'The field lies before me. What is a field?'
John Stewart Collis, The Worm Forgives the Plough
Alongside the Penryn River in Cornwall, UK, The Field lies. Between 5 and 15 metres above the waters level its brown earth shows little life at present, resting, fallow. Almost directly north of here, behind a tall hedge, atop the plateau of a steady hill with the roar of the A39 in the background, another field lies. Similar, rich, brown, clayey soil, this field is resting too. However, come the spring - March leading into April - these fields will both reawaken. Land - the same earth - but put to different uses.
This blog aims to put into words and images the life of the land, these plots of land, and our relationship to the land. Through it I wish to find answers to the question John Collis was asking. It seems a simple question, we all know what a field is, don't we? But I'm not sure we do, really. I'm not sure I do, but I want to find out.
There are many issues surrounding the land: food (GM), access, farming techniques (monocultures), land management, quality of soil, well-being of live stock, organic and non-organic farming, free range and battery chickens, mega dairies, the list goes on. But what these issues all come down to, what they point toward, is us!
We live now further from the land than ever before. Progress...? Not to my mind. I believe we need to take some steps back, turn ourselves around, refocus our gaze from the city - from its tarmac and concrete - to the land. So to the field I will go and start my own journey back to the land. I hope you will join me and share my discoveries.
