S9E1
· 30:20
I was thrilled when Benedict Tomlinson agreed to come on Nature Talks With Humans. Benedict is a gardener, artist, and art dealer. You may have seen him in the grounds of Pithouse. In this fantastic podcast, we hear Benedict describe his gardening as a sculpture. We hear about his search for the ineffable and his sense of being drawn into that ancient aspect of a landscape you can't quite understand.
Estelle Phillips:You're gonna love this podcast.
Benedict Tomlinson:My name is Benedict Tomlinson, and it's difficult to say exactly what I do apart from its two things, really. Today, I'm a gardener, which I do quite a lot of, but I also work in the art world. So which is the buying and selling of paintings, which I have done for the I mean, all of my career, really. And then last year, I took some time out and was doing some gardening and just sort of ended up doing more and more gardening. And now, I'm sort of I have no time.
Benedict Tomlinson:Basically, I literally have no I could be doing it the whole time twenty four hours a day. Today, we're at Pithouse where I do two days a week. This but this is the only, I suppose, could call it commercial space that I'm working, and then I do private gardens. But I've I sort of have I mean, I was always passionate about gardening, but I didn't think I could do it as a career. And it just developed and it's yeah.
Benedict Tomlinson:It's been a joy. And sometimes I think maybe I should just do this the whole time. And I so I don't know. And that's why I said that's why I say I don't know exactly who I am because I'm still still deciding. Yeah.
Benedict Tomlinson:So
Estelle Phillips:What drew you to gardening?
Benedict Tomlinson:Well, being outside is incredibly calming. I mean, it's not a cliche, but there is, you know, there are so many studies now that that show how being in nature and being and even doing gardening is so good for your sort of mental health and mental well-being. And I found that it just did the trick for me. You sort of get completely lost in it, and it's you see wonderful results and I sort of combine the I suppose in a way I I do think of it as a a sort of artistic practice. That's the the best way I can look at it.
Benedict Tomlinson:I so I've read masses of gardening books as one does. It's just to kind of to get an understanding of sort of the history of it and how other people deal with things. There's a there's a writer called Russell Page, who did a book called The Education of a Gardener. And he was an artist, and his way of describing it really gave me a great sort of inspiration in a way of just how one can look at a space and how it can transform. So I think of it always as being, like a sculpture in a way.
Benedict Tomlinson:You're working on it, but a on a massively complicated sculpture that is forever changing and has as well as having the color and the shape and the form and all this sort of strange perspective all the time and dimensions of things. You also have to combat with, smell, which you don't usually deal with in sculpture, which I find fascinating that you can walk through an area and suddenly you're completely transported somewhere else because of a scent. And then you've got sound as well. So it's a it's a thoroughly immersive sort of sculptural scenario. So that's how I really have kind of enjoyed it.
Benedict Tomlinson:So here at Pithouse, I mean, it's the time of year where it's weeding. I mean, It's a battle against the pine weed at the moment. But at the same time, I'm always thinking how does it look if you walk, you know, if you take one path, what does that mean? And is something out of place? And it's, you know, that simple thing.
Benedict Tomlinson:You you cut a branch off and then suddenly it's transformed because everything lifts. And it's amazing. That sort of way. And I'm we I was just doing there's some sedum over there that I'm just, weeding at the moment. And and they I love the way that you clear space and suddenly you create shadows, so you create this extra sense of depth.
Benedict Tomlinson:So it's quite enjoyable. So I'm sort of yeah. I'm sculpting the sedum this morning which is really, really fun. The natural world has always been a huge kind of what would you call it? Well, it's just very important to me.
Benedict Tomlinson:And so I I started out studying painting. I wanted to be an artist, but ended up not just working, you know, in more of a commercial realm. But every year, god, it must be for decades now, I use I do a painting a year, like one painting. Sometimes more than one if I have lots of time, but and it's always of trees, which I'll show you afterwards. But they're portraits done on plein air of a tree that's particularly special to me, I suppose.
Benedict Tomlinson:So they're portraits. Yeah. Absolute portraits. At the beginning, it was an exercise in understanding how paint worked. So you could if you say you were selling a painting to somebody, how understanding the craft and how people actually make something gives you a bit of a rather an advantage over people who don't because you can genuinely say this is a beautifully painted painting, you know, without it just sounding glib.
Benedict Tomlinson:It has a certain, you know, because it's incredibly difficult to do and it's So these paintings hold a certain sort of symbolism or I'm trying to evoke something of what it can be to have that sort of spiritual relationship with a space. I'm always searching for the ineffable. I think that's the word. Definitely. That sort of undefinable, quasi mystical experience that you can have.
