Dearest Friends

Welcome back to our Friday Note – our weekly collection of writerly thoughts. 

Observing

On this week in 1940 the Lascaux cave paintings were first rediscovered. An accidental finding through a fox hole by four local lads led to the discovery of this incredible collection of prehistoric art that includes some 600 paintings and 1500 engravings.

The paintings were composed by blowing pigment made of local minerals through hollowed wood or bone and with rudimentary brushes made of moss or hair.

Grotte de Lascaux was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1979 and is closed to the public in order to preserve it. 

Reading

Interpretations vary as to why this collection of art was created, possibly for celebration or for storytelling purposes.

Newer research speculates that cave art symbols and mark-making were an early form of writing used to record animal behaviour across the lunar calendar.

Read: Could these cave markings be the earliest form of writing? – Smithsonian Magazine. 

Creating

Think of a story that’s been handed to you, never written down but passed down to you. If you were retelling it, what images would you choose to illustrate the main points or characters?

Create your own primitive cave-art-style drawings to accompany the tale. 

Sharing

Last week we held a wonderful ‘Writing what we hear’ workshop in Highgate Woods. Our very own John Simmons was one of the participants. Here’s a beautiful poem he wrote in response to one exercise: Heard in Highgate Woods

Vroom vroom, let’s now ignore

the passing of the cars, let’s zoom

down into these woods, the noises

in hearing of this woodland glade,

a buzzing stage where birdsong

rises above the here and the now,

chirping, cheeping, twittering over

conversations below, while far away

but drawing near, footsteps placed

one after another, left foot right

but still crunching out of sight,

what if in anticipation I simply set

my foot upon this much-trodden ground

without making a sound, gentle not hard,

aware of the decay that’s all around,

and we’ll come back another day

but for now my hesitant foot touches

the receptive earth, a respectful hug,

a song of thanks for bringing

this attentive moment into being.  

Photo by Don Pinnock on Unsplash.