En Place

all day in the workshop
sawing, measuring
stretching etc
not sure how this
is going to work
but think maybe
trying something new
is better than just
thinking about it !

enjoying the thoughts
swimming in my head
Benjamin’s premise that
19th century coziness
was built on reaffirming
onself in an age of increasing
idustrialisation
the need to leave a trace
on velvet or plush
as compensation for
not leaving a trace in the big city
he admired Taut and his call
for glass houses
rational and heroic
no trace could be left
no hiding or secrecy
a chance to live
in cold splendour
Chateau de Sacy
is tactile, sensory
a visual feast
recalling Madame Bovary
and her social aspirations

hmmm now
Pallasmaa has a thing
or two to say about this
contemporary architects
and their ‘autistic’ practices
where people are
not taken into account
at all
and 4 out 5 senses can
be ignoored
he argues for places
spaces where you can
hear footsteps
locate yourself by echos
want to smell, taste, touch
the materials around you
an architecture of the senses …

The sand is evenly spread
-ish
and I have a gallery floor
gritty and uniform
there is no door
in the door shaped hole
the next thing
to consider is a
framing device
perhaps with a padded red panel
flirty
not sure where
this has come from
but pops complete
into my head
the idea of wooden
grid construction
offset by fabric
(well shower curtain)
panel – ties in
with ideas about
the functional and
the useless
uncluttered, rational forms
subverted by
padding and fabric

later
an evening barbeque
logs piled outside
the workshop
D cooks chicken
marrow stuffed with toms
and parsley
all v tasty
he bewilders and entertains us
with his stories
in local dialect
so hard to follow
but his gestures are
illuminating
eyebrows and hands
are particularly expressive
stories of hunting
national service
fighting
being in hospital
killing pigs
….encore
hot showers cold showers
he renames all 5 of us
with french women’s names
I am Suzanne ….
perhaps Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne
with her tea and oranges
down by the river…
we laugh, not always
knowing quite why
perhaps its the wine
cider and stuff
D keeps producing
…but have to resist
some of this
as have
an agenda
for tomorrow

warm and wet I think

have got behind
have lost a day
can’t remember anything
about Tuesday
…at all

as momentum builds
and things
need to be completed
presentation
interview
plans
preparations
sculptures
making space
using space
eating
cogitating
everything blurs
and activities and thoughts
run into each other…

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…