Schilling's Land Art.

In the tradition of his north-country neighbor Andy Goldsworthy, Richard Schilling takes long walks in the countryside and discovers materials for works of often stunning creativity and elegant simplicity.

Then he makes photo images of them that are as handsome as the works themselves.

For those of us involved in the creative process, the stories he tells of the making of his pieces are a pleasure to explore.

There was a raft of ivy growing over small cliff so I studied it's leaves for a bit. I had always overlooked ivy leaves before in favour of something more colourful but as they were the only leaves to be found here I sat down and looked at them more closely. Some had purple veins in them, some were pure green and some variegated. I thought to myself that they are actually very pretty leaves.

The other useful materials to be found there were grasses and thorns so I set about constructing a frame for the leaves.

Earlier I had noticed a calm section of stream and I liked how all the rocks were covered in silt and how dark the bottom was. I put the square sculpture onto the water and it floated but as I lifted it up I immediately saw the shadow. I would have to incorporate that with the idea so I did.

The most difficult part of this last bit was getting the legs to sit vertical so that the cube sides looked reasonably symmetrical. It's not perfect but the flow of the stream and the breeze made it diffuclt (sic) to get just right and the bottom was all stones so I couldn't just push the grass stalks into mud as I would have liked. Instead I had to move the stones around on the bottom until it was possible to reveal the full cube shape.

The subject of a photo-essay in the November issue of Lancashire Life Magazine (page 24), Schilling is modest and humble about his works.

I like the idea that such beauty is all around us, simply waiting for the spark of genius to identify it and call it out. Even more than that, it reminds me again how the sensitive touch of the human hand can sometimes call attention to the beauty of this world we've been given.

The human impact on the land is often admittedly damaging, from trash in our waterways to fetid cities to global climate change. But an artist like Richard Schilling comes along and reminds us that the human impact may sometimes serve to magnify the glory of creation.

Perhaps this is a call to us.