A Journey of Reflection and Renewal

If you’ve been following Elementum for a while, you’ll know it’s been some time since I’ve been in touch with readers. You may also know that in spring 2019 I published Edition Five and threw myself into creating a sustainable home for the journal: Elementum Gallery. The gallery opened in the summer and it was a heady time, running courses, author events, planning exhibitions, curating books, and commissioning work for Edition Six. I was fortunate to have a great team, and readers travelled from all over the South West and beyond to visit. It felt like my dream—to find stability after a previously itinerant career in the Army and with a husband in the Royal Navy, and to provide Elementum with a thriving home—was finally becoming reality.

Unfortunately, the impact of the COVID closures struck like a hard frost to a tender shoot. Faced with a financial risk I wasn’t willing to take, I made the difficult decision to hand back the keys to the gallery. I learned that giving up on a vision requires more energy than building one, and closing a space takes more effort than opening one. After sending the final legal letter, selling the majority of goods, and taking down the signs, I felt like a shadow of my former self. I didn’t share this journey in the newsletter or on social media, and feeling inexplicable shame, I withdrew for a time. The hardest part was not even wanting to open my laptop, pick up my camera, or look at a copy of Elementum, and the immense guilt I felt about not completing Edition Six. Despite this I’ve been working with some great people, helping them with their branding and websites and it's been a real encouragement to see others grow their own vision with a little help.

If you own a copy of Edition Two, you may remember Tiree, the Hebridean island that holds a special place in my heart. In the summer of 2022, I visited the island again and with a close friend. On a still, auspicious day, we walked to find the Ringing Stone—a glacial erratic with cupped shapes carved into its surface, dating back to the Bronze Age. As I vented my frustrations and feelings of stagnation, a three-fold plan began to take shape: get a part-time job outside the creative or publishing industries, review my CV, and start to see Elementum for what it is—more than just a journal, but a community of readers whose companionship I missed. Could I take Elementum forward in a new way?

By Christmas, with the help of the extraordinary Annabel McDade, I had revised my CV—not so much to pursue a new career but to remind myself of my own capabilities. (Anyone who has found themselves in an unexpectedly disappointing situation will understand the need for this.) Soon after, I was on my way to securing a very part-time role at a local school, helping to deliver outdoor education. It was a joy to be part of a community again and to work with young people, watching them thrive and share in the excitement of realising they’re more capable than they believed. I might also be one of the few outdoor instructors who is equally happy discussing compass bearings as I am reciting Gerard Manley Hopkins or Mary Oliver.

Meanwhile, Elementum…
The guilt continued to gnaw quietly at me, a familiar background rasp in my day. I wrote and rewrote website pieces, but they never felt right, so I didn’t post them. I withdrew from social media, which had started to feel like an ideological battleground, only occasionally posting a photograph and rarely commenting. I found myself sinking into self-pity (comparison truly is the thief of joy) and I was unsure what to do.

Events soon overtook things. Last year, my part-time job unexpectedly became full-time, and my dear mum fell ill. Busy during the week and on expeditions, I spent most of my free time travelling to Scotland to care for her. Despite my lack of engagement with the Elementum community, sales of the journal continued to trickle in each month and each email announcing a sale was such a boost. With each rare social media post I made, new readers would find their way to the website and I continued to receive emails from across the world asking about a reprint of Edition Two and when Edition Six might be published.

Before my role at school became busier, I had begun researching ways to host this community and explore where it might evolve. I discovered Substack, a platform that seemed to offer the best of both worlds: a blog that doubles as a newsletter, a space to meet and exchange ideas, and the potential for a paid subscription model to support the next phase of Elementum. I had also been considering moving away from a traditional newsletter that goes out to faceless email addresses and often results in many replies that I struggle to keep up with. Instead, I wanted to create a space where I could connect with like-minded people, even if only virtually, as part of this new rebuilding phase. I'm in the process of creating this new platform and I hope to see you there soon. Please do take a look however, as you will find some great writing. Two of my favourites are Chloe Hope's exquisitely written Death and Birds and Ann Kennedy Smith's fascinating Cambridge Ladies' Dining Society. These and others should hopefully give you a taste of the platform and its possibilities.

Footpaths may look the same on a map, but on the ground, some are barely passable, while others are blocked by gates or barbed wire. I have a rough map of where I want to go and without a recce I'm unsure what it will look like in reality. But if you’d like to continue on this journey with me and others, talking everything from maps and geology, to publishing and poetry, then I’d be delighted. I hope to launch Elementum's Substack in October and I'll announce this in the current newsletter at the time.

Please do consider ordering a copy of Elementum either for yourself or for a friend, and thank you again for your support and kind words which have made all the difference. 

Jay Armstrong – September 2024