Valency Valley
The River Valency from Cornish, Dowr an Velinji the Mill House, is a short river in North Cornwall. It has a number of sources and tributaries before running past Lesnewth and ‘Thomas Hardy’s Church’ at St Juliot to follow a steep-sided valley and enter the sea at Boscastle Harbour.
November 1984. We married on a Tuesday, and by Thursday, Caroline and I had travelled the 250 or so miles southwest to set up our first real home in Boscastle, North Cornwall. Although well known as a small, pretty fishing village, it was into the hinterland, the deep secluded Valency Valley behind the village, that I spent much of my time
We lived in the village for six years or so; it was here we had our first taste of married life. Our first children were born here, and it was where I really started to paint – to try and live as an ‘artist’. The Valency and her valley behind the village became my playground and workplace – I knew every rock and pool, meander and cascade. I knew where the trout were easy to see, where the sun caught the water’s surface in the morning, where the foliage of each season was mirrored at its finest. I think felt that was as au fait with this river as Mr. Hardy or even those people of long ago that had hidden their treasures – (the golden lunula) – in the Valency’s bogs and marshes in the sources above St Juliot. I spent my time under those trees along the river’s banks scribbling and experimenting with new materials, discovering how to make new marks, how to respond to this paradise. attempted huge oils on pallets and skip-scavenged boards. I spread the river’s waters with dissolved pigments across sheet after sheet of watercolour paper, collages of paint on recycled wrappers and the local newspaper, attempting to capture that ultimate of subjects –the movement of water and all the life within it and around it.
The Valency gained notoriety for the immense flood that inundated Boscastle in 2004.
I returned here by request of BBC Radio 4 to speak about the already much reported flood – the outcome of the Valency turning into a raging torrent that tore the heart out of the valley and Boscastle. All of the other interviewees had poured out their grief and despair at this tragedy, and of course it couldn’t be denied that there was a terrible side to the event with the destruction of homes and the temporary loss of livelihoods (but no loss of life) –but also felt there was another side to it.
Just before the radio interview I revisited the valley and was stunned; although the topography was still familiar with its recognisable valley sides and skyline, the river had changed course completely – the meanders had shifted from one side of the valley floor to the other. There was driftwood and flotsam snagged and trapped halfway up the trees. Many trees had fallen. Huge boulders were strewn around and new ‘beaches’ created from the newly exposed rubble and earth, but just as dramatically, all those manmade features of a parkland had vanished along with the paths and tracks – washed away into Boscastle Harbour and out onto the Atlantic seabed. The river had re-established herself, reinstated herself as something to respect, a powerful force of nature, and this I was delighted about (it wasn’t all a tragedy). The re-wilding of the river and stamping of her identity had occurred, delivering a slap in the face to all our complacency.
It reminded me of continental watercourses;
every time I’d visited them in the summer they’d had their annual winter rage and flung themselves around, thrown a tantrum and got stroppy before settling down again for a nice summer.
On this warm day there were butterflies floating and gliding above the river, birdsong, and the blueness of the sky between the leaves was reflected here and there below; all very continental-feeling and exotic. I painted and experienced a sort of déjà vu
– there was a familiarity about the river, even after all the change that had occurred as a result of this tempestuous episode in the Valency’s life.
