The Origins of the Barnsdale Tepee

Tipi, Tepee, Teepee noun.

1. A cone-shaped tent of animal skins used by certain North American Indians.

2. Childhood school summer holiday fun project to make, play and sleep in with my brother and sister.

3. A careful arrangement of fallen branches, old fence posts and rails resembling a cone covered in grasses and leaves in Barnsdale Wood.

4. An asymetrical cone-shaped art installation made of pollarded Ash poles held together with rope and partly covered in pvc with a painting depicting an aspect of Barnsdale Wood printed on it. Brass eyelets around the perimeter provide extra anchorage points if needed.

The Barnsdale Tepee – the tepee

Printed pvc and Ash poles £POA

Click on the thumbnail for an enlargement of the painting

The Barnsdale Tepee
– the painting

mixed media on board

40 x 40 cm

The

Barnsdale

Tepee

I’ve had a fixation with Barnsdale Wood
at the edge of Rutland Water ever
since my wife and I came to live in
Rutland. I go there time and again
to just look, sit, sketch and paint.
In Spring, as the bluebells
multiply year on year, the
blues just seem to get
more and more blue.
The Autumn too, is
quite magnificent with
the yellows and golds and fallen leaves to wade through. But it is the tepee-like constructions we sometimes see appearing during my two favourite seasons there that really get me going. These woodland craft projects remind me of childhood days when making dens to play in with my family and friends. I can lose myself completely in this wood. Like most boys I wanted to be a Red Indian. Thing is, I still want to be one. The best I can achieve is to pretend and what better way to pretend, as an artist, than to do paintings of my imaginings and then wrap a painting around a few wooden poles.