Two weeks ago today I was out on my bike under threatening skies casting my circle sunwise around Wood Dalling. There's not been time to pause and update this blog since! And no time today, either, as it's the slash07 private view this evening and before that my mentor Jo from the Babylon Gallