Clare Jackson

I am inspired by walking our beautiful land. I create images and stories that reflect my love of observing the changing seasons & recognising the spirit of a place. I work from a hand-built straw-bale studio on the Kent coast.

Website: people-to-place.co.uk

Diary 2020

Last night we welcomed in the solstice at our now familiar spot on the Salt Way, an ancient trading track which travels from the coast at Whitstable to Canterbury. As usual it was pretty chilly up there on the hill; we could see our breath, but the little fire warmed us. The wind blew through the leaves in the poplar trees, sounding like running water, and seagulls quietly flew overhead towards their evening roosts.

In creating a midsummer ritual of processing, with others, up to that same location year after year we are choosing to mark time and make our own magic. Being there in nature, sitting high up between two busy roads we are able to just be, becoming human beings once again.

This year I took a little handmade pot up with me, to the same spot we have sat and celebrated on for the last five years. I placed it onto the fire and filled it with some seawater I had gathered the previous evening after a wonderful swim in the sea. As the fire burned the water evaporated and it is only now when I look at the photo that I see salt forming on the top edge and inside the pot!

What a discovery! We had inadvertently made salt in a ritual fire on the Summer Solstice on the ancient Salt Way. That certainly has made me realise that I need to be more observant and keep enjoying and creating ‘awe-some’ events for myself and others to connect ‘people-to-place.’