For the last four years or so I’ve been returning yet again to the Valency to make this new body of work
Water time
paint a watercolour in gratitude
For this valley that hosted my youth
For here where I sourced those early paintings
This watercourse showed me how
To make and shape and grow
And now as the colours drain out of the valley
With dusk’s shroud coming down
The river flows towards tomorrow
With her loud water music
From yesteryear
Each mutter and mumble and rumble
Loud and proud even in this hour of retire
The valley is dormant for the season
But this is the stream’s lively time
Spateful and busy
Hurrying beneath bare twigs
And silhouetted sticks
Over and past the flat slates of her bed
Heading for another time
The future, tomorrow
January 2020
Each riffle, rapid and torrent
Each pool, bend, twist and turn
Holds a memory
Of four decades ago
A young man gloved and coated for winter
Sat beside the stream
A watercolour, a collage
Teeth chattering, shivering
Ice crystals flowering on the paper
A need, a desire, the quest
Amongst the bluebells and the ransoms
The summer’s dark foliage
Cast oak shadows
And the stream always with light
Burning into my eyes
All seasons
Those water-cast spangles and spells
Across the pages and canvas
Each riffle, rapid and torrent
Each pool, bend, twist and turn
May 2021
A dedicated environmentalist and true polymath, Jackson’s holistic approach to his subject seamlessly blends art and politics providing a springboard to create a hugely varied body of work unconstrained by format or scale.
Jackson’s artistic practice ranges from his trademark visceral plein-air sessions to studio work and embraces an extensive range of materials and techniques incl uding mixed media, large canvases, print-making and sculpture.
The son of artists, Jackson was born in Blandford, Dorset in 1961. While studying Zoology at Oxford University he spent most of his time painting and attending courses at Ruskin College of Art. On gaining his degree he travelled extensively and independently, painting wherever he went before putting down roots in Cornwall with his wife Caroline in 1984.
Jackson’s focus on the complexity, diversity and fragility of the natural world has led to artist-inresidencies on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza the Eden Project and for over 20 years Glastonbury Festival, which has become a staple of his annual working calendar
Over the past thirty years Jackson has had
numerous art publications released to accompany his exhibitions. Six monographs on Jackson have been published by Lund Humphries depicting his career so far; A New Genre of Landscape Painting (2010), Sketchbooks (2012), A Kurt Jackson Bestiary (2015), Kurt Jackson’s Botanical Landscape (2019), Kurt Jackson’s Sea (2021) and Kurt Jackson’s Rivers (2024). A Sansom & Company published book based on his touring exhibition Place was released in 2014. Jackson regularly contributes to radio and television and presents environmentally informed art documentaries for the BBC and was the subject
for an award-winning BBC documentary, A Picture of Britain
He has an Honorary Doctorate (DLitt) from Exeter University and is an Honorary Fellow of St Peter’s College, Oxford University and an Honorary Fellow of Arts University Plymouth. He is an ambassador for Survival International and frequently works with Greenpeace, Surfers Against Sewage, Friends of the Earth and Cornwall Wildlife Trust. He is a patron of human rights charity Prisoners of Conscience and is an academician at the Royal West of England Academy.
f. cover Valency Spring, slate falls. 2021.
2 Valency, Boscastle, cold winter dusk. 2020.
4 The bridge, the mill, the river. Boscastle. 2021.
5 Night upriver to the village, Boscastle. 2021.
6 Valency source, Tresparrett first flow. 2024. mixed
7 A first trickle, a source, under the Tresparrett willows. 2024.
8 Sun in the willows, rooks call. A Valency source ... 2022.
9 Churchy Bridge rainforest. 2024.
10 Lesnewth under the beech. 2024.
10 Early bronze age gold lunula from Cargurra, Hennett ... 2024.
11 A few snowdrops from the source of the Valency ... 2024.
11 St Juliot Church, wet and windy. 2021.
12 St Juliot Celtic Cross. 2022.
Wild daffodils from Lesnewth. February 2024.
St Juliot. 2022.
Jays in the treetops, tadpoles at my feet. Valency. 2021.
Treworld cat. 2024.
Valency thoughts and memories. 2022.
The Valency cradles the light. 2021.
22–23 Spring is round the corner. 2024.
Morning stream up to the big oak. 2011.
