Main Areas of Focus

My interests are wide-ranging, primarily in how human beings affect and are affected by the natural world of which we are part, and the related theology and psychology of connectedness.

Artist

Creating beautiful and thought-provoking art as a means of supporting care for planet and people, nurturing a sense of place, and building community

Writer

Articles and blogs on economics, environment, nature, attentiveness, applied theology, arts, and anything that interests me

Consultant

» Website development and training
» Energy efficiency and renewable energy consultancy
» Research and reporting

Latest News and Produce

What I’ve recently produced. What I’m working on. What’s in the pipeline.

News

Notes to self

Poetry is an exercise in patience.

Blog

National Poetry Day

Writing haiku, inspired by the natural world around (and perhaps inside) Exeter Cathedral.

Published Writing

“How do I like thee? Let me count the ways”

Inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Facebook. Gotta love the AI image generator's attempt to produce a "cloud of thumbs up emojis". It really can't do hands... or faces.

Academia

“Living the questions” again in 2023/24

Teaching on the Medical Humanities Special Studies Unit at Exeter Medical School, introducing fourth year students to conceptual and environmental art; looking at meaning-making and how we turn ideas into art; making art.

Performance/Event

“Think chair” poetry reading

A reading of "Think chair" and other poems more or less related to items of furniture

Exhibition/Installation

"Think chair" for "Get On Board 39"

When I responded to an invitation to 'think chair', Studio 36 published it.

Recording

"...and the Greatest of these is Love"

In their second album, Antiphon presents world premiere recordings of three choral works by Michael Walsh: an unaccompanied Mass of the Holy Trinity; a full-scale Requiem Mass; and The Way of Love, a setting of five love poems by Rupert Brooke. We recorded it in July 2017 in the crossing and Lady Chapel in Exeter Cathedral.

Talk/Workshop

Prayer and Bible reading groups

As part of starting a new blog devoted to prayer and spiritual life, I have moved over the material on related workshops and group work.

Random Work Generator

There are a number of threads running through all my work. Here’s a random sample from each.

Attentiveness

Woodwater plants

The house martins were gathering and sporting on the wing, prior to departure for warmer climes, and Mark Lane from Wilderness Guide kindly popped over to see what plants we could find in Woodwater Lane in September.

Environment

"Particulart: Up in the Air" pop-up at Relight My Fire

"Up in the Air" popped up for a second time at the Relight My Fire festival of energy and the arts run by RegenSW. Indoors this time, and slimmed down without roof or games area. It just about fit in the space.

Making

Absorbed in making

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful" - William Morris

Place

In search of pseudo-sacred spaces

Yesterday was the feast day of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the environment. So it's appropriate that I spent the afternoon walking with Phil Mythogeography Smith in search of sacred and pseudo-sacred spaces.

Play

Time and Tide wait...

This weekend was NASA Space Apps Challenge 2019, and I joined the Time and Tide team to play with slow visualisations of rising sea levels, and make a patchwork of contours.

Public Engagement

"Knitting and other revolutionary acts"

Clare Bryden. Knitting and other revolutionary acts. Third Way Magazine, May 2015.
As competing political voices reach election crescendo, could it be that artistic, home-spun forms of activism are more positive and quietly persuasive? Clare Bryden hails the rise of ‘Craftivism’ and explains how knitting can change the world.

Science and Data

"Knitting and other revolutionary acts"

Clare Bryden. Knitting and other revolutionary acts. Third Way Magazine, May 2015.
As competing political voices reach election crescendo, could it be that artistic, home-spun forms of activism are more positive and quietly persuasive? Clare Bryden hails the rise of ‘Craftivism’ and explains how knitting can change the world.

Social Justice

Letter to Hugo Swire MP

How is it that in a country as wealthy as the UK, more than 500,000 people are reliant on food parcels? Please represent your constituents, and do something to address food poverty, injustice and inequality.