Le Temoin Bleu - Blue Witness

Blue witness - southern France




Several years ago I talked with artist friends who I 

sometimes worked and exhibited with, about ways of 

presenting, showing and exhibiting art, ways of sharing, 

outside of the usual spaces of art galleries. In Edinburgh's 

Festival we are used to seeing art everywhere, performers, 

music, visual art, photographs, sculpture, readings and role 

playing on the streets, as well as in buildings so that the line 

between art and 'real life' whatever that is, is blurred to such 

an extent that you sometimes feel that just walking along a 

street is to take part in ongoing street theatre, a spontaneous 

carnival. 


I first saw poems on transport systems when 

travelling on Dublin's Dart train in the '80s, and I was 

delighted when poems of my own were displayed in 

Glasgow's Underground in the '90s, and on Edinburgh's 

buses. I've written about one of our exhibitions in the Blue 

Dolphin post here. And one of the artists has since created a 

blog, Forest Dream Weaver, to display her beautiful

paintings and wall hangings . I particularly like the way she 

has teamed up her paintings with photographs from nature, 

which has sometimes been the inspiration for her art.



Blue witness - Paris



Cities are places where a lot of people congregate and pass 

through, but there are other places where art can be created 

and Le Chemin des Grands Jardins shows the way Roger 

Dautais uses the materials he finds in nature to create land 

art. These intricate and sensitive creations may be seen by 

few people, perhaps by none at all, in their own

environment, but many of us are thankful that he takes 

photographs of them so we are able to see them on our 

screens, even if we will never see them in their own habitat.






The image reproduced with kind permission by Le Chemin 




Le témoin bleu de Kermadio pour Dritange



I was so pleased to have this one dedicated to me that I wrote

the quinta, 5-line poem, below, as a response to it.




comme des gouttes de pluie rouge


les baies penchent sur l’échelle de pierres


les gouttes rouges du temps -


les plus doux -


s’étendent vers le bleu, le témoin, l'originel





English version -


drops of red rain, 

these berries lean on the sculpture of stone -

red drops of time are the sweetest – 

they stretch up to the blue,

our first witness



Blue witness by the sea, Scotland, solstice

Comments

Oh, I do like that poem!
dritanje said…
Thanks, solitary walker! And it was thanks to your link that I discovered the amazing site of Chemins des grands Jardins, such breathtaking land art. Without the internet and blogs one would never have seen these images of a kind of art which is so ephemeral in its nature anyway.
And I, in turn, heard about Le Chemin des Grands Jardins through Ruth! What wonderful resources blogging and the internet can be.

BTW, I've replied to your comment on my latest post, and have asked you for any books you can particularly recommend by Christian Bobin. I was very struck by this French author and poet when I looked him up just now.
gabriele gray said…
http://www.sentiersculpturel.com/

I never quite made it to enjoy this during past trips to the south of France but it deserves more recognition.
And thank heavens for bloggers such as this lady who offers this delightful experience...
http://margaret21.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/le-jardin-extraordinaire-2013-version/
And this? I took a friend there when he was depressed (working on his doctorate in A'dam and burnt out) and the place did its magic...his doctorate was in philosophy...
but while de la Rochfoucauld may tell us "Philosophy triumphs over past and future evils, but present evils triumph over it", in this case, Naif art triumphed over philosophy and all its problems....
I sent him to explore the place by himself so that all the experiences, memories, feelings, words are his own....
sometimes sharing reduces the space an experience occupies within us.
Your words make images a solitary experience (if I so want...)...but still a human experience, not just a recorded space.
Thank you.

Anonymous said…
North Berwick?
Sorry,I've been neglecting my blog for the past couple of weeks.
Thanks for sharing this!

I hope to show more of your snow scenes when the time is right.Who knows what the remainder of winter has in store for us......

Rubyxx