Introducing my latest project - Salt Marsh

Salt Marsh 

One of the planets greatest carbon stores, our salt marshes, are in danger of decline. A unique environment that provides homes and feeding grounds for wildlife, most notably, millions of visiting birds, making their winter migration each year. The marshes are as important to the balance of our ecologically as they are in defending our coastline against, the ever present threat of a rising tide.

Standing alone looking out across the vast and flat plane of North Norfolk's Stiffkey Marshes, I felt like I had stepped into another world. The marsh is a mosaic of wet lands, cut through by abstract pools and a jigsaw of channels that promise to be filled at the turn of the tide.

Stranding's and Coastguard rescues are not unheard of here as curious visitors wander out towards a distant North sea, unaware of a stealthy tide rising in the channels around them. Awestruck by the peaceful beauty, and a calming pastel palette that belies a shadowy threat from the encroaching tide. We are at once reminded of our vulnerability.

A puddled path leads between winding creeks that ferry slow and muddy water through chasms of freshly cracked clay. I bend down to the water on the path, It hadn't rained that day, I tasted it, and yes it was salty. The sky was huge and changing quickly as it headed toward the horizon. We kept walking, next stop,Denmark ?

 We were quite alone in a vast silence, broken only by the call of the occasional wader, just stepping out further and further into a wild unknown. Perhaps it was the promise of certain doom should the tide race in and catch us out that was at play, but I felt a familiar vulnerability and reverence that real wilderness rallies in me. It is all the encouragement I need to reach for my oils and chase the sublime.