follow the lade

Draft of the 80 cards that make up Follow the lade

Details of draft cards for Follow the lade

I’ve been sorting through all the photos taken and prints made from a measured walk I took whilst in Yarrow last summer. Attempting to follow the path of an old mill lade I waded through waist high nettles from the river Yarrow inland towards Deuchar Mill and then out again towards the river. I took a photo of what lay ahead every 10 paces which resulted in 58 photographs. I also collected a specimen of each of the 9 wildflower I encountered along the way. Later, in the studio, I first drew, then took a rubbing, and finally made 2 prints from each specimen. I’m now sifting through all this imagery and data.  The walk itself was a fumble of start stop, where next, kind of a walk, one which eventually was thwarted by the Mills’ neighbours having landscaped their garden, hence disappearing part of the lade path, many years before.  And so I’m bringing a sort of book together, more a box of cards really, to document this walk as it was found last summer, by wading through wildflowers, surveying the distance and peering at the details to piece the path together.