www.paulclarkart.co.uk

SWIMMING HOME PROJECT

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Map of swim undertaken between July and September 2008

'The day was beautiful and it seemed to him that a long swim might enlarge and celebrate its beauty'

 

Quoted from 'The Swimmer' by John Cheever

The Journey started at Loweswater and meandered back in a generous flourish across the Lake District to Gurnal Dubs near Kendal. The stretches of water swum in between might be thought of as the manifestation above ground of a deeper subterranean river which flows home. This conjectural river linked twelve tarns/lakes and the 'swim' took in each stretch of water starting at Loweswater and finishing at Gurnal Dubs extending over a summer.

The vague notion we began with is of 'altered states of mind' induced by wild swimming and an aesthetic response to these. As the photographer Robert Frank writes 'The project …..is one that will shape itself as it proceeds and is essentially elastic'.

We agreed to act on this principal. The project was inspired by three literary sources - a short story entitled 'The Swimmer' by John Cheevers, a longer journal entitled'Waterlog' by Roger Deakin, and a book on anthropology/archaeology entitled 'Inside the Neolithic mind' by David Lewis Williams which discusses altered states of mind. Paul pointed out that the 'missing chapter' in Deakin's book - which involves a swim across the Lakes - would be another aspect of this elastic project.

Richard Light