Camping. London to Surrey Hills to Bath

So I got out of London and headed to a town in between two ‘Areas of Natural Beauty’, what are labeled AONB’s on google maps. They were colored green and seemed huge. “What circumspection England has displayed, to set aside this much land”, I thought. And before departing I even switched the map to terrain mode, seeing some steep sections, I thought I would sleep under some cliffs or something. On the train there I found a cafe on google maps and thought I will eat there, then go into the woods. At the cafe, I switched to Satellite view and realized what a fool I was! I hadn’t looked at the satellite views! The AONB’s say nothing as to what the land is allocated for- mostly farming. But there was a woody section, and I finished my cafe cheeseburger, then ducked into the woods. I took most of these photos at sunset, while looking for a camping spot (illegal). I camped in a bivy sack and sleeping bag. It had rained and everything was wet. Plus it rained from 2am to 5am, but my bivy kept me dry! In the morning, I went to the same cafe, charged my phone, and planned the new day. My bag had moisture. I didn’t want it to begin to mold. It would rain for another day so I fled to a hostel in Bath for a few nights. I had some rethinking of the trip to do, and much good material to work with.

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I’m writing from Bath now and the camping trip is fading from my immediate memory, but what lasts of it are sore muscles and an excitement from using my ipad and cell phone in the bivy tent. With a 4pm coffee in my system and a cheeseburger to boot, I quickly realized what a terrible plan I had put into motion. The sun would set at 5:50, and my bedtime had been relaxed to 12am already, despite the 5 hour time zone change from Philadelphia. What’s more the sun would not rise again until 7:30am, so I knew I was in for a toss-and-turn evening. I found my flat spot under some trees and set up for the first time my rig; the British military self-inflating mat on the forest floor, the bivy on top, and the thirty degree sleeping bag inside. I’d slept in the sleeping bag in my hostel in London before, so I knew it could be too warm, but to my pleasure, it kept a consistent coolish temperature without dipping into extremes into the morning. Inside the bivy I threw my cell phone and Ipad, and I alternated between looking on google maps on my cell phone, and reading Gayatri Spivak and Foucault, and most importantly illustrating my visions on my ipad. Now illustrating on an ipad inside of a bivy yields its own unique challenges, primarily spacial, which brings me to my sore muscles. Having to push up and periodically turn over and reposition while prostrate and in a coffin-shaped tent, my full body became sore, even that night. Regardless, the space made my objectives very clear, easy to understand. A nice Cafe was not an option, nor a bar. It was just me and the tent, and knowing I wouldn’t be tired for another six hours, and trying to manage the battery life on my devices, while checking off some of the more arduous readings I can more easily put off when in a situation that proves more comfortable. Trapped with responsibility! I woke up when it began to rain, from 2am to 5am approximately, and kept monitor over whether the setup was leaking or not. I sometimes couldn’t tell, for my feet felt the coldness that made me think water had crept in, but it had not. Looking out of the vent window from time to time to check if it was light yet fueled my skepticisms that morning would ever arrive. Finally, at 8am, I, like a  hedgehog, saw my shadow and began the emerging. I slept without clothes, as I heard it was better to do in a sleeping bag regarding insulation. I had a overcoat in the tent with me, and one in my backpack. I unzipped the bivy and reached into my rucksack to get the other coat. My plan was to quickly put on both coats, and it went off well. To my satisfaction the rucksack and its contents stayed relatively dry under a clear plastic umbrella I had bought in London while on a coffee run (for a new friend; a tattoo artist expat, who I’d met through a different new friend in Philadelphia, through The Rittenhouse Art Market). I’d seen hikers carry silly umbrellas and it looked like a gag, but then I saw a video explaining it’s practicality, and on the day before my camping trip, I (despite taking on extra weight) went ahead and bought one. What a good decision that was! The long handle with a hook doubles as a walking stick which has come in handy on the hike. It hooks on the arm and can be almost unnoticeable. In a downpour I can assure my pack and clothes don’t get wet. I built a raised platform out of sticks too to put the rucksack on top of, then put my shoes on top of that, then the umbrella. I didn’t secure the umbrella and was lucky it was not too windy. 

