words and images by a pupil at my local primary school in Bowthorpe. The school is called St Michael and all Angels. Each pupil wrote or drew about their experiences of lockdown which brought safety for many and danger for some. Each one is an important act of witness.