Steven Allbutt AIR 2009

I had been to Spurn a number of times in the past. Ever since I lived in Hull during the mid 90s I have been returning to this unique, beautiful and always shifting landscape.

As part of the 1st year of my Fine Art degree at Leeds in 2004 I had worked on the point completing an art and community project. When Andrew asked me to return to Spurn as A.I.R I jumped at the chance of collaborating with Andrew and working along Spurns shifting coastline experimenting with ideas long held as well as those recently developed, following a residency at the Florence Trust in London.

The first thing I began work on was an idea put forward by Andrew about framing the landscape. Offering points at which walkers, bird watchers, day trippers, fisherman and local people could stop, look and take in points of interest. As Wildlife Warden, Andrews intimate knowledge of Spurns wildlife, geography and human history is an incredibly valuable resource, a resource that most people never have access too. The majority of people who visit Spurn will walk through over and around sites of great interest without ever having known of there existence.

I arrived at the point and met with Andrew who was busy with a huge fishing competition along the spit. We looked over and discussed my first prototype for he framing stands and came up with ideas for final materials, colours and sizes. I spent the rest of the morning walking Spurn photographing possible views to draw peoples attention to.







At one point a thunder storm rolled quickly over and I found cover in the abandoned Artillery position.



In the afternoon I retrieved a large piece of drift wood to take back to the studio. I used the comments being made by the fisherman as an excuse to make periodic stops.

At 3.30 I decided to make my way back to the Farm where I was staying as the sun was going down and the tide was coming in.