Benedict Tomlinson:That it's almost terrifying. So it's almost awe, you know. I found this quote in in Proust recently where he talks. It's He's quoting somebody else, but he repeats it a couple of times where he says, the woods are dark, the sky is still blue. And it is Or the sky is still blue.
Benedict Tomlinson:And it's that idea of the sort of the uncanny where, you know, you you think of Again, it's that sort of folkloric fear of the unknown. What is the darkness in the woods? But then you've still got the blue sky. And there's and there's beauty, but there's also terror. So they're they're just they're just paintings, but I think you have to sort of look at them to see.
Benedict Tomlinson:And then I'm use a process after I've painted them. So they're all oil oil on canvas and then I use circular dotting process over the top thinking about aboriginal sort of dream time paintings. I mean, so it gives it a screen, so you're looking through a screen at this painting, so you but from a distance you can't see it's there, it just perhaps has a slight haze. And I was thinking again about that sort of idea of what what dream time paintings are, how they they manifest, how you sort of how do you record nature in a sort of natural way because that's pretty much what they they not pretty much. I mean, that's but but that idea of how do you translate something that is so difficult because Dreamtime paintings or this the song lines where they're trying to put something when it's really it's a song that's translated into these dot paintings and it's not, you know, and those dot paintings aren't even painted by the person who created the song because they're not allowed to do it.
Benedict Tomlinson:So it's a kind of it gives them this other other value or quality that I've just found sort of interesting. And I didn't and I also wanted to make it aware that they're they are just paintings. So it's not I'm just not trying to just create a photographic representation. It's still doing something a bit beyond what you would normally expect. So you yeah.
Benedict Tomlinson:I I think the idea is
Estelle Phillips:you look at them and you
Benedict Tomlinson:just think that, oh, that's a picture of a tree. Yeah. But it's Can I
Estelle Phillips:ask you a question about that?
Benedict Tomlinson:Yeah, of course.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. Said that when you're painting, you're trying to capture that spiritual awe and in one sense, awfulness. Mhmm. And I understand that juxtaposition. Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:So, what I'm really interested in is how come you knew about that Mhmm. To try and paint it.
Benedict Tomlinson:Right. How did I understand that?
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. Because that's a big thing to understand.
Benedict Tomlinson:My own it would be my from my own experience. Which is Which is always having a slight trepidation of the woods and forests. I think it's a natural instinct, isn't it? If you can't see and you don't know, you know, what might be there. The the fear of the unknown, essentially.
Benedict Tomlinson:I grew up in the countryside and there were places that were wooded that you would go to in order to scare yourself. It's it's that sort of you just don't know what can be can be out there in a sense. But it's also But it's natural, that's the thing. I mean, it's not necessarily an animal. I don't It's not about being scared of somebody rushing out with an axe to attack you or something.
Benedict Tomlinson:It's more It's deeper than that. It's more of that. Well, again, or where you don't where you're totally sort of struck by a sense of displacement or, you know, and just not panic, but just when you're in some ways you're drawn to it as well. Oh, there's a okay. I'll tell you something that struck me after a long time, which sums it up really well.
Benedict Tomlinson:So there's a painting by Fragonard called The Swing, which you might know. It's in the water. It's a it's a very Rococo. There's a woman in a in a dark forest, and she's on a swing, her shoe is flying off. And there's a man trying to look up her skirt.
Benedict Tomlinson:And my parents had this a print of this in their bedroom when I was growing up. So it was very little. And but it wasn't a great reproduction. I think it was something like it was used for a stage set and then it had been appropriated by my father or something like that. And so, it was a kind of, you know, it wasn't the it wasn't like a sort of, you know, the best quality.
Benedict Tomlinson:So, it meant that it gave it this even darker and stranger appearance. And I used to have nightmares about this swing, but without with the the of this scene,
Estelle Phillips:Mhmm.
Benedict Tomlinson:But without somebody without any characters in it. So, it was always about this that that darkness. And, that's also the way that it sort of juxtaposed with something so frivolous and frothy. Yeah. Which I really like that that strange way that you, you know, you can have a scene like that which is the height of sort of well, not silliness, but the height of, you know, nothing threatening about it, really.
Benedict Tomlinson:But behind them, you you can glimpse further, and when it's sort of shaded off, it sort of and the more you look at because I've been to I've I've went and I've seen the painting in the in the Wallace collection hundreds of times, and it still has that strange feeling. If you look behind, you know, if you look at the background, it just it doesn't really make sense, and the perspective is all strange. And, you know, if you if you sort of spend to remove the characters, the figures within it, it really does have a it's dreamlike. And I suppose it's supposed it's supposed to be a dreamlike painting. It's supposed to be it's a fantasy.
