Biography

I am inspired by and connected to the uncontrollable forces of nature - specifically the coastal landscape of North Suffolk. I enjoy engaging collaboratively with other artists to create film and performance work. Latterly exploring the passage of time through tides and nature has been more meditative than productive due to personal circumstances.

Starting in the Film and TV industry in the1980s as a runner, I’ve worked on commercials, cooking shows, children’s TV (including cult show Knightmare, and a number of projects for Disney), BAFTA winning online dramas, and was part of the team that launched FilmFour Channel and E4. My passion is short film and I am a founder member of Suffolk Shorts, The Suffolk Short Film Festival CIC, a social enterprise that aims to support and encourage filmmaking in East Anglia by raising a fund to be awarded to those creating films in or about the region.

I am a qualified Steiner Waldorf teacher.

In development: The Summer Visitor, a narrative based on a real-life experience, a news story from the 1980’s and wishful thinking.

Set on the Suffolk Coast.

Inspired by Oliver Bernard's poem 'moons and tides, Walberswick' from 1957 and filmed there, A Low is a Meteorological Depression explores the passage of time through tides and nature. The sounds come from the location and will be scored over time, a recording of Bernard reading the poem is woven into the visual fabric of the piece. The poem was written during the waxing of one moon, recording of the central theme of this film will follow the same pattern. The gravitational pull of the moon and the relationship between weather, lunar influences, light and the mental state of those who are connected to the natural world is central to the film. Interviews with individuals connected to the poem will be recorded over time. (In permanent production)

VII - A dance for the sea 2015

Dancers from City College Norwich performed to a small audience on Walberswick beach just after low tide at new moon. As the water came in, time - an integral element in the piece choreographed by Hannah Ashmore - was against them. They performed to a track 'Atomos VII' by A Winged Victory for the Sullen. 

The piece links the music with the tides and the nature of seven.

The students completed their first year with this piece and another collaboration illumin8. 

murmurations

OUT OF WATER

In August 2012 I took part in Out of Water by Caroline Wright & Helen Paris.

The singers are out of breath

The swimmers are out of their depth

At Holkham Beach in Norfolk the sea glistens mirage-like in the distance. In the early morning light a group of singers and swimmers strike out towards the water’s edge until they span the wide expanse of beach. They each look towards the sea, eyes intent, focused on the horizon, searching for something. Is somebody lost at sea?

Created by Helen Paris and Caroline Wright, Out of Water features a newly commissioned sound-score by acclaimed composer Jocelyn Pook and singing by young soprano Laura Wright and Oo La Lume. Stories of endeavour, of swimming, of sinking, interweave with haunting music, lifeguard drills, calls for help and struggles for breath.

The Poem that started it all

moons and tides, Walberswick by Oliver Bernard - notes: a low is a meteorologic depression. 

