Christine Payne

Inertia set in: how to work with others if you can’t meet? I write and plan a river walk, but time passes. A programme of doing is needed. I decide to paint the colours of the river each week as a record and to see what emerges. I choose locations I am familiar with, places with memory. The regularity provides a sense of purpose and respite. I become completely focused on mixing water colour to reflect the ever changing watery tones.

Walking 2 metres apart as an investigation.

I always have a sense of the river being close, its presence felt even when not seen. The land and us shaped its journey The shape of the land, the sense of valley. The river constantly renewing itself and us; from rainfall and source to sea, constantly changing, moulding and herding the land. Much is spoken today about transformation, possibilities, as if this is something we must affect, but this is life itself. We are all transforming continuum!

I visit the river weekly and record its flowing light and colour. I am not interested in replicating the scene as a fixed moment in time. This seems irrelevant and irreverent to a living, mood changing, reflecting river. I am absorbed by the process of applying water and pigment, mapping the rivers turbulent form. I forget everything and become part of what I am doing. I have been cold, damp and warmed by the sun, but each ? time is suspended. I know not where perception has gone. I have been released for a while from the anxiety of the world.

My attachment grows and I feel like a keeper of the river. People tell me their stories and memories of the river with fondness memories of otters, large fish, insects and birds, or swimming at the bathing place, now has a sign dangerous to enter water! and of regret for loss of habitat and ..of dogs poisoned, of being frightened to swim or CS spewing untreated effluent burbling of chemical spills in brooks, green algae blooms. A lost river.

I am confounded by the amount of data and analysis!

In lockdown I have to sustain myself by visiting the river weekly, but also to connect with place and people. I choose different locations along the Windrush and attempt to transfer the tonal variations I observe in fluid stripes. Watercolour and water being apt for the work. I catalogue each weeks observations and they become a collection. A collection representing a specific time and place.