I repacked the rucksack even though the bivy was wet on the outside, and went to the cafe, who catered primarily to motorists making scenic drives through the Surrey Hills, with a special focus on sports bikes. I had an English breakfast and scouted out where I would go next. Isle of Wight and Dorset were considerations, as I wanted to go West into Cornwall, but the weather forecast looked inhospitable. This partnered with the nagging feeling that I was carrying more weight than I needed (the second winter coat), made me want to go north sooner that’s later, to get the camping done sooner than later; and the camping was more plausible in the north than the south, beginning to pick up in the Cotswolds. I was also looking for a Hostel I could crash at, stretch out, dry my things and wait out some weather in. I picked Bath, because I figured there’d be plenty of cafes, and it would be interesting to take daytime walks around while organizing my backpack life. 

I feel that I have made a great decision! From here, the Cotswolds lie to the north, Oxford to the East and Wales to the West. So, Cotswolds for three nights, Oxford for two nights, then Wales- into the Brecon Beacons. Perhaps in Oxford I can do my research on Kemeys Commander, Kemeys Inferior, and the Kemeys family of Wales, and pay visits to these towns. 

I somewhat doubt I can make good mileage with my heavy pack by walking alone. All this whining about the extra weight, yet I’m carrying around two sketchbooks, a metal water bottle which is rarely full, this Ipad, a keyboard, an Imperial war museum small book, and some gouache paints. Oddly, the Ipad is not on the nix list. The remaining gear includes a water filter, the self-inflating mat, the bivy, the sleeping bag, and two sets of clothes. Of all things, I think my exit strategy from the weight is to send a sketchbook home, read the rest of the IWM book and leave it at this hostel, get the camping out of my system and maybe send that gear home just before spending November. 20- December 2 with Frances in Edinburgh, and at some point in there exchanging my old rags for some new clothes. I have my eye on some coveralls from the hardware chain Screwfix. I’ve been asking construction workers where they get their pants from. When I come across a Screwfix I will change out my pants, which I’ve worn out over two years. I’ve resorted to carrying a sewing kit, and spending my time on trains mending, a secret joyful memory and memory-in-the-making every time I get the chance to do it. 

Third day in England, second in London

Still in London, I’ve wasted the day on drawing, and worrying about my outdoor setup. 

The few ventures out were to get breakfast and to go to the National Gallery, which turned into a mission to go to an army surplus to get a sleeping pad. A successful day. Drinking beer began in the afternoon. Worrying about my ipad and second coat took up much of my time, and the rest went toward reading and drawing. 

Another night in the hostel and a train out to Leatherhead are due, but only after meeting a friend in her tattoo shop in the late morning. From Leatherhead I plan to pick up some food and walk into the woods to camp. The google terrain feature has shown some bluffs nearby, which I will try to make a campsite out of. Knowing that it’s illegal to camp, I’m aiming for something between ideal and out of sight. It should be fine. Learning about camping will be an adventure, and I will hope to quell the inevitable regrets of taking along the ipad that will invariably arise, in exchange for the knowledge of it’s periodic indispensability. 

Back to London

I met with my Couchsurfing hosts in Ipswich, after palling around all day; from the train to the cafe, to the bar, then I went to a park. I noticed the spaciousness of the park, it seemed British. 

I’d read Strunk’s Elements of Style before embarking on this trip. Each sentence I try to end with a strong word, a word of emphasis. The first word is of near equal importance, but I have screwed the pooch two for two on this one. I am now stalling, as I’m realizing my beginnings are consistently weak. The edition of The Elements I had had illustrations from Maria Kahlman, and this Park in Ipswich, I’m happy to have seen without knowledge of the prejudice, looked like a Kahlman painting, and for that matter looked to me like the elements outlined in the Elements book. How thrilled I was to see in living time before me simple relations between things. Style is not beating you over the head, I’m paraphrasing, it is clear and gets to the point. If something is funny, it is supported by a rational cast, and good lighting. The antithesis reminds me of a joke from Paul F. Tompkins about jazz as five musicians soloing all at once. In the British Garden the space defines the form, as with painting if I might reach. 

The problem with writing is that is follows experience only, and having to relay everything through the closest lens available, while following a chronology is ripe for a banal platitude like, ‘and now I’m sitting in a bar and writing in my journal’, alleviating only the writer, but I digress. 

 I spent a lot of money on that Ipswich adventure, about 100 pounds, but it wasn’t really my money anyway, it was from the scholarship. Nevertheless, I have to stop doing that, jutting way out into the landscape on an expensive train, only to come back on a just-as-pricey ticket. 

