So the new knee is now 6 weeks old, and beginning to be used for its true purpose. My other half (OH) is patiently waiting for permission to walk more than a few minutes a day.

It is a slow game, with many anxieties along the way. The days merge into a routine of exercises, physiotherapy, resting and icing. Meanwhile I have been doing more household tasks than usual. as OH is normally very good at shopping and cooking, and the grass has started growing.

Today we managed a short trip to London, by train, to hear the artist Beatrice Forshall speak at Eames Fine Art Studio.

Beatrice has been passionate about animal conservation since her childhood in rural France. As a child she made papier mache models of endangered species to raise money for the WWF. After studying illustration at Falmouth she now specialises in drypoint etchings of endangered species, whether large mammals or tiny insects. She is an eloquent and inspiring speaker.

Did you know that the dung beetle is endangered because it navigates by the Milky Way, and light pollution is interfering with its ability to roll its balls of dung in a straight line to where it needs to go?

Or that there are only 10 asiatic cheetahs reamining in the world, all in Iran?

Sobering facts.

Which got me thinking about the point of art. Does it need to have a message?

As I struggle to get back into writing and to find a focus for my photographic work I  frequently comtemplate this question.

Having also, like Beatrice, made art about man's impact on our planet, I now find myself experimenting endlessly as the only way forward after exhausting my personal well of enthusiasm for making work about litter and pollution.

And my answer is a resounding 'NO'!

Art is primarily for the benefit of its creator. A way of expressing oneself in ways other than speech can allow.

I like to think of my art self as my alter ego.

Free to act in ways that my past self did not feel able.

To dance in the sunshine.

To play.

To try new things. 

And it is in this frame of mind that I prepare for a trip to Santa Fe photographic centre, to work with the desert landscape in new ways under the supervision of Anna Rotty.

Desert landscapes have always excited me. Almost as much as mountains and forests. The vast expanses of sky and wide vistas. A feeling of freedom that I do not feel in a forest.

A feeling of insignificance on this vast planet. of awe for the plants and creatures that live in these inhospitable places.

I don't yet know how I will respond to the landscape of New Mexico, but I am looking forward to finding new ways to express my feelings about future  places that I visit.

The workshop will involve making new photographs in the landscape and then printing them and incorporating them back into the landscape as new imagined landscapes.

I am struck by the similar ways that I have captured these two deserts (shown above and below) on different continents with their islands of vegetation on very different soils. I hope to come back from this workshop with something completely different. Perhaps it will say something about the connections between deserts around the world. Perhaps it will better express how being in these environments makes me feel.

Georgia O'Keeffe had her home near Santa Fe. Here she is pictured with her cat.

I like to think that I will be as inspired by her locality as she was.

O'Keeffe said 'I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at – not copy it.'

Her drawing below shows the landscape that I will be visiting soon.

The drawing inspired me to write some words as I remembered previous trips to desert landcapes.

Just passing through


Abiquiu.
Scrub spotted dusty desert hills. 
Land of the Tewa people.
Abiquiu means ‘wild chokecherry place’. 
I know not the people, the fruit
or the place.

I  am reminded of another desert,
a different continent. 

The blinding white of las Salinas Grandes;
a sea of caking salt beneath an intense cloudless sky.
Surfaces indeterminate, crusting, inhospitable.

We drowned in the overwhelming silence of this limitless landscape
where infrequent adventurers pass through from distant hills to unspecified destinations.

Bleached dunes and exotic formations carved by the wind. 
Giant blocks of pumice.
Soft curves and sharp edges carved and drawn as if from another galaxy.

A perfect cone arising from the plain where once magma spewed. 
Gritty boulders all that remain.
 Drawing us closer. 
Hypnotic.

Later, rolling rusty hills brushed with soft yellow grasses and the occasional cluster of slender legged inquisitive vicuna. 
Watching us as we did them.  

The heat: dry and unforgiving.
Desiccating skin and soil alike.

In that place I felt wonder
as we too 
passed through.

Below, in Georgia's more typical style, is her abstraction of a stream, as if seen from above.

Expressing one's feelings and learning more about oneself seem to me to be the best reasons to make art.

'If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint,' said the painter Edward Hopper.

'
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.' – wrote poet and artist Thomas Merton.

I came across this video of Ian McKellen talking passsionately about why we should all make art.

Any sort of art. With or without an obvious message behind it. it doesn't matter.

His words resonate deeply. He advises his audience to 'practice art to make your soul grow'.

I will be heading to the desert for that very reason. 

What about you?

Nobody that I know really understood what I meant when I said that I was going on a course to learn abstract calligraphy. It is very hard to describe.

Even I was unsure what I was letting myself in for when I booked to go to Tuscany for a week's workshop on the meeting of eastern and western calligraphic styles with Monica Dengo and Satsuki Hatsushima, from Italy and Japan respectively.

