Things move on apace.
‘Spoil Heap Harvest’ is falling into distinct piles.
Coleorton 1806-7 – a grounding and take off point at the same time.
Four main strands are emerging:
The Blind Fiddler – This piece will be a recreation of David Wilkie’s The Blind Fiddler of 1806 in a modern setting. The original was painted in Coleorton Hall Farm kitchen and is now part of The Tate Collection. I propose that the original be loaned to Snibston, bringing it home to North West Leicestershire, and that it be exhibited alongside the new Blind Fiddler and other works connected to it out of Spoil Heap Harvest.
Ruby Slippers – Public intervention, poetry and walks in and around Swannington. William Wordsworth selected the spot for the building of Swannington St George’s Church here. Somehow, Dorothy from the Wizzard of Oz, has become lodged in my mind alongside Wordsworth in Swannington – we can’t but walk together. Some evocation of Dorothy – her ruby slippers – will be lodged here – becoming part of this place.
Indifferent – a shamanistic divination process using images of crushed leaves, berries, animal faeces collected from the Snibston spoil heap on my intial walk through it and the poetry of Francis Beaumont.
When I’m Cleaning Windows – I go window cleaning with Mick and Richard, both ex-miners. Our work mediated by place and the poetry of Wordsworth and Beaumont. We share poems with the people whose windows we clean and make new poems too. The window cleaning itself becomes poetry.
Paul Conneally Dec 30th 2010