Benedict Tomlinson:So but to me, it, you know, terrified me. I used to have nightmares all the time. I can still remember the the nightmares of this of this empty swing in a a wooded glen. And so I suppose what I was trying to do with the paintings in part was was trying to capture that, yeah, that sense of what it is to be, you know, scared of the unknown, but also sort of embrace it and to I mean, could, you know, you sort of you can't really get out get away from it. And there's I mean, I don't need to talk about, you know, about trees because everybody knows that.
Benedict Tomlinson:There's so much. Every day there's another amazing fact that comes out about how important they are, or they find the oldest thing that's done that, or you learn something about a magnolia.
Estelle Phillips:It's, you
Benedict Tomlinson:know, it's just just the most incredible sort of expanding knowledge about these wonderful things. So as themselves, that doesn't need to be explained, I don't think so much. It was more about trying to capture that essence, which I think, in the way of painting, I wouldn't say that that's what you the first thing you think of. That's not a one I, you know, I don't want people to go, oh, you know. But that's for me what I'm trying to do.
Benedict Tomlinson:That's what I'm trying to achieve.
Estelle Phillips:I'm a bit confused because a lot of this, like, description and what you've said about Yeah. Your relationship with trees.
Benedict Tomlinson:Yeah. That's not
Estelle Phillips:too strong a word. What you've said so far is a lot of it has been sort of like derived and not exactly fear, but something a bit a little bit scary, maybe.
Benedict Tomlinson:Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:And yet, what I'm feeling is that you find them really beautiful.
Benedict Tomlinson:Yes. Yeah, totally.
Estelle Phillips:So, can you talk a little bit about
Benedict Tomlinson:that Beauty and and fear.
Estelle Phillips:Because you've established that they're alive by your Yeah. Yeah? Well, yeah, absolutely.
Benedict Tomlinson:Fear mixed with beauty. But then
Estelle Phillips:It but maybe I'm hearing it wrong. Mhmm. What
Benedict Tomlinson:No. It is the beauty aspect almost goes without saying because because when I'm looking for a tree, it has to have an aesthetic quality to it.
Estelle Phillips:Mhmm.
Benedict Tomlinson:So it has to feel so it's not just about trying to find a, you know, a spiritual I mean, I wouldn't say I'm not exactly a spiritual person, but to find a connection with something. Yeah. I've painted so many different ones in different places and they're all that it has to do yes. So so there has to be a beauty to it. But at the same time, I'm still trying to channel, but still because I suppose, yes, there is a if something is so beautiful, it can be quite scary.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. Of course.
Benedict Tomlinson:Mean, that's the thing.
Estelle Phillips:It's Clips are scary.
Benedict Tomlinson:Well, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. But in themselves, they're not individually, they're not they're not scary things, are they? Unless they fall on you.
Benedict Tomlinson:That's about the only
Estelle Phillips:No. I'm not scared of trees at all.
Benedict Tomlinson:No. No. I mean
Estelle Phillips:But I have spoken to other people who who have had that experience. Yeah. But I've not had that Well,
Benedict Tomlinson:it's an individual I think there's a there's a phobia. I can't remember what it's called.
Estelle Phillips:I don't think we're in phobic territory.
Benedict Tomlinson:No, definitely. No, I'm not I'm not phobic. But there but there's always a there's always a label for everything. Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:But I'm really struck by the awe because you Yeah. The awe that Yeah.
Benedict Tomlinson:But that's what nature should give you, awe, you know, that sort of suddenly Maybe it's a scale thing as well, you know, with more it gives you a reminder of your place within the world.
Estelle Phillips:But what does it give you?
Benedict Tomlinson:It gives me well, oh, that's a good point. Well, it does do that to me. It gives because it's like you're having a a dialogue, perhaps, with a tree. So, there has you have to, know, enter into some sort of communication, in a sense. Not of talking, but but if you're looking at something for such a long time and considering every aspect of it, it sort of it goes into you.
Benedict Tomlinson:And so that you are, you know, within it. And I suppose that's what, you know, sort of goes back to the gardening and that's how I sort of treat it as well. You know, you suppose it's all about looking, you know, and that's the most important thing, is really concentrating and stopping, you know, because it's so easy just to zoom around all the time. I mean, that was part of yeah, part of me just sort of slowing down what I was doing, is that when you get a chance to really stare, you see all the weeds. Well, we do at the moment, but
Estelle Phillips:But going back to what you were saying about looking. Yeah. Yeah? That it kind of comes out when you're looking.
