Harriet Forster: Walking and Drawing to Perceive and Create

November's artist conversation on Between the Art is with Harriet Forster.

Harriet is from North Yorkshire, where she is now currently based. She did a foundation year at The Royal Drawing School in London, receiving a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, which allowed her to see drawing as a practice within itself, rather than a preliminary practice for another art medium. She then went on to study at Glasgow School of Art (GSA) graduating with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art. Harriet started her degree with a focus on photography, but switched to painting after realising that her work could be broader within her drawing practice instead. During her time at GSA, Harriet did an exchange programme abroad and went to study at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada.

Harriet has also done a residency with Descover Artists on the Island of Hydra in Greece; and another in Collemacchia, Italy with the Museum of Loss and Renewal on the Drawing Deeply: People, Place and Time program. Her work has been exhibited in both the UK and Canada.

In this conversation, Harriet shares her research practice of drawing whilst walking, and gives an insight into the interesting results that have occurred whilst exploring this way of working. Read on to also see her generous book list.

Where do you work? What makes this place important for your creative process?

Being outside is where I get most of my ideas and inspiration from. If you are practicing drawing from observation then the environment you are in becomes the source of the work. Observing what is around me is a hugely important part of my process.

There are a series of walks in the woods near where I live in North Yorkshire. There is a beck and gorge there, plus it's quiet, away from the town centre. I go here quite a bit to work. If I’m starting a new project, I will often gravitate towards green spaces and waterways. The canals in Glasgow became significant for me whilst I was living there as they are some of the only still, quiet places in the city.

The three week residency on the Island of Hydra was a very fulfilling time for me as an artist, because all the artists live together and therefore it was quite an intense environment to create work. We were constantly talking about our practice and pushing each other into new ideas to create work. I spent a lot of the time outside which I found rejuvenating. I realised that this is the perfect environment for me as an artist.

"A key goal of mine is to demonstrate how we are not separate from our environment, which is also essential in terms of tackling problems surrounding climate change. Noticing how things are connected in order to understand the consequences."

How would you describe your creative process? Do you use certain mediums/techniques to develop your creative ideas?

The first thing that I do when I’m starting new work is to set intentions: checking in with what is meaningful to me at the time. This will become the deepest well of potential for creating. I will then explore many different avenues coming from the intention, and allowing myself to explore more than I need to in order to see what sticks. I need to give myself a lot of room to explore ideas, letting things go or saving things for later, to find the ideas that come together to create a body of work. As I go through the process, I’ll continue to check in with the initial intentions and comparing the work I’m creating with what I want to do with the work – if they align, I will keep going down that route. It does tend to happen quite naturally as things fall away as the work comes together, although it can be a long drawn-out affair.

I often work with oil pastels or charcoal, and ink. They are all quite bold, tactile, and malleable materials, and especially when I’m making work outside, I need a material that is transportable. When I’m working on paper or strips of canvas, it’s best when I have a medium that is quite chunky. I love charcoal because of its texture and it feels very earthy. This is reflected in my work as it's very gestural and about texture.

Ideally, I would work half and half outside versus in a studio, but it does depend on the weather. Although I think I’m pretty fearless when it comes to it! I’m not precious about my drawings; I quite like it if they get rained on or muddy! I like how the weather plays a part in the work, for example the marks I make are different when I’m cold to when I’m warm. Working outside tends to be very spontaneous. When I’m in a studio, it’s mainly to curate the body of work or reflect on what the work is doing, rather than actually making. 

Do you have any rituals that help with this process of creating work?

I spend a lot of time brainstorming and coming up with a theory for the work. At the same time, I’ll also make things with my hands but not focus too much on certain ideas, just being playful with it. It can be interesting to see what comes up. When this overlaps with the theory, that’s when I’ll focus in on the project.

Working on my own at the beginning of a project is best so that I can stay within my own headspace and intentions. After I’ve got the groundwork, I’ll bring other people into the work to bounce ideas off of or collaborate with to keep the momentum. This helps with my inspiration and motivation.

For the drawing and place workshops that I facilitated in Glasgow, I initially spent a lot of time in the library researching the theory behind what I wanted the content to be about. I then came up with a programme and introduced it to other people to see what they thought. The theory then begins to make sense once it becomes part of a practice.

