Although I know several places on my list well (and especially my own village and those near by) it is surprising how short a journey can reveal locations that I have never previously visited. For my first proper trip out I drove down the A42 to the Ashby turnoff and made for Coleorton. It is very convenient that this major route traverses the district virtually from the north east to the south west corners though in itself it has a major impact on the topography of the place.
Coleorton was, in retrospect, perhaps not the best place to start. Of course given that I do not have a specific plan of action divining what is or isn't a good location is a moot point. However the dispersed nature of this location traversed by a new road that further divided an already rambling collection of properties and other public buildings makes for a difficult visual summation. I pulled up the car at three different spots in the extended village and its environs and walked around looking for images that resonated for me. Immediately it occurred that well kept and nicely manicured middle class middle England villages do not provide substantial visual interest! In some ways this is an irrelevance - after all my aim is neither social nor topological but rather an inchoate 'sense of place' coupled to a highly personal and individual perspective on visual form and colour. But it does make for a tough ask in terms of drawing upon photographic imagery that will maintain my notion of 'singularity and invention'.
Although originally my plan was to take a settlement a week and work through locations in that timeframe I decided that maybe it is better to take a small group of villages and so moved on to Newbold, Peggs Green and Griffydam. The latter two being so closely related they share the same roadsign!
In Peggs Green I liked the formal characteristics of this wall - when processing the image later I noticed the small canvas propped against the window...a canvas that looks pretty much as if it is the size and proportions of those I shall use in the construction of the work. An omen?
Oh how the whole of North West Leicestershire has changed in the past 25 years. It was not too long ago that Cole Orton was the centre of the National Coal Board operations in the area. Before this coal was still king and had been for almost 1000 years.
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