Benedict Tomlinson:Mhmm. Yeah. It again, so it so it becomes it's meditative in a way. And that is part of when so when I'm doing the the dot element of it, the sort of the dream time element, that is hugely meditative because you go it's trance like. Because if, you know, I use a tiny paintbrush and I'm making dots, you know, in circles and and it's impossible not to get a lot, you know, it's that thing of repetition in a kind of So there is a Yes, you get totally lost.
Estelle Phillips:But are you noticing and then doing a dot of what you notice, noticing and then doing a dot? Is that what you're doing?
Benedict Tomlinson:No. No, no. It's essentially, it's it's not figurative. It's not a representation or anything. It is just it's a mixing of a paint and it's creating a dot and then making it so it spirals really.
Benedict Tomlinson:So it's that idea of
Estelle Phillips:But still you have to But you're not just like dotting on
Benedict Tomlinson:No, no,
Estelle Phillips:no. Because you're thinking. You're a thinker. Yeah. Okay.
Estelle Phillips:You're thinking while you're dotting. So, what are you
Benedict Tomlinson:What am I thinking about?
Estelle Phillips:Do know?
Benedict Tomlinson:No. Well, the idea was to try and almost empty the mind. That was the idea. So in a way, in that sort of meditative aspect is when, say, you concentrate on your breathing or something and then you get lost in a, you know, in a cycle of, you know If you're concentrating on one on a single singular task, you can become sort of lost in that moment as well, and your brain can empty of distraction. And it becomes it's not mechanical, but it's it has a a way of I Yeah.
Benedict Tomlinson:The thing is, thoughts then drift in and out. That's the interesting actually, this is an interesting thing, because you talk about what are you putting down. I think And it's strange how the brain can fly off in different directions even though you're trying to remove it. So, say, the most, you know, the subtlest of color can trigger a memory. And, you know, I guess this is going back to a sort of Proustian idea as well, is that, you know, you put a bit of yellow and then suddenly your brain has gone that that yellow was in something, you know, but I don't know why that memory has now decided to invade my my thoughts.
Benedict Tomlinson:And it's quite interesting the way that does the way that happens because then you can sort of consider it, and then it and then let it go, because then you've moved on, you know, and then something else might happen. You have to be in a pretty content mind frame to do it, I find. Because, you know, if it's like anything, if you make if you're you're anxious, then it's not going to come across, you know, you won't be able to concentrate or So, again, it's finding the right time and the right mindset is really important too.
Estelle Phillips:Are you able to describe the process of noticing and then becoming I can't remember the exact words you used, but essentially part of nature? Because I I had the impression that you were saying that that process of noticing kind of in a sense drew you in. Mhmm. And then you were essentially creating your artistry from that position of having been drawn in.
Benedict Tomlinson:Mhmm. Which I think Yeah, I'm trying to think how to word that.
Estelle Phillips:Is that an accurate description?
Benedict Tomlinson:Yeah, it is because you are are part of that or you're part of that moment in a sense, aren't you? So you're you are part of because again, your your brain in theory is sort of has emptied enough and then it is the things that your your sensations that are closest to you become heightened and hopefully you're in a peaceful environment. I mean, that's that's, you know, you have it's trying to line all of the all the little elements up to get the right bit, which is hard to do.
Estelle Phillips:Do you think there is a connection between that process that you use for painting and the reason that you were drawn to gardening.
Benedict Tomlinson:Yeah. Yeah, certainly, which is I say certainly and then can't back it up. But it is true. It is. It is.
Benedict Tomlinson:Absolutely. Yeah. My my first thing is yes, of course it is. And I'm still and I'm still understanding that. I think that's part of the, you know, part of my quest in a way is to is to understand my relationship with the natural world and within it and how how it is that things operate because it's it's easy to get bogged down on my new shy and and it's trying to become yes, to it's really difficult to describe.
Benedict Tomlinson:But I I would say that's how, you know, with the gardening, it's I do it in a way in the same way as I said that I do it thinking about as it as an artistic pursuit. It has the same way. So you're treating everything as a as a medium, as a sort of tool. But in in a very respectful way, it has to make sense. You know, it's like the sort of I mean, you'll probably shouldn't say that here because they wouldn't want to know, but you might leave a weed because it actually looks a lot better.
Benedict Tomlinson:But but in theory, you should you you know, there's an idea of how you should be operating. But it's yeah. I suppose because it's a hand it's hands on. It's doing, you know, doing what I was doing. You know, so if you're painting if you're painting nature, but then if you're sort of if you're acting with it, you know, if you're affecting it through your hands.
