The Nature Doodles Project

Category: In Higher Cemetery

  • Reaching Out

    Fun-a-Day 2026 in Higher Cemetery

    Hello!  I live around the corner.  I visit the Cemetery several times a week.  I watch the trees change through the seasons.  I seek the oldest gravestones; I wonder about the people who rest here.  I come here with small groups to explore the nature.  I listen to the birdsong.  I try, and usually fail, to identify the mushrooms.  I come here to escape when the cabin fever hits.  I bring my children here: we play hide and seek, tell stories, make up songs, climb trees.  I come here to escape the family.  I go home with pockets full of fallen cones, leaves, seedpods.

    I arrange cones and leaves and sticks into ‘nature doodles’.

    Sometimes I draw, I write.

    I dream that eventually I’ll make a book about this place that holds such magic for me and means so much to so many people, each in different ways.

    And, I wonder about you – about all the other people who come here.  Those who I see, and greet, others who pass through or pause here at completely different times.  So, every day for the month of February, as a pledge to myself for ‘Fun-a-Day’, I am placing a question under a tree.  If it catches your eye; if it has some kind of resonance for you or it captures your imagination, perhaps you’ll leave an answer.  I hope you’ll leave an answer.

    Perhaps you’ll leave your name, too.  Perhaps it will surface in that book that I dream about.  Perhaps not.

    To be honest, I’m a little bit terrified!  I’m afraid of all the things that might happen – I might upset people with insensitive questions in a space where they go for deep and personal moments.  Perhaps I’ll get in trouble for ‘littering’ the Cemetery, though I’ll be back to collect everything I leave here.  I’m worried that no-one will see my notes – or worse, that people will see them and no-one will reply, which feels quite likely.  But, as I so often find myself saying, if I don’t try, then I’ll keep wondering.  Perhaps, just perhaps, someone will enjoy the playful connection with a place that we love.  Perhaps just perhaps, they’ll notice something they haven’t seen before.  Perhaps it will make someone smile.  Even, perhaps, someone will reach out to me and new adventures will begin, initiated by a mere question..

    If I don’t try, I’ll never know

    Whatever happens, I’ll be sharing my adventures alongside many others in a community exhibition at Positive Light Projects, Sidwell Street, Exeter, on 21 and 22 March 2026 – come see!

  • In Higher Cemetery

    A personal residency: the beginnings

    I pledged to spend at least ten minutes a day of February 2025 in Higher Cemetery, Heavitree. It’s a place of wonder for me and, having recently completed a year-long project, I wanted to immerse myself in freedom, experimentation and playfulness, unshackled by goals or outcomes.

    3
    On my run, there and back.
    Green Woodpecker.
    Celandine.
    Searching for the Witch Hazel – soon it’ll be in flower and then I’ll find it. It’s there somewhere but I can’t remember where.
    Walking along next to the graves of sleeping children.
    Winter-Rose, born sleeping just this last October.
    Sun on my skin.
    Gathering pieces to make a fascinator.

    To begin with, it seemed that a new avenue opened up every day. I’d thought I might draw some of the trees; Nature Doodle; chart the arrival of Spring; make cord, ink, weavings … and I did. I did all of these things, fleedingly, as though greeting old friends, one after the other. The glory of permission to embrace my fickle attention span.

    15
    With G, across to Polsoe Bridge, and back again afterwards. In by the Yews, out down the wall by the Ashes.
    – Can you not talk to me cos I’m going to play with my imaginary friends?
    …………………………..
    – Is the Cemetery your special place?
    – Yes, I think so. Where’s your special place?
    – The Donkey Sanctuary.
    …………………………..
    – Are these graves new?
    – Newish. They’re war graves.
    – But the war graves are on the other side.
    – Yes, that’s true. Now I wonder. We’ll have to find out.

    Actually, what really opened up for me, was relationships. As a daily practice, I couldn’t often manage much time in the Cemetery alone. But with either of my children, I could pass hours. G and I told a story, wrote a song. A and I discovered a forgotten tale, a heartbreaking tragedy.

    9
    A broken grave in the rubble mountain.
    Archaeologists with sticks and Cyrpess brush.
    “In memory of George Youldon who fell asleep in Jesus Oct … 1981”
    Their tragedy unfolding beneath our fingertips
    “Also of Mary Ann who died Oct … 1891    . Children of Samuel and Mary Ann Youlden”
    Slowly emerging shock; lump in my throat; time offering distance.
    Archaeology revealing a story,
    A mystery to be uncovered.
    “Aged 4 years. Aged 2 years … months”
    Why? WHY?

    I wondered about the Lady in the Lodge; I talked to strangers, sought answers to questions from friends and neighbours who each know the Cemetery in a different way. Brought a Creative Nature Bimble here. I came at dawn, at dusk, in the dark – looked at the stars. And ultimately pulled Frankie into a deep and mesmerising search for the story of the Youlgen children, whose gravestone A and I uncovered in the early days.

    16
    10 minutes in the dark,
    drawing the trees

    And the entire project was everything I thought it might be, and more, and yet it was only a beginning …

    25
    Morning run.
    Outbound – running:
    – A Green Woodpecker
    – Two men walking together, deep in conversation. I wish that wasn’t so unusual.
    – Catherine Rees, Councillor. I always recognise her AFTER I’ve said hello.
    Homebound – walking:
    – Stopped to photograph all the Silver Birches in the bottom corner. Looping round and round and round. The whole Cemetery is too much. For now.
    – We never mention Pigeons or Magpies, do we?

    In Higher Cemetery is a personal project – an artist residency, if you like: an ongoing relationship to explore the wild, urban place around the corner from my home. You can’t put time frames on such a project but … I have given myself three years to begin with!