In terms of rituals that keep me in a creative mind-set, I really enjoy swimming or going on long walks. I always carry small sketchbooks with me to make notes in or draw small sketches, which helps to keep ideas ticking over.

"Art is a place to explore and introduce new ideas or ways of seeing, and this can create a shift in perspective that leads to questioning things, including climate change and what place means."

What are you working on at the moment?

I would like to do more of the workshops that I facilitated in Glasgow. The workshops were a mix between local people and colleagues from GSA. It ended up being a successful mix of people because those who work outside of the art world approached it in so many different ways. I introduced the idea that we can learn a lot from walking, and how walking and drawing is a way to research our surrounding environment through paying attention to it. We walked and drew physically at the same time, making marks, and I would encourage participants to be expressive and not think too much about what they are drawing. I included prompts, such as, “what does it feel like on your feet to be walking?”; “what sounds are you picking up on the most?”; “how does it feel to be getting rained on in this moment?”  Some people would draw structures a lot, whereas others focused on colour or texture. It allowed everyone to be very mindful of the place they were in and be receptive to it.

At the moment I’m working on a mapping project for the woodland near where I live. This is part of a proposal for an exhibition. I’m drawing whilst out walking and focusing on the methods I have created to deepen my understanding of them to capture the textures of the place.

I also want to focus back in on photography after having time away from it, and see how it might have developed in relation to my current practice, as it has changed a lot since I was studying it.

What does “sense of place” mean to you? Is this concept present in your work?

My practice is about mapping journeys so it speaks of how people interact with place, and suggests how we are not separate from our environments. This is the main intention behind my explorations so therefore sense of place is essential to my practice. I think a lot about the elements that create a place and how this is not stagnant, things change. How we perceive our environment is really important because this essentially dictates how we care for it. A key goal of mine is to demonstrate how we are not separate, which is also essential in terms of tackling problems surrounding climate change. Noticing how things are connected in order to understand the consequences.

Do you have a message that you hope to give to the world through your work?

Simply, to demonstrate that we are not separate from our environments so that we can then take care of them, which is important for the current state of our planet. I think there is so much more that needs to be understood about how we are not separate on a practical and scientific level. It’s so important that we realise that we are affecting the changes that we are experiencing. If we can really slow down to notice how we do this, I think people would question their decisions a lot more and their actions would be understood for the consequences that they create. Art is a place to explore and introduce new ideas or ways of seeing, and this can create a shift in perspective that leads to questioning things, including climate change and what place means. Workshops are a great way for me to see how my ideas around slowing down and paying attention to places are being put forward and used practically.

Harriet's Book List:

1. The Second Body by Daisy Hildyard

This has been a pivotal book for me that I was introduced to on the Descover Artists residency. It showed me how my way of thinking is actually quite scientific and practical, and how you can take philosophical thoughts into practice. It takes a very literal approach to this idea of us not being separate from our environments.

2. Ways of Walking by Tim Ingold

This was a big source of inspiration during my last project and has continued to inform the work I’m doing now. It looks at how walking is research and teaches us about place. It references a lot of other research, including indigenous knowledge of the land and how this is completely different from the colonisers’ point of view in a practical sense of physical imagination of space.

3. A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

This book is less academic but I really like the way Solnit writes.

4. The Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain by Damian Le Bas

The author grew up as a traveller but not actually travelling, and so wrote this book after visiting all the places that he heard his family mention. His sister is Delaine Le Bas who is an artist, and had a big exhibition in Tramway, Glasgow, that I went to. Her work is also really interesting and they both have different perceptions to what I understood about understanding place when I was growing up.

5. Amma by Saraid de Silva

This is a novel I’m currently reading and would really recommend it. It’s essentially about the females in the family over generations, starting in Singapore, then Sri Lanka with the daughter of the original character, and the next one in New Zealand. It’s very sensitive to how things are inherited and how identity is tied up with where people feel like they are from. It’s an interesting perspective from East Asian and queer women.

To learn more about Harriet's work, see her website www.harrietforster.com and Instagram @harrietidforster.

All Images: Artist's Own