Estelle Phillips:When do you think you first became aware of your, in my opinion, quite profound, but certainly substantive connection or relationship with nature. Should we call it nature? Because it sounds like something that's quite embedded in you.
Benedict Tomlinson:Yeah, I think forever. I mean, I know Yeah. Well, as a child, even though you treat it in a different way because it's playing, it's games, isn't Yeah. Before before we met and talked, I was I did actually think back and I was thinking, you know, why what is my, you know, sort of connection to it? Or how did I kind of and it was growing up in the countryside and having freedom to to go out into it and explore.
Benedict Tomlinson:And and there were and I but I like I said, that we were always trying to find places that were scary, but that's just being a child. Yes. You know, that's just part of the
Estelle Phillips:Because the interesting thing about that is that you're always trying to find places that are scary. Yeah. And that's predicated on the basis that it's alive and that, you know, and obviously you're looking for the scary bits because that's what kids do. Yeah. But, it also predicates the fact that there are bits that are like friendly or welcoming.
Benedict Tomlinson:Well, totally. Yeah. Which which are nice. Yeah. You think of the cornfields or something which, you know, which Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:Could
Benedict Tomlinson:go running and get lost in or, you know, the wide open spaces and because we grew up near the South Downs. So that which is a bit which is a bit like here, I found. Yeah. There's a similar Definitely. I mean, of course, it's chalked down the hills and it but it has that.
Benedict Tomlinson:I think it's to do with the the ancient nature of the the land here Mhmm. And there. I mean, I'm I'm certainly not I don't know what that that would be archaeologists, know, geo something or rather. There are people much better equipped at describing that. But but that definitely, that sense of being drawn into a kind of an ancient aspect of the landscape that you can't quite understand.
Benedict Tomlinson:Mhmm. You just have a feeling that it's that it's always been there or but at the same time, always occupied, in a way. Or I mean, that that it has roots and humanity. It's not a barren, you know, space. And that's yeah.
Benedict Tomlinson:That I felt very much felt that in the in the Downs and even more so here where it's you know, you have the forts and
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. It's very thick.
Benedict Tomlinson:Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:Here. It's very thick.
Benedict Tomlinson:Yeah. Yeah. And it's yeah. I mean, I'd say magical is definitely, you know, it's a it's a word that seems a bit not silly, but but it is. I mean, there is a certain kind of, you know, atmosphere to it.
Estelle Phillips:Where have you felt that most pronounced, can you say? I,
Benedict Tomlinson:gosh, it changes all the time actually because I'm trying to think of a single instance because you can go for a long walk and then something will happen and that will be enough. I know. Yeah. And it could have been a walk you've done 20 times.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah.
Benedict Tomlinson:And so, I mean, all around here, all around the Cranbourne Chase seems to have that sort of again, back to the ineffable kind of quality where you don't where it just feels right, you know. Just feel content, you know, feel in it. Yeah. And I had similar experiences in the down, so whatever it is to do with chalk and to do with rolling hills and prehistory. Yeah.
Benedict Tomlinson:Yeah. I wish I could give you
Estelle Phillips:No. No. No. You I
Benedict Tomlinson:But I think it's it just it just changes. It just changes all the time. So even last week, I went for a walk on Cadbury Castle. Do you know that? Yeah.
Benedict Tomlinson:In Somerset. It's another Iron Age fort. And that was amazing. It's huge, fastening. It was just, you know, one of those And I didn't really know anything about it.
Benedict Tomlinson:I happened to be driving past until I'm, you know, I'm just gonna stop and go. And you just do and it's just like, oh, this has a, you know, wide open space. It doesn't feel like anything else. Yeah. I suppose I say it doesn't feel like anything else.
Benedict Tomlinson:So you you kind of feel within it. But, again, there's so much written and sort of understood about those sort of places that I don't feel like I'm the person who can sort of can sort of pitch in. I just it's that it's again, it's just the obvious, the real you know, because you know that there is a connection with mankind and also nature. And it's just there, and it's constantly in there.
Estelle Phillips:Thank you very much. This has been an absolutely fantastic podcast. It's been pleasure. Been wonderful. Thank you so much.
Estelle Phillips:Subscribe to Nature Talks With Humans for more true stories of people communicating with animals, birds, and landscape. Follow me on Instagram at Estelle underscore writer forty four and TikTok at Estelle Phillips. Bye.
Listen to Nature Talks With Humans using one of many popular podcasting apps or directories.