Nathan
Journalism Major

Midway through the art leg of our trip studying abroad, we stayed in the city of Penzance for a couple of nights. It hadn't been part of the plan all along -- the youth hostel in London simply didn't have room for us on those nights. Yet, all told, it was one of the best places we visited.

The man who ran the YHA hostel -- Paul -- was great. Sociable, funny, and quintessentially British, he was our weatherman and tourism agent for the days we spent in Penzance. On the 7th -- the first day of class back home in Spokane -- we spent the day trekking alongside the spectacularly beautiful and amusingly-named Lizard Peninsula to Land's End, the westernmost tip of England. We were greeted by beaches that seemed almost mediterranean with their white sands and azure waves, and it didn't really seem fair to think that all those other students were struggling through their first sessions of Core, of English, of anything.

It was crucial to forming my understanding of the St. Ives artists as well -- Barbara Hepworth, especially. In a class discussion, Scott drew our attention to the likeness between Hepworth's "standing forms" and the wind- and water-swept rock formations we had hiked past the previous day. Nature simply is what it is -- represents nothing but itself. Anything that we find pleasing is so on a purely formal or psychological level, just as with the abstract sculpture of Hepworth and others like her.

Most of the moments that have been definitive "British" experiences have been the ones like hiking Land's End -- a day spent walking Hadrian's Wall, or visiting the ruins of Whitby Abbey perched atop a grassy hill, swaddled in grey skies and drizzle. My Britain is a romanticized Britain; the Shire of Tolkien, the Watership Down of Adams. It's what I look to find wherever I can, in life and art -- in Turner's gauzy land- and sea-scapes, or in the pieces that dot Hepworth's Sculpture Garden. More than anything, seeing where something has been made (literary, musical, or physical) gives me more insight into it and appreciation for it than I would ever gain otherwise.

Back to Off-Campus Studies >> British Isles Study Program >>