When I was a teenager living in, almost, the middle of England, mountains were exotic places. One had to go to them, in North Wales, Cumbria and Derbyshire, which from a distance, I saw them as recognisably shaped peaks, walking towards them and as you climb higher and higher, the peaks have long disappeared and vision is focussed on the immediate ground around and before you. Although achieving the peak is the goal of the climb, for me what I recall almost vividly are the paths, tracks, gulleys, chimneys and the myriad of rock surfaces you clamber over on the way up.
I have tried to explore the problems of representational scale, how rocks or stones may be re-presented to resemble mountains (as in Japanese gardens), how Islands are in effect, mountains above sea level (as in ‘Ailsa Craig’) and more tentatively how the emergence of Volcanos may reflect the explosive emergence of Buds from the branch; how the Buddhist Stupa and the Egyptian Pyramids can be thought of as man-made mountains.