I stayed with a couple. I met them at 6 in the evening, after drawing in the park. I drew toward the organization of the park, then turned around 180 to capture what was directly behind me. Haunted by a quote from Ken Kewley in which he encourages the painter to ‘always look behind him, as it’s more likely to be interesting’. I’ve found it to be true, but it could likewise be the effort of looking employed, as in confirmation bias, that yields the effect. Another bias I hold is the first photo bias, in which the sooner I take a photo, the more impactful, and diminishing therefrom. A combination of the two phenomena occurred yesterday, and I realized upon reviewing my pictures on my phone. I’d found a good vista, took out my phone to capture it, then remembering the 180 idiom, turned around to get that shot at least. I then forgot all about the photo I was initially interested in taking, and put the phone back in my pocket. What a fucking shame for my superstition!

Morning came quickly... 

long intermission in writing- drinks with friends in a London bar. 

I took a train back to London, and a brief bus ride to the Imperial War Museum. I would meet Shana, who worked at the IWM selling guidebooks. I caught Shana on her lunch break. She and I chatted a bit, having only spoken on the phone once before; we were introduced by a mutual friend, Aaron Garvey. Shana splits the goalposts, same with Aaron, the career path looks more like a staircase than a fun house. She has a photographic memory, and would be celebrating her birthday that night at a nearby bar with her IWM Colleagues. 

I drank a handful of beers, wrote a ton of notes that seemed useful at the time but were really just a bunch of mind gunk- bars in Edinburgh, ‘West Highlands’, and the like. 

I’m kicking myself slightly for still being in London, but I feel I need the time. I don’t like being around people that much currently. Feeling a lot of that Salinger-type hypocrisy, looking forward to the alone time. 

The IPad has got to go. I knew it before I came, but couldn’t help but bring it. It’s been a godsend for these typing sessions, and I still have some more business to attend to before shipping it back home. It will not be a good backpack item if I’m just in a bivy bag; Ill crush it. 

I checked into another hostel for the night. I’m basically just spending this residency in cafe’s and pubs so far, my secret preference. A few walks a day is enough to sustain my curiosities, to fuel my practice. I’m taking small batches of photos on these walks for points of departure, and some for ends of themselves. 

First post of English Landscape Painting Scholarship Residency

I held back writing; held back for a few months; held back until now, on a silly train to Ipswich. 

I had a theory that what I would see in coming to England was comically small hills and these privileged over-ground views; be it of pasture or country, and now that I’m rolling by on a train, I may include townships. I pass these by at eighty feet up, and sometimes the more panoramic views could even measure a hundred feet down. 

Indeed my premonition was previewed. I have been here before; in a rhetorical sense somewhat in a geographic sense, (I have not strayed far from London the once I was here, but overall this train and the stations and townships have a European feel), and figuratively I have made a planned but ill conceived Hail Mary trip abroad before. This feels familiar, but what is different is my eye, and my mind. I will catch myself looking at graffiti, and I’ve been enraptured by graffiti in my sketchbooks and I’ve been tagging a little bit in the streets back home, but my mode is different. I want to be funny, and I’ve been exposed to such artists as Ravillious, Bawden, and Nash (through my dear instructor Stephanie Henderson), as well as Moreland comes to mind, at Ringling College in Florida, but more relevant maybe to this trip, and in addition to that group who first gave me the itch to come to this land where funny paintings come from, at PAFA I got way more into Nash, followed up my reading of a book on Ravillious- seeing and looking up the works of his lovers and a few of his friends, and learned of some others- Stanley Spencer and Euan Euglow come to mind. I have not fallen for Euglow and Stanley Spencer so much yet, but am certainly on the lookout. What’s more, I know the big dogs are here too, and I hope I can kindle a more substantial flame to Cotman, Constable, Turner, Gainsborough, and William Blake. Truly England bar none has the best painters, and I feel like I get what they’re getting at, and I feel like an alien or a mutant, like their paintings look like. I read a book of the History of English Architecture in full and was tickled by the conquests followed by the long periods of isolation, endemic to the development of England’s own identity and style. I arrived here on October the 19th, 2019, which was supposed to be the date on which was decided the state of a hard Brexit. I haven’t heard a peep. But I think it is telling that Britain is hungry again for some alone time, after the orgiastic few years with the EU. In the British paintings, there’s an embrace of the weird. The paintings don’t climax on some cliche, they ring instead, a whole painting singing eccentricity. But getting ack to the graffiti thing. Graffiti is a young adults sport- an introduction to the world, and i hold it dear to my heart forever. From disenfranchisement to direct action, to an understanding of the push and pull, and teasing at the threads of structures of power. I would like to read Foucault in so many ways, but I will have to get back to you before I more fully bring him into this but suffice to say, from what I have read it seems relevant. Kant says enlightenment is letting go to the suffering ignorance we bring upon ourselves willingly. We subscribe to that which we know, for comfort. So I’m entering this country, and I look for graffiti, and when I see it, I analyze it, but from this moving train I also catch compositions like snapshots. Color shapes ignite ideas of abstracted pictures, picture planes, photographs, paintings, collages, illustrations. What I’m trying to say is that I have been through art school. 