25 Watching the night rainfall. 2020.
26 Elm Cottage fleeting sunshine, loud rush of the stream. 2020.
on paper
27 New leaves. Pearl-bordered fritillaries flying in the glade ... 2021. mixed
28 She turns a corner, carrying her Autumn leaves. Newmills ... 2022.
29 Newmills winter afternoon. 2020. mixed
30 Newmills Farm, smell of wood smoke. 2024.
on paper
31 Heart of the valley, Newmills. 2024.
mixed media on
32 A bat flies up and down at dusk under the sycamores. 2021. mixed
32 Mizzle, Trewannett to Treworld. 2024.
33 Downstream, Valency. 2024. mixed media on canvas board
34 The river runs through, Valency end of winter. 2024w mixed media on wood panel
35 Fox pong, dipper tweet, midge nibble. Valency autumn. 2023. mixed
on wood
£8,500
Acorns fall in the river, leaves drift downstream ... 2022.
36 Valency fox. 2022.
mixed media on wood panel
37 Loud winter rush. A pair of dippers bobbing on a rock, Valency. 2022. mixed media on canvas board
×
38 Winter alders and brambles. The Valency whispers. 2022. mixed
×
£8,500
£8,500
39 Valency rush. 2022.
40 Between Rose Cottage and St Peter’s Wood. 2024. mixed media on Hardy novel extract 18 × 22 cm
41 Valency Spring, slate falls. 2021.
42 All is glimmer and shine this Valency morning. 2021.
43 Wet morning. Valency oak, birch, holly, sycamore. 2021.
44 Green woodpecker yaffling, a mallard comes crashing ... 2021. mixed
on wood panel
45 Dipper bobbing up and down on a rock midstream. Valency. 2021. mixed
46 A trout leaps for a gnat, a robin catches a caddis. Valency. 2021.
47 In the woods, Valency. 2021.
48 Valency’s wooded banks. 2022.
49 Sun in sun out. 2021.
49 Valency May 6.30pm. 2021.
50 Bird song, Valency woods. 2021.
50 Winter, Minster Church. 2022.
51 Little Valency painting. 2023.
51 Jack by the hedge, ransoms, stitchwort, dandelion ... 2021.
52 Wood rush, campion, wild garlic, jack by the hedge ... 2021.
52 Small Valency January still life. 2022.
53 Hazel and alder. January jug of catkins. 2022.
53 Dogs mercury, lesser celandine, wild daffodil. February 2024.
54 Evening’s sun burst. 2022.
54 Slate glint riffle. 2021.
55 Chatter, gurgle, trickle, whisper. 2021.
56 Valency May. 2021.
56 Valency elf cups February. 2024.
×
57 The end of winter, Valency primroses and catkins in a herb jar. 2024. mixed media on museum board 22 × 22 cm £3,500
57 Water music, winter dusk. 2022.
mixed media on paper 30 × 28 cm £5,000
58 Valency Wolf Moon. 2022.
mixed
58 Valency winter rush and murmur, chitter chatter. 2020.
59 Sun sinking behind me down the valley. 2021.
mixed media on museum board
×
60 A roe deer runs past me, the sun has set, the stream ... 2021.
61 In the valley with the owls calling. 2024.
mixed media on museum board 30 × 30 cm £5,000
62 Silver chain of Valency, oak with a holly and hazel understory. 2024.
63 Valency. 2024.
64
£7,500
etching and drypoint plate size 48 × 30.5 cm edition of 30 £850
Silver-washed fritillaries sail beneath the trees ... 2021.
65 Hot drowsy pigeon coo, buzzard mew. Up Valency. 2021.
66 Wet evening, high water. 2023. mixed media on museum board
66 Wet morning, high water. 2015.
67 Morning upstream to the village. 2021. mixed
67 Still afternoon, Boscastle boats. 2021.
68
£3,500
Low water, hot day, summer’s end Boscastle. 2021. mixed media on canvas boards
69 Summer’s evening Boscastle. 2021. mixed media on museum board
70
Our first house, Boscastle. 2021 mixed media on museum board
71 Harbour entrance. 2015
71 Serene evening, Boscastle Harbour mouth. 2021
mixed