Colours have been in my head a lot here, the colour palette in the landscape is so rich and I'm deeply drawn to the different colours around me. The colours change all the time depending upon the sun and cloud cover, but there are so many beautiful gentle shades of grey-green-golden-browns with all these intense flecks of deep colours dotted about the forest with fungi, berries and leaves beginning to turn such deep autumnal shades.
You could walk endlessly here and notice something different every time, partly because the light changes so much, partly because the colours in the foliage are changing daily and partly because there are so many tiny details to notice... The colours of the landscape are almost summed up by the tiny snippets of detail found on some of the amazing rocks here. I've been spending spent ages looking at lichen and moss, so many wonderful grey-greens with tiny dots of reds, russets and golden yellows... Its like the vast forests with little flecks of intense colour where fungi grow dotted about... And I'm really drawn to the ways the fungi and the tiny parts of the moss are like little vessels holding dew.
The arts studio here in Koli is such an inspiring space - and its big, which was slightly daunting in some ways at first but now I feel settled in here I can see just how vital such a space is - it's letting me really spread out and make things, test ideas out and leave things in place so that I can keep tweaking and rearranging (and that all sets other trains of thought off too).
The forest is just outside the window and keeps calling out to me; I've begun to settle into a way of dividing my day between sessions with the school, walking in the forest and collecting and time making in the studio. This is my third week here and I'll be heading home at the end of the week, so it will be interesting to see what emerges during the next few days... I definitely feel this is just a beginning of exploring here...
I also find it so fascinating watching other people interact with the landscape here. I live close to the Peak District National Park and am out walking there a lot but there are so many differences here with the ways people are so calm and gentle and peaceful in the way they spend time in the land. You can walk for hours here and hardly see another human. On Sunday I walked through the forest to the wonderful Nature Centre at the top of Ukko Koli (the hill top view point which is very well known here) and there were others out and about up there - but it was so peaceful. People here are very careful to ensure they don't intrude with loud noises or behaviour that might cause problems for the land or for others. I've not seen any litter and no dog poo (and definitely no plastic bags of dog poo slung in trees) and people are walking dogs here. People at the hill top view points chat, but its calm - they do it in a way that allows others to enjoy the peaceful landscape and to watch the view without feeling encroached by the behaviour of others. There's fire pits here dotted all around and people just turn up, carefully make a fire, cook some food and then put the fire out and go on their way... Its all so much a part of how people spend their time that it feels so ingrained.
I think I must be part moomin really...