Ten days before I was due to set off I got a severe case of cold feet. I was worried by the programme notes that described a visit to view handwriting styles in medieval manuscripts at the local Sansepolcro archive. It sounded deadly serious, and far removed from what I had in mind from my knowledge of Monica's work.

I almost cancelled, but fortunately had my mind put at ease by a fellow photographer who happened to be doing the workshop 2 weeks ahead of me.

In order to get there I passed through Florence. I have never been to Florence, so decided to to take two days to explore the city before catching my train eastwards to Arezzo, and then Sansepolcro.

I knew Florence has a reputation for being busy. I had not realised how busy. I found myself heading away from the city centre, across the river, to the Boboli Gardens for a bit of peace and quiet. I found the strangest of lemons in the lemon garden.

I also found some beautiful roses with a perfect backdrop of washed blue paint. I was happy.

Obviously, there is a lot of very important art to see in Florence. On day two, having walked my legs off, I summoned the energy to face the Uffizi Gallery. I know practically nothing about Renaissance art. Michelangelo and  Botticelli were the only names that I really knew; two spectacularly famous artists, that I had never really appreciated other than when reading, many years ago, 'The Agony and the Ecstasy', the 1961 biographical novel about Michelangelo, written by Irving Stone.

I still remember vividly the story describing Michelangelo, as a boy, being given a large block of marble and chipping away at it from the outside in to create a figure.  I find this extraordinary; to have a vision of the outcome and be able to gradually work to achieve it by a process of removal rather than by addition as in so many other forms of art.

I found the art works in the Uffizi Gallery vibrant and beautiful, and was glad that I went as I can't see myself returning to a city where it is difficult to negotiate the streets due to the crowds.

Onwards then, to the real reason for my trip.

To Sansepolcro, a peaceful, walled, 11th century commune, with cobbled streets and some more famous art. This time by Pierro della Francesca. Another famous artist that I had never heard of, who lived and died in Sansepolcro.

To the arts centre where I found a room beautifully laid out ready for 16 participants, with walls to die for in pastel shades of plaster and paint.

And so began seven days of joy.

Exhausting and intense, but filled with laughter , experimentation and production.

We made marks in the traditional Japanese way, in a traditional western italic style, and then blended the two in many different ways.

Between lessons I feasted on peaches, tomatoes, mozarella and meatballs. Mascarpone and cantucci. Japanese snacks and plenty of herbal tea.

We made marks to different soundtracks.

I looked at the outcomes and knew that my family would think I was mad.

They were expecting traditional calligraphy.

The medieval manuscripts were old and fancy, and unlike those in the UK, I was surprised  that we were allowed to touch them. This was said to be because the content of these ancient ledgers was of no great historic significance.

I  looked at them for a while, and then wandered off to look at the walls downstairs.

What I hadn't realised from reading my daily programme was how exciting the next visit would be. A visit to the Burri museum a few miles away in Cita di Castello.

Well, not really a museum. More of an extraordinary modern art collection housed in an old tobacco drying warehouse. The work of just one local artist; Alberto Burri. I had never heard of him. Ignorance is my specialty.

Correctly named as the  Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri » Ex Seccatoi del Tabacco, the building was vast. The art was dramatic and themed by colour.

I soaked it all up. Black, black and gold, multicoloured ; each in vast rooms that eventually became overwhelming, but which definitely impacted my work later in the week. The simplicity appealed immensely.

As the week progressed our tables became stacked with a multitude of papers covered in ink. Different papers, different tools. Many different styles and looks.

I was happiest with my marks made with a feather.

I also spent a long time experimenting with ways to write the word mountain as an ideogram, using western letters but in a Japanese style.

Meanwhile, Satsuki wrote the word 'mountain' with a very large brush in Japanese style onto brown paper, working on the floor.

I think my family would understand this a bit better.

By the end of the week we had turned some of our many papers and writings into hand made books. This was a challenge in such a short space of time.

Normally my books are the product of many hours thinking and experimenting. Some take months to make. The books I made in Sansepolcro were different, in that they were not created with any important message to convey. What they did do was to convey my own personal take on the ideas that we had assimilated during the week.

And what does all this have to do with being an 'outdoor' photographer? Obviously not much...... but......

It is a fine example of the pleasure to be had by jumping out of a particular creative 'box' into a new one; of the joy of trying new things, and of learning new techniques that feed new ideas. It is also a way to meet a wonderful bunch of people from all around the world.

The adventure was also a reminder that cold feet are normal when stepping out of one's comfort zone, and to just 'do it' anyway. Son would have told me that if I had asked.....

And when son asks me whether I have become less fit for our upcoming alpine adventure during my week of messing around with ink on paper, I can tell him that whilst having so much fun I also found time to do a little workout every day in my rooftop apartment. Just don't tell the landlady that I used the bedspread as my yoga mat.

Despite not being 'up' a mountain I felt on top of the world.

And finally, don't tell ANYONE that I never made it to see the artworks by Piero della Francesca in the Civic Museum. They would be truly shocked......

I did find a wonderful vegetable garden on the city wall though. The artichokes were spectacular!