{"id":592,"date":"2016-05-31T10:52:23","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T10:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/rpt\/?page_id=592"},"modified":"2023-10-06T12:08:36","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T12:08:36","slug":"c-v-scribd","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/rpt\/?page_id=592","title":{"rendered":"Background"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Delineation of Theory:\u00a0 An artist’s personal statement<\/p>\n

Throughout my ‘art-working’ life some things have remained stubbornly, one might even say obsessively, constant. Be it in digital images as recently or in drawing or poetry and song I have remained constant in delineating a clearly map-able terrain. This terrain extends about 5 to 20 miles in radius of my hometown of Didcot in Oxfordshire, England. Always the poor relation of the illustrious centre of learning that resides but a stones throw away.<\/p>\n

There runs a hard core of intention throughout which draws on politics, ecological thinking and that obsessive returning to notions of ‘place’ and ‘landscape’. I regard my work as being a mapping of constant themes which recur sometimes years later. The River Thames is one theme and the Berkshire Downs another.<\/p>\n

Local folk tales and oral literature mined from local libraries another. A recent song ‘Hanging Puppet’ drew on one such tale. In fact one could describe it as artistic ‘Anglocana’to differentiate it from Americana. I have written well over 2000 songs over the years. Mostly these are recorded in lo-fi versions and only really coming to life when in the hands of other more talented musicians (see the Moon Over the Downs CD 2003).<\/p>\n

Poetry has appeared in various magazines and in the Scottish anthology The Ice Horses (1996). I currently have at least 4 unpublished complete books of poetry on the shelf. One could describe my work as multi-disciplinary with a strong streak of green politics colouring the waters beneath.<\/p>\n

I have drawn on some clear influences in writing and art. Seamus Heaney’s concept of a personal ‘Hedge School’ going back to John Clare is one thread. My forebear’s personal involvement in Agricultural Unions is another (see Skeleton at the Plough poems). I also am influenced by a ‘working class’ sense of writing picked up form Carver and Gallagher and other dirty realists. In song almost any Americana act would suffice.<\/p>\n

I am not American but I have strong American influences going back to Thoreau and Walden lake. To try and build an alternative ‘English’ approach I have increasingly been drawn back to the English Civil War when the notions of science and arts were more fluid and interchangeable. As an example I would cite Robert Plot’s Oxford a marvellous Natural History of Oxfordshire from 1677. In it one finds specimens such as ‘Stones that look like Horses’.<\/p>\n

I draw heavily upon cultural geography theory I draw heavily upon cultural geography theory post Williams and Berger and am heavily influenced by Patrick Keiller and David Matless.<\/p>\n

It is this kind of merging of scientific natural history and folk-lore terminology that I now most interested in both in poetry and artwork.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Delineation of Theory:\u00a0 An artist’s personal statement Throughout my ‘art-working’ life some things have remained stubbornly, one might even say obsessively, constant. Be it in digital images as recently or in drawing or poetry and song I have remained constant in delineating a clearly map-able terrain. This terrain extends about 5 to 20 miles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-592","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/rpt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/rpt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/rpt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/rpt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/rpt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/rpt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/rpt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}