Noel Ashton - Mindful Nature
Creative Journeys - Transformative Stories
Finding a vision for my work
"The journey of my life should not be measured
by the distance I have walked,
but rather by the questions I have asked along the way". Noel 2002
And the question I kept asking myself was what had happened between the sacred caves of the San and the hum of the Hadron collider, what had happened to us as a kind and caring people?
The pathways of our lives are, at their essence, a journey of discovery of who we are and how we fit into this magnificent but mysterious world. But where do you begin in a world formed around distraction and a rushing towards tomorrow?
For me, one of the pathways was through art and an exploration of the natural world, of landscapes and the many lives that fill them. My scientific process forged discovery through research and scientific illustration of the worlds cetaceans, but it was in the silence of the studio and the remote caves of the ancestors that I found a space to deeply question and reflect on my place within this pivotal phase of the human journey.
The sacred caves offered a place of quiet reflection and questioning, but it was in the creative space of the studio that the real journeys were lived, for I have come to see that within each creative process there are answers to be found, for the inspiration behind each artwork holds many truths, waiting to be drawn out in those quiet hours at night when the world is asleep and the studio quietens into contemplation. Of why was I drawn to this image, why did it resonate with me, what does it tell me about myself. For although inspiration is a coming together of many diverse aspects, of memory and experience, of learning and observation, of resonance and emotional cues, there is a deeper journey offered within the more profound sources of inspiration, the aspects of being a human being and trying to navigate this complicated world are often overlooked foundations to a creative journey.
And this is why I now offer these completed artworks and narratives as signposts to deeper journeys, for in this search for answers I have begun to understand a bit more about who I am as a human being, maybe what it means to be human, and possibly how we might address some of the social and environmental issues of our time.
I at no stage profess to hold succinct or even the right answers, but rather hope that what I have come to understand during these quiet times of reflection in the studio might be of some value to you.