I

New Moon high water now and calm

But not unruffled by a bright 

Breeze at elevenses I jumped

Out of bed as late last night 

Was shattered with the barrier

Ley us stay on our separate sides

Old leather man you see the sea

Roll out the map of Europe bang

Or what the hell I made some tea

And went to look out at the window

Some but no fatal letter some

But not outrageously good looking

Visitors with fishing rods

And the bread came smells of cooking

Rose and silence in the village

II

New Moon and darker by blown clouds

Across the sky from north to south

Across the stars as brown as smoke

But in the river's dripping mouth

What herring fish for in the dark

Fertile and phoshorescent swell

The boat goes over rocked afloat

Oars mixing milk beneath the glass

Surfaces where quiet float

Millions more than shine below 

And rounding on the farther bank

Rubs on hard sand the bow wave spreads

Green lights along high water mark

Feel for the post tie up boots tread

Slow home but stars spring out each step

III

Spring or summer came the third

Of May after the woods the beach

Glared the North Sea roared and would

not let go growled over each 

Pebble there was coal washed up

Three miles I picked coal and four

Places hid it and went back

Next afternoon the wind again

But clear in pale sand the black

Diamonds rubbed smooth by pebbles

Heavy too I was surprised

Lifting the sack tied with an old

Piece of net then saw the moon 

First time white on blue the gold

Afternoon stopped at the clouds

IV

Half moon half moon the second half

The half of darkness as the first

Heavy yellow set behind

The sea wall over meadows cursed

Four years ago with floods of salt

Neaps but the wind kept up and kept

High tides high and hardly let

Ebb tides out but covered with

Hissing white and I forget

If I ever saw such fury

Sunday at noon a black ketch rode

Steadier in that cable stiff

Roaring than the night before

Dragged the red buoy but held and if

Too huge had not been there before

V

High tide is simple harbour full

At low tide in a shallow cup 

Evil fortunes are revealed

Bladder wracked gap toothed stick up

Stumps of piles   that was dry land

Scoured and now the ferry hut

And Bob's shed are the last that stand

The weathervane has rusted stiff

The clay causeway has carries and 

The rats come out and graze like sheep

Come Zenith of the rounding moon

Cover the weeping river mud

Green pebbles rubble wrack and slime

All fireworks here are dud

Bring us high water and high time

VI

Slack water now the boats go round

As anticlockwise round the lows

Wind southwest and force 3 to 4

Mingles with sea breeze the sun blows

The hanging weeds left at low tide

Moon rises over German Bight

Korean fishermen out early

Wait for dawn old Bob comes tired

Across the shingle with his curly 

Dogs that look as old as he

The Moon will be more round the boats

Are facing down the rising tide

Cumulus clouds build up inland

Even last year's death has died

Swallows and terns have come again

VII

Moon clearer than blueprint can print

A rounder shape than yesterday

Afternoon sharp on the arc

With tangent light shaded the way

Delicacy can be exact

Between in time this negative

Daylight moon and moonlight which

Dinks and I rowed over under from

The Harbour Inn side feeling rich

With experience and joy

There was a broad wing stretched across

The clear northwest its trailing edge

Glimmering in blue dusk was high

Water low cloud drove a wedge

Of mauve between it and the sky

VII

Cloud lavender two rooks fly home

Close to the wrinkled water climb

At shingle over sea wall black

All else is grey this is the time

Before the time before the last

The clipped coin of the rising moon

Shows primrose yellow through a gap

More black that white an oystercatcher 

Cries as mournful down the map

Of marshes if propels a beak

Up the harbour a grey swell

Heaves and scours the beach above

The concrete wall and wets the slip

Where two people perhaps in love

Learning to look at water stare

IX

From sinking sulphur yellow moon

Behind the dead black village to 

Dawn breaking over lighthouse wink

Red under rose and paling blue

The long beach like a torrent roared

The moon Blackened the silhouettes 

Of trees new leaves were filling in

And dimmed the orange vigil of

The phone box on the green

But yellow she looked sick to death

If coming back the sinking glare

Of going out before became

A following and rising till

At the back door it was the same

Still dawn was younger than us all

X

At long last came up gold and round

The Almost perfect moon and stood

Over the still shifting heaving

Grey North Sea while from the wood

Blew the scent of meadow grass

Under the long going light

Came quicksilver flood tide over

Wall and slipway the first star

Was a four mooned planet drove a

Solitary course to set

Two vapour trails twisted like salt 

Poured down that high blue the moon

Brightened in the sea dusk over

Gold Horizon line and stood

Gold to where the waves broke spilled

Perfect as the earth came up

Darkening before it struck

Out a corner of the light

Waterfowl began to cluck

Sleepwalk dream talk and foreboding

Within the hour the moon was blood

The comet showed northwest but faint

Monday the thirteenth of the month

Wanted as a powerful saint

As any in the calendar

My archive of personal blogs:

The Swimmers  a blog charting tides, weather conditions and conversations with fellow wild swimmers on the East Coast of England.

verycoldclaire.com   a blog following the fundraising treks in The Arctic.

Other Stuff:

Waverley Fitzgerald's Living in Seasons - Lucky Moons 2017

Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception - Claudia Hammond

"We construct the experience of time in our minds, so it follows that we are able to change the elements we find troubling — whether it’s trying to stop the years racing past, or speeding up time when we’re stuck in a queue, trying to live more in the present, or working out how long ago we last saw our old friends. Time can be a friend, but it can also be an enemy. The trick is to harness it, whether at home, at work, or even in social policy, and to work in line with our conception of time. Time perception matters because it is the experience of time that roots us in our mental reality. Time is not only at the heart of the way we organize life, but the way we experience it."

When I left the house it was still dark

Minor White on Equivalence (1963): PSA Journal, Vol. 29, No. 7, pp. 17-21,

Tacita Dean - exhibition December 2013: JG

Terje Isungset

James Attlee

Fitzgerald wrote about immersion as a life saving practice (for a man trapped in an unhappy marriage) in The Swimmers:
When difficulties became insurmountable, inevitable, Henry sought surcease in exercise. For three years, swimming had been a sort of refuge, and he turned to it as one man to music or another to drink. There was a point when he would resolutely stop thinking and go to the Virginia coast for a week to wash his mind in the water. Far out past the breakers he could survey the green-and-brown line of the Old Dominion with the pleasant impersonality of a porpoise. The burden of his wretched marriage fell away with the buoyant tumble of his body among the swells, and he would begin to move in a child's dream of space. Sometimes remembered playmates of his youth swam with him; sometimes, with his two sons beside him, he seemed to be setting off along the bright pathway to the moon.

moons and tides, Walberswick by Oliver Bernard - notes: a low is a meteorologic depression. Obituaries for Oliver Bernard: Guardian Telegraph

Human Elements 

Water - The Aquatic Ape: The Waterside Ape ep 1 and ep 2

Arts Catalyst

Republic of the Moon - The Arts Catalyst - Manifesto

Moon Goose Colony

Agnes Meyer-Brandis projects

Jim's Men. In Japan jinmenseki (rock with human face) are so prized that they have museums dedicated to them

#callofthetide

Following on from an exhibition in Spring 2016 at Novoboats, limited edition prints are now available to buy. Contact me for further details.

#callofthetide is the hashtag used for images created during the morning ritual of swimming in the North Sea. The recording of the state of the water, the weather and the tides at a similar time each day began with an Instagram account, and developed into a routine, and a way of communicating with fellow wild swimmers around the globe. The process has to be quick, yet considered. How do I convey a sense of how the water or the air feels on that day at that time? It soon became instinctive and addictive, and I know when I see the moment. Each image is recorded on my phone, processed through Instagram, shared and tagged. 

The 6 prints chosen for the exhibition were all from images captured within a mile of the exhibition space, the workshop at Novoboats, on Southwold Harbour. A further selection is below.

Novoboats make and sell wooden furniture, surf and SUP boards and boats. They made my beloved Moondrift, a large wooden paddleboard that I use to explore the rivers and creeks, as well as taking to the sea. The inclusion of the Bailey Bridge at sunset in the summer is a nod to that different call of the tide.

Sea Fever

BY JOHN MASEFIELD

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.