Acts of Attention

Acts of Attention is an ongoing body of work exploring sustained looking as both artistic method and subject. Drawing, writing, and bookmaking are its three interwoven strands each a different way of attending to the same things: plants, weather, gardens, forest edges.

The work begins in observation but doesn't end there. A drawing is also a record of time spent; a piece of writing is also a form of seeing; a book is also a structure for thinking. What connects them is a shared quality of attention slow, repeated, willing to sit with uncertainty.

Acts of Attention is developing alongside small signs, a Substack of essays on art, ecology, and the practice of looking.

Three artistic landscapes of the same blue-flowered plant with green leaves, each progressively more faded, showing different stages of artistic rendering.

Fugitive Blue - Himalayan Poppy Botanic Gardens, St Andrews, series of three watercolour monoprints on Shoji paper, each image is 17 × 27 cm, 2026.

A variety of watercolor art pieces displayed on a wall, including a black and white botanical pattern and abstract landscape scenes in shades of purple, blue, and earth tones.

Artist Books - various concertina and hand- bound books with recycled cloth covers, some dyed and printed using natural plant tints.

A watercolor painting of a large body of water, with mountains in the background and a dramatic sky overhead, primarily in shades of blue, gray, and white.

small signs - a Substack of essays on art, ecology and the practice of looking