Coast as inspiration 1

Mackerel Sky

This golden hour photo was taken at Alnmouth beach. The fantastic cloud formation, known as a Mackerel sky, is quite common here, but always astounding. It’s easy to see why this vista is inspirational.

The lyrics of “We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal” have sea related themes, such as “Waiting for the Lutine Bell and the stories that it tells”. Many times during this collaboration with Gaz Cobain of The Amorphous Androgynous I would take a stroll along the coast, often while listening to an iteration of the music and getting inspiration from looking out to horizon.

Sometimes it is something much simpler than a mackerel sky that catches my eye, like these wave ripples or rivulets in the sand.

Concept art for the booklet that accompanied the ‘We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal’ CD. For this I started with a photo and edited it to add the cavernous over-sized skull and out of proportion tiny person. There is something about the sweeping seascape vistas and distant horizons that makes tiny people seem right. They were a theme in my art work for a while and I still come back to ideas of playing with scale.

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