Hydroglyphs

Guest contribution form Stu McLellan

Stu McLellan participated in our third Living Waters inquiry and has continued his dialogue with River Frome in Gloucestershire. In common with other participants — for example Luisa Brando Laserna — he has explored visual means of engaging with River. In co-operative inquiry, these would be seen as forms of presentational knowing.

I go to meet River often. 

Frome, humans name this River, from Ffraw in British Celtic, meaning fair or fine. In conventional terms, Frome runs 25 miles from springs rising on the Cotswold escarpment, merging with Severn south of Gloucester, but River's connectedness extends far beyond a linear flow - earth, cloud, ocean, dragonfly, trout, dipper, and uncountable relationships - the kinship of River.

Visiting River is a different experience each time - sometimes I sit silently, sometimes talk, sometimes ask. Sometimes my attention just boggles at the beauty, the detail, the abundance. I might sing, or write. Quite often I get into Water too. As an imagemaker it makes sense to draw, but I feel less drawn to creating a figurative representation, but rather to experience the relationship and energy of River. Often my work takes planning and evolution, but making hydroglyphs is delightfully more or less free of that. The drawings are quick. I arrive with my senses and stories, however I am in that moment. River runs, ancient and young simultaneously; always River, but always changing, speaking in a thousand languages. Quick, because Water moves; quick, because I don't want to fixate on end results.

There's often a little bit of a dance; I might arrive relaxed and open, or it might take time to loosen up and settle in. I try to let my attention be drawn by River's movement, and then respond by drawing - not focusing too much on the page to control what's happening, but just letting the meeting of Water and eye and hand do their thing. A drawing might take a second or two, rarely more than ten. Early on, I took drawings home and reworked them, trying to stylize them into forms more akin to an alphabet, but that didn't work - the marks need to carry the spontaneous energy of the moment. I use only a black refillable brushpen, (occasionally biro if that’s all I have to hand), and a sketchbook. Several drawings per page. 

The name ‘hydroglyphs’ came unexpectedly - my partner was researching ancient Egypt with her students and mispronounced ‘hieroglyphs’ - the aptness rang like a bell. They carry echoes of letterform, of Chinese calligraphy, but they’re of a language unlike ours. River's expression is fluid, constantly changing - certain parts of the flow have specific character, but the expressions, cocreated by stone and air and fish and human, and by distant relationship with springs and rain and groundflow create infinite variation. Seeing the marks emerge is like a window into a non-human culture that feels sublime and endlessly creative. I look back at them with an intense delight - there is something of that moment in them, and something of both River and I.

I’ve given time to these drawings when I’ve visited Waters other than Frome - Wye, Severn, Atlantic Ocean, Loch Sunart, St Anthony’s Well. On beaches where the wave-smoothed pebbles bear seams of quartz, lithoglyphs have emerged too - drawings of those seams - a different kind of language - less fleeting, revealing strata laid down in deep geological time and made visible by the relationship between Water and Stone. 

Hydroglyphs are a kind of prayer. A gesture of love, perhaps. Initially I felt that as a gesture from me - but the more I make them, the more I feel the reciprocity, that Water is speaking through them, communicating something about Water and also about us. An invitation into relationship. The process reminds me that I feel most alive, most at home the more immersed I am in the kinship of and entanglement with the Living World. I feel a growing excitement when I see River again - my nervous system, jumpy from struggling to thrive in our often alienating human culture, begins to regulate in River’s presence, reconnecting with something old and essential. I am beginning to sense Water’s complex, subtle presence everywhere, moving through and around and between. Each visit deepens the familiarity and friendship, bringing questions, challenge, and endless surprise. We are, to a large extent, Water ourselves - perhaps the Water in me resonates in the presence of Water flowing and alive. We are intertwined, from the same source, carrying each other. Water needs us, our presence, our care, our participation...

This process is, for me, a way amongst many, back into the embrace of Life.

Stu shares the hydroglyphs on Instagram @hydro.glyphs, and writes about the process and other related explorations at stumclellan.substack.com. His wider work as an illustrator is at www.stumclellan.co.uk