Vertical Hold Fault (In praise of limestone 2.0).

This piece was made at Ewbank Scar near Kirkby Stephen, where geological strata are tipped and tilted into cliffs and layers: up, down and level are disrupted and confused.   

Vertical Hold: a term from analog television technology in which the image was adjusted following the vertical image having been displaced, correcting a fault in the televisual technology. 

Fault: a fracture or zone of fractures between two blocks of rock. Faults allow the blocks to move relative to each other. The fault surface can be horizontal or vertical or some arbitrary angle in between.

‘In praise of limestone’ (1948) is a signature work of poet W.H.Auden, who through his youth made visits to the North Pennines.  That geology functioned as a founding myth of place as Auden moved to America in 1939 : a map of Alston Moor was displayed on the wall of his workroom on Fire Island. 

Ewbank Scar has equally a magical atmosphere, and we try to share this in visual images and a subliminal landscape of Auden’s language – a digital echo, a kind of version 2.0 of Auden’s original.

This is a collaboration between myself (Henry Taylor) and Virginia Taylor. We are resident in Glasgow and Penrith respectively, although I was born in Kirkby Stephen and grew up in Penrith.

Please note that after Storm Desmond there is no proper path and the steep approach is very slippery with many fallen trees. Go carefully and in company.

Answering the three Artful question

Creativity: the moment when you are alive – thinking choosing sensing making

Connectivity: together to think choose sense make – share

Place: the stone is made from the bones that we share – in the tiny time we’re here, we make no mark but virtual praise.’ Rock creates the only human landscape‘ (In praise of limestone, 1.0)