Take Two - Natural Selection

Different artists discuss the role of nature in their work

Garry Fabian Miller

My life is concentrated on the north-easterly edge of Dartmoor where I have my home. The domestic pattern of my day gives meaning to everything I do and provides me with a safe space to walk out from into the weather and the light. If I go much beyond this natural walking distance, I can begin to feel uprooted. I’m getting to be like the Kentucky poet-farmer Wendell Berry, who resists all urgent invitations to travel far. We seem to share a deep conviction that the only place one is ever urgently needed is at home.

Walking, looking and thinking are the rudiments of my way of life. I believe that if I pay proper attention to the landscape I inhabit – if I look for long enough and open my eyes wide enough – I’ll uncover something new. Over the years it has become a guiding certainty that there is something hidden in all things, and that we have an obligation to refresh the world through repeated acts of attention and revelation.