FOURTH DAY AT THE PHOENIX PROJECT SPACE
It took all morning with both of us working on covering the end wall with lining paper. After a welcome sandwich I messed about with the paper drops on another wall trying to get the pattern and placing right. I have decided. Sunday will be the best day to make the wallpaper.
Bumped into Emilia Telese downstairs and met the AIR Advisory Group who were having a meeting at Phoenix.
Placed the polaroids on the school bench – keep trying to find a way to show these pictures found on the allotment.
Received our first piece of outside from Philippa who cannot come to the Open Day. She brought a couple of birch logs from her woodpile.
Roz & I have been talking about the sort of questions we are asking ourselves as we make work. Much of our discussion centers on how we see ourselves in the world – especially in relation to the natural world of which, after all, we are a part.
I am interested in the extremes of existence which I've observed, from the invasive, entwining Bindweed I have picked, pressed and drawn upon, to the delicate baby runner bean plants which I have nurtured for my installation and which are now woven into a taught framework of twine and string.
Yesterday I noticed a patch of wall near the place where I was drawing, which had been hastily painted. An area of wall-paper faintly showed through the paint. I began to trace out the barely visible pattern in pencil, extending the inter-twining stems, flowers and leaves across the wall.
Over three days we have filled the Project Space with things from the outside. A transformation has taken place. We are experimenting and finding new things happening.
Yesterday I planted my runner beans indoors. Like Roz's furniture, they started life indoors, then went outside. Now they are back inside.
THIRD DAY
Arrived with lots of stuff to take upstairs again. Had to have a cup of tea after.
Early meeting again to discuss ideas and postioning.
Made my stuffed crow and put all the birds on sticks.
Wallpaper worries: what to use – the bunches of dried grass plus a flower, or intertwined, the rhythm/pattern – or the grasses – or the pieces of shrub and blossom. Tomorrow we will stick up the lining paper and I will have to make a decision.
To Brewers again for more lining paper. Up to the allotment to gather more dried grass and some bath water (and pick raspberries, water the courgette and tomatoes, clip the grass, pick some marigolds and poppies.
SECOND DAY
Collected the school bench, magazine rack, plant stand and deck chair with floral pattern from the allotment and brought back to the Project Space. This furniture has been used inside, taken outside and is now inside again.
We had an early meeting to consider the space and realised how quickly we have to get things together for the Open Day on Monday and Discussion Platform on Tuesday. We have had a lot of confirmations from invitees today and are excited about the Event.
Wallpaper ideas are taking shape. Stuck up some lining paper to experiment. Grasses look ok but I like the bunches of dead grass.
We are all mixed up with nature, more so than I think is realised. We are not so apart, we are surrounded with names from nature (stitches, roads, colours), metaphors (as bald as a coot, eats like a horse), stories and decorated fabrics. Let's mix up even more. We are entangled.
