Nature and Stillness

Nature and Stillness

Celebrating Joy of Being, within and without!

Feltings, paintings & needle-punch sketches

Rowena Scotney

As part of the exhibition ‘Elements’ at Morvah Schoolhouse Gallery
with Marg Mason, Michele Cowmeadow and Maria Heitel

Sat Sept 21st – Fri October 4th 2019

'The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.'

- Matsuo Bashō (1644 -1694) ❤️

‘It is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing.’
- Van Gogh

These paintings and feltings are a celebration of nature and presence, inspired by Eckhart Tolle,
Mooji, poetry, silence… and my garden, learning, watching, planting, nurturing, flowering and the
seasons, and for pausing, space, silence, listening, stillness, learning from the plants, the flowers, the
wildlife, the birds, the insects, the stones… and the cats!
Nature as a beautiful access point into inner stillness, embodies the element within us all.
Transience, unfolding, learning, roots, growth, renewal all symbolise our human lives, and there is a
greater, vertical depth which lies beyond (and within/as) all of this! - that which never changes, a
timeless freshness, the innate spirit and inner wisdom that animates all of life, a beautiful
pantheistic infusing energy that happens and unfolds by itself.
‘Our essential nature is that which is beyond thought, beyond content, beyond form, it is the living
reality of who you are, it is your home. You can sense this everywhere, the unmoving silence in
every form. It is often easier to experience in nature, as an intense peace…. although it can also be
felt in cities and amongst incessant noise, as it resides within you, it IS irrespective of external
conditions.’ (Eckhart Tolle, ‘Stillness Speaks’)
Observing without the mental abstraction, truly looking without interference from the mind, you
sense this aliveness, the spirit, pure consciousness and Beingness throughout everything. Stillness
and peace, beyond thought, content and form, one with all elements. We Are this stillness, and the
flowers, birds and all of nature mirror this back to us.
This ‘Joy of Being’ in elements of peace, silence, inner space, light, grace…is expressed in the writings
of Eckhart Tolle, Mooji, The Upanishads, Advaita Vedanta, Rumi, Hafiz, Rilke, Basho, Emily Dickinson,
Mary Oliver and so many 100s more..!
It has been such joy creating these paintings and feltings, as expressions of this. I’ve felt this sense
since a young child and so much of my life, reading, exploring and artwork has been around
understanding and expressing this.
I love experimenting with colour, contrast, texture, shade, accents, highlights, the senses, spaces,
atmosphere, line, shape, pattern and rhythms when painting and felting (and gardening!) and
have found that I apply the paint, pastel and pencil in the same way that I lay down the wools for
felting.

1

Firecrest - 'Regulus ignicapilla'

‘the fire-capped little king'

Tiny firecrest - a little spark of happening in the great non-happening x
Observing moon, sea and stars -
feeling the wind
Little bird of the Absolute
❤️

Beautiful firecrest sighted for a few moments in a friend’s garden close to Marazion.
Felting with stitching embellishing

Once a migratory visitor, the Firecrest can now be found breeding in woodlands in the south of
England.
The Firecrest is a tiny kinglet, closely related to the similarly patterned Goldcrest. Firecrests were
first recorded breeding in the UK in Hampshire in 1962, and are now found in coniferous forests
throughout much of southern England. In autumn and winter, numbers increase as migrant
Firecrests arrive across the North Sea. At this time of year, they join flocks of other small birds
and can often be found away from breeding sites, including in parks and gardens.'

2

Charley on the patio

Pastels and pencil

Jackdaws and Squirrel in the Sycamore tree

Pastels and pencil

3

11 Collared doves and the Mahonia tree

Pastels

Flowerbed, inspired by Nolde

Pastels

4

Spring Garden

Mixed media

Lampranthus summer

Pastels

5

Grasshopper leaping

Needle-punch sketch on handmade paper
Inspired by a favourite e e cummings poem... the reader Must participate and bring the

poem into meaning x
Break-up, fragmented, restructuring, infinite energy, unfixing, it's in the spaces between the
words, letters, sounds, images, where true meaning resides – AL(L)ways!, no ‘one’ meaning,

n(ot)ever..!
‘The poem does not sing itself; it builds itself, three-dimensionally, gradually, subtly, in

the consciousness of the experiencer.’ – e e cummings

6

Bluebells and camellia bush

Pastels

Silver in the flowers

Pastels

7

Peonies and Violas inspired by Nolde

Pastels

Silver on the patio

Ink and watercolours

8

Ginger in the garden

Pastels

Flowerbed with roses

oils

9

Self-Heal (Prunella Vulgaris)

‘Nothing to Save’

by D.H.Lawrence

‘There is nothing to save, now all is lost,
but a tiny core of stillness in the heart
like the eye of a violet.’

Ginger and Silver in the Garden

Felting with embellishing and stitching

10

Gulval Fields in summer with swallows, view to Marazion

Pastels and pencil

Across the fields, view to St Michael’s Mount

Mixed media

11

Female Blackbird and moon

Needle-punch sketch through handmade paper

from 'if everything happens that can't be done' by e e cummings ❤️

'so world is a leaf so a tree is a bough The beautiful, exciting, spiritual,
(and birds sing sweeter musical, painterful, playful, joyous,
than books gentle e e cummings!
tell how)
so here is away and so your is a my To Love, pure Consciousness,
(with a down Isness...and female blackbirds, within
up and as and of all of this :)
around again fly)
forever was never till now

…

we're anything brighter than even the sun
(we're everything greater
than books
might mean)
we're everyanything more than believe
(with a spin
leap
alive we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one

12

Heron and Little Egret, Hayle RSPB Hide

Mixed media

The Road to St Ives

Mixed Media

13

Gulval fields, towards Mounts Bay

Pastels

Silver on the Allotments

Pastels and pencil

14

Birds on the feeders in the wind, garden in the Marshes, Marazion

Felting with embellishing and stitching

‘Do not over-garden your Being, leave some wild places’ – Mooji

Intuitive painting
15

June Garden

Mixed Media

Gulval landscape with song thrush

Mixed media

16

The Bright Field after the rain, Gulval

Oils on board

Drawn again to the yellow field I sketched in pastels, close to where I live that reminded me
of the poem by R.S.Thomas - 'The Bright Field'.
- bright moments of grace and beauty in our lives, the little miracles that illumine and, in
truth, are ever-present.
'The Bright Field'
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

17

Sweet Peas from the garden and bees

Oils on canvas

Colours on the Water

Oils on board

18