En Place

so monday morning
and action!
cycle to
leclerc
look at stuff
fabric, nails
staple guns
strange wallpapers
suggestive construction
stuff
hoover bags for H
spend an hour
wondering around
looking, touching
thinking
and get some
rather sumptuous
but smooth fabric
it’s kind of luminous
in the supermarché
I find and buy some
citron pressé
last tasted it
as a sulky teenager
on a family holiday

then lug
the remaining logs
which are blocking
the most obvious door
to the improvised gallery
hot heavy sweaty work
then D appears
with a pile
of sand
and together
we break up
the uneven and rocky
floor
with spades and rakes
I don’t really understand
much of what he says
but I try and look
like I do
when he suggests
that it’s hard work
for a woman
I shrug and laugh
…he doesn’t know the half of it!
it is quite hard
my hands have blisters
sweat is dripping
muscles are aching
but am unable to give in

when D has gone
H offers me some rosé
we sit sipping
on the cool mossy step
ferns at our feet
… and am briefly revived

a dragging kind of day
sitting around thinking
rising tension
is arranging stuff
enough?
appropriating discarded
bric-a-brac
is nothing new

Martin Creed comes to mind
chairs piled up
cacti arranged in height order
different sized balls
harking back to
Picasso, Braque
with their bits of
chair cane
newspaper
braid
Joseph Cornel etc
not to mention
monsieur Duchamp
who maybe, appropriated
the readymade
Fountain
from Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven
but that’s another story…
arranging and photographing all this stuff
is it necessary, relevant
swing between a logical progression
and more random gestures
it’s confusing
and what about this
curtain on a frame idea?
part canvas, part luminous form
part allusion to drapery
breaking up the space
with a rhombus
of colour
raspberry-ish
echoing the drapes
in my room
playing with shapes
materials
bouncing off each other
turning them around
in the space

start to put together
présentation
for saturday
so far
it’s rather dry…

a trip to the boulangerie
to get some snacks
for friends
who are visiting
they’ve been around
Prague, Munich, Landau, Strasbourg etc
galleries, museums, restaurants, hostels
seeking Goethe, Dürer, Hoffman, Sophie Taeuber-Arp
A brings welcome gifts
a book – une utopia moderniste
to see familiar faces
to hear about their travels
is really nice
in the heat of the afternoon
we sit and talk easily
eating melon
drinking tea
exchanging stories

but once
they’ve gone
I return to the ‘little house’
to be in situ
the logs are gone
and the performance sign
two rusted sheets
or corrugated steel
remain
and a green oil drum

drawing, measuring
noticing, thinking
imagining
and suddenly
in this unexpected place
there is a gravitational pull
a sense of latent
energy
where objects could
react to it
to each other
shapes and colours
come to mind
forms and structures
appear
the site of further encounters
seems to have arrived

an evening follows
of making lists
notes
drawings
slowly
gathering up
the threads

early morning scribbling
trying to keep on top
of this blog
which feels a bit
like homework
it keeps
things, time, space, thoughts
in order though
but the internet is down
and it comes to a halt

put on
decent shoes and shirt
we all gather
outside the gates
and wait for the mayor
the oompah band arrives
leads us to the memorial
there are speeches
liberté égalité fraternité
are mentioned
re-framed in reference
to today’s unstable world
get distracted thinking
that they offer
an obvious and sensible motto
and wonder
what the UK motto is
… I re-discover later
that it’s
Dieu et mon droit
the monarch then,
is en place
he/she has a
God given right to rule
all power to
the ‘head of state’
and by inference
the population is
isn’t worth a mention
plus ça change!

after the speech
we listen to the band
in the car park
then retire
to the village hall
for champagne
ahh … I see the afternoon
disappearing in a fog
of inactivity
….but
after a siesta
I head up the
rue de bois
assuming there will be
woods somewhere
and after a while, up ahead
there they are !
it is close and dark in there
and I puff my way
to the top of the hill
and down the other side
and out into a sunny field
where everything that isn’t field
is on the horizon

late afternoon
in the ‘little house’
I move some stuff about
take some stuff out
try and level the floor
it has a positive
ambience
from high windows
the light enters
pleasingly
in a series of bright lozenges
…could be the word of the week

after this coming together
of mind and space
I celebrate with
sausages and wine