Grounded Inspiration by Vivien Teasdale

Sometimes, inspiration is a long time coming. We get bits of ideas, odd sentences that flit across the mind, that could be turned into …

The Calderdale Grid Project provides just the spark we need. Photographers and writers from the area were assigned to a particular map location to photograph the landscape and find inspiration there to produce a written response to the places.

Lasting until 26 February, the project was first launched before lockdown in 2019, but has only recently come to fruition. It was also only recently that I came across the idea and thought oh, that looks interesting, and went to see it at the Smith Art Gallery in Brighouse.

The Art Gallery and Library are housed in a nineteenth century mansion, built originally as a home but gifted to the council, becoming a Free Library in 1898. In 1907, Alderman William Smith bequeathed his art collection. As well as the art, various exhibitions are held throughout the year.

The Grid Project exhibition includes were photographs, from all the seasons, of towns, villages, wild landscapes and pleasant vistas. Many were in Nature’s colours: peaty green moss; grey, lowering clouds; cerulean blue skies and sparkling white water. There were blackened stone walls, sombre farmhouses and shimmering green leaves.

A photograph of an old cobbled track running downhill into Luddenden village conjured up clogs sparking on the stones, mill girls clutching their shawls closer as they raced to reach the mill before the sound of the dreaded bell echoed across the valley and shut them off from half a day’s pay.

“Widdop” by Clare Shaw admirably reflected images over the craggy rocks, the bleak heathland and the long stretch of water reflecting the dying sun.

But the ones which really caught my attention were the black and white photographs. Sharp contrasts across umbrous moors and valleys, carving stark sculptures in the landscape. They conjured an uncanny, unsettling atmosphere in views both familiar and new.

Alongside the illustrations, were poems, short stories and reminiscences inspired by writers who walked, visited or lived in the area. Sounds, smells, visions were evoked by their contemplation, their understanding of the land. Words brought the roughness of millstone grit, sheep bleating on the misty moors, the bright colours and rhythms of celebratory gatherings by the people of Pellon.

One of my favourites was the poem “Switchboard” by Gaia Holmes, ostensibly about a wind phone, but also inspired by the heights above Pellon in Halifax, by its wildness, its loneliness and the feeling that you’re so close to the veil between now and then. The spirit and style of the poem itself first drew my attention but afterwards I read the definition of a wind-phone.

This is, apparently, an unconnected phone in Japan where visitors can hold one-way conversations with the dead. The idea of being able to ring up and have a chat with some of my ancestors fascinated me. I’d love to try it. Perhaps then I would get some answers to the many family history mysteries that I have never been able to resolve.

I recommend going to see this exhibition while it lasts. Then take walk around the town, down by the canal. Gaze at the legacy of its industrial history or wander round the market. Take yourself off for a day into the countryside near where you live.

See it all, smell it, feel it, touch it, hear it. Then try to reproduce whatever it stirs inside you – the desolation of the moors or the empty shops that line the high streets; the kestrel battling, or perhaps enjoying, the wind under its feathers as it searches for food; the sun setting over the hills, the church spire or some bleak lake where monsters may lurk beneath the surface.

And then share it with us, here on the blog.