I was awarded this trip by way of an Endowed Scholarship. $5000, in a check. It was called the Scheidt Scholarship, and is awarded every year by PAFA. I won probably because I painted strong in classes, and inspired and help other students. The prize is awarded based on a end-of-year wall, and I hung one that said ‘I paint more, more broadly, and with more accuracy and feeling than anyone else in the school, even if they’re off, they’re on.’, so all this to say in my wall I tried to make a subjective decision into an objective one. I say all this, and it puts me into contrast to a student who might know what he is doing, or has made well conceived and executed fine paintings, clean and clear paintings. I say this because I believe what won me the prize was my efforts off the wall, and my standing with the teachers, seeing how hard I worked. I am here in hopes of making work, making it work. 

I’m bleeding money as soon as I hit ground. That’s what makes the train ride silly. It cost me 56pound to get to Ipswich from London, including the ticket from the airport train National Rail 62. I bought a breakfast sandwich and a coffee for 6 pounds, and a phone charger and a lighter for 27, and I got off the train since my first three paragraphs and am now seated in a vegan cafe where I ordered a quiche, slaw and a English breakfast tea with oat milk. This latest expenditure I don’t care for but I needed a place to sit for a while to tap this stuff out. Did I mention Ravillious lived and painted in Ipswich for a while? That’s why I’m here. I needed to come see it. My list of places to go is so unstructured, but I applied to a few different houses in the south on Couchsurfing and a couple agreed to host me for this first night. The couple is vegan, and they won’t be home for another seven hours. I told them I love a good cafe, so they recommend this place, Hank’s Vegan Deli. 

Money aside, I am thrilled at my decision to jut east upon arriving, rather than exit the subway ‘tube’ in the middle of london, and having to figure it out from there. Clean as London is, the urban life has been grinding on me in Philadelphia. In the weeks leading up to this trip, I became somewhat of an indentured servant to a few projects which I will now relay stories of;

In spring of 2019 I was in an art market. I made $1200 off selling my student works and other cheap paintings. For this show I borrowed a tent from my girlfriend Frances’s place of work, Asian Arts United. In return for this favor, I rebuilt their garden. Out of a window overlooking the garden work, looked one of Frances’s colleagues, Dewi, whom I had met briefly before by way of coming inside the building to pick up Frances. Dewi is a landlord and had a bad breakup with her recent tenants- they decimated her house, blowing holes through drywall, and generally making short sided modifications to the home. So I was leaving a commercial house painting job to focus more on my art, when Dewi asked me to fix up her house. I asked for $20 per hour, a raise from the house painting rate of $15 hourly. Long story short, I quoted her a time and a budget and we went right through the money, and then the timeframe (though I asked indeed for all the way until the 19th, knowing the job was huge). I was good at being worth the money mostly, but I had one bad week where I decided to bite the bullet on some supplies and time, and that week Dewi begrudgingly wrote me a $900 check. Thereafter, I became shy about my billing, and asked if she would settle on a flat rate to finish the project as a compromise. I asked for $600, then $600 plus materials which I under billed at $100, so totaling $700. Well it was miserable working there, knowing I was eating into projects too big to be worth my time, but I did it. I left the house two days ago. The house is much healthier than I first encountered it, livable even ( excepting the cancerous bug bombing that Dewi subjected the place to- I don’t know if the house will ever recover from the smells of pesticides). Anyway she and I walked through the house and she wrote me the check, so that’s that for now. I stashed some stuff there which she knows about- my tools and a couple of paintings and some oil paint, which I will pick up in January or so. I flirted with buying the house, since now I know it so well but for one the pesticide thing is a deal breaker because I only think of cancer when I’m there, and another thing, Dewi wants $220,000. It’s not the right time for me to spend that, maybe upon landing a teaching salaried job, maybe after grad school. 

The other project has it’s roots on Instagram, through which I met someone from England. He and I would talk a bit and at some point he came to Philadelphia for an unrelated wedding of his brothers-in-law or something. He hit me up for a wall. I got us this spot on a warehouse door, and while painting it I met a landlord who offered me his patio to paint. I agreed to do it for free. While working on his patio mural, he learned I was doing house restoration, and contracted me to help him fix up one of his slum houses, which he payed to have fixed up real nicely. he is a ‘grade A’ gentrifier property developer go get em capitalist, and he is exploitative and solipsistic. So I got wrapped up in some work on this slum house too, and between Dewi’s, the Mural, and the slum house, I did not finish everything, but I did work a ton. Each day was about the work. Drowning, yuppie that I am, made sure I wasn’t being eaten alive- this I would pretend to deal with by taking a long breakfasts before I got started working each day, like I had time to spare; then I would finish the commute to the job site and either work hard because I hit it right, or dobble around and try to get my thoughts in order. I was stressed. I would put in a fulls day’s work somehow or another. It was a miserable few weeks. I became lost, and rather than use super strength to power through all of the projects (as they all felt endless), I deferred to the methods described, trudging. 

I think I picked right. On the train ride out to Ipswich and in Ipswich proper I am finding the shapes and proportions, and even the ‘about to get beat up’ fears which I anticipated. I am taking photos of a small-appetite type; fence, weeds, post; pile of dirt, magpie; corridor, light; cobblestone, chains; a broken window that reminds me I could get my head bashed in. I’m scared of highschool students here. The outfits and the accent makes me think they’re aggressive. I’m tempted to appropriate some of it, see if I can’t get a little tough. There are lots of ninnies here too. I’m at a gay owned vegan place and the traffic is pleasant. Four men sat next to me. One placed his hat on my table, and we cordially gave a nod to one another. So while I do think any group is suspicious, if it’s a group which displays kindness, it’s a pass. The groups set on looking tough I am scared of. 

I brought along a few clothes, a waterproof bivy bag, a sleeping bag, two sketchbooks an ipad, phone and a potable keyboard. The ipad I had doubts on whether to bring, but the decision is well thought out. I want to get better at digital painting, I want to organize my life in a - that somehow I can’t seem to find time for at home (I tend to take on so many projects, while on the road the flux keeps the stone rolling- gathering no moss), I want to write and document my time now that I’m out of art school especially, and since I don’t have internet access often with this ipad, it will be limited to these productive ends. The digital art might be one of my best choices. I want to more directly work from photo reference, have work that is ready-made for instagram and facebook, ( and therefore portfolio and jobs), and have work that is not dictated necessarily by this ‘poetic shred of a yellow wrapper’, or likewise. I have a habit or miring around in garbage, making garbage art. I believe in this in terms of validity, however I fantasize when I’m not making art of the tabula Rosa of the empty screen, there to take in what I program into it, no need for glue or wires, just working in the medium of light itself. I think I made the right choice, and I haven’t even made anything! But what’s more about the digital is that I won’t squander my paintings on poetic self-sad gifts like a clown. They’ll be digital files, and I’ll bring them home, and if I want to use them as studies for further works, I can make that choice. 

This is truly the first headroom I’ve had since graduating PAFA. And the first great blue yonder since leaving my second college (Florida State University) in 2012. 

In 2015, I entered art college, but for real this time, at Ringling College of Art and Design. I thought I would stay a year, then split, as was advised to me by Jim Draper; “just go for one year- stop taking about it and just do it.” After the first year, the second year looked like it could be useful, but not the third. I wanted to focus in on traditional painting so I applied and transferred to PAFA. I also wanted a more sophisticated group of peers, which at PAFA I found. In between the two colleges I stayed with my parents for a summer. It was a good chance for us to become acquainted, as six years prior, at the age of 21, I decided to go by my middle name, Kemeys, rather than ‘Robbie’ which is now (hopefully) my dead name. It was a clear time, but like any big change it’s liberating, then laborious. Becoming is the game, and it’s a long one. Declaration is the easiest part of becoming; it’s cheap. That summer was good; living with my parents, volunteering at the library repairing books, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, and painting two murals (endeavors which I also milked til the last possible minute then abandoned to drive up to Pennsylvania to begin my third year of art school and first year at PAFA). I took up meditation, which I continued for two years and some change. 

When I graduated and got the scholarship, I spent a week and a half decompressing, preparing for the next move, which turns out was getting a job painting houses. I stopped meditating to live in the great grayness of blended days. I haven’t returned to meditation. I picked up drinking beer a week or two ago; just a couple maybe twice a week as I’ve been getting ready for the trip; trying to get into the spirit of it. And I think I’m handling it all well. That’s it for. Now.