A new place to sense: video update from Debbie Lyddon

If you've ever moved house, you know those first few weeks... there are boxes everywhere, you can't find the kettle, and everything feels slightly unfamiliar.

Debbie Lyddon is in the middle of that right now.

"Well, we've moved," she says in her latest video update, "and I have to say things have been slightly chaotic just recently."

Three miles inland
The move wasn't a big one on a map. Debbie and her family have gone just three miles inland, from the coast to the countryside. She still has her studio by the sea, so the water is, in her words, "still within touching distance".

For an artist whose work comes from walking, noticing and listening, though, three miles can change a lot.

Some things carry over. There are still big skies and a horizon, "although it's slightly undulating". But there are fields and trees where there used to be sea. Her colours have gone from blue and grey to green. And instead of a fishing community, she's now living among farmers.

Debbie has been asking herself a question that anyone with a creative practice will recognise: how is this move going to change the work?

Doing the course alongside everyone else
"Because this change in my environment coincides with the beginning of the Sensing Place workshop, I thought it'd be a really good idea to do the workshop along with everybody else," explains Debbie.

So for the next few weeks, Debbie won't only be teaching. She'll be doing the same things our students are doing: getting outside, noticing, writing, drawing, documenting and making, all in a place she's still getting to know.

We love this. Sensing Place isn't about copying Debbie's coastal pieces. It's about finding a way into wherever you happen to be. Seeing her start from scratch in a new landscape shows that better than anything we could write about the course.

What she'll be listening for

A big part of Sensing Place is sound. Most courses teach you to look at a place. Debbie also shows you how to listen to it, and then turn what you hear into marks, stitch and form you can hold.

This is where her move gets really interesting. A farming landscape doesn't sound like a harbour. There's wind in hedgerows instead of halyards, tractors instead of boat engines, and birds she'll have to get to know all over again. We can't wait to see what she makes from it, and how it compares with the work that came out of her years by the sea.

Come along with her one last time
"I'm going to go out and I'm going to see what I notice. So why don't you come along with me?"

This time, that invitation means a little more. This will be the final run of Sensing Place before it is released as an On-demand course in the future, and the last time Debbie will have an active tutor engagement period. It feels fitting that her last group of students gets to see her do exactly what she asks of them: arrive somewhere new, slow down, and notice.

We're so grateful to Debbie for everything she has shared with our community through this course, and we'll share more of her notes and makings as the weeks go on.

If you'd like to join Debbie for this final run, enrolment is open until 5 October.