Visit to Avebury Stone Circle

This summer I visited Avebury stone circle.

It was serendipitous that a gathering had been organised for the exact time we visited so I got to see a group interacting with the stones first hand and get a feel for the companionships and shared experience that happens in these spaces.

At one point I sat down right underneath a large stone (something you can't do at Stonehenge) and was struck by the quest strength of it. My daughter was initially unsure, worrying the stone might fall on us! But to me, there was a real sense of this large mass being somehow protective. It's a huge strong structure - but silent and still. This duality is really striking.

Noticing the curve of the stone and profile of my daughter's head echo each other...

Standing as if guarding/protecting the people surrounding

Some areal plans of the site

I took some photos and began some drawings when I got home.

As I was drawing loosely, using photographs as a starter, but not really looking the paper as I used the graphite, I was interested to see the shape of the figures encased by the stones. It was gratifying to see something of this 'protection' that appeared to exude from the site (at least, to me!).

It brought to mind an image of a place being visited many times, with a new and different memory of this visit each time. I thought about how sometimes in films you might see a montage of a stationary set populated with moving and changing frames of figures interacting with it. I wondered how this could be depicted on paper and I used some specific memories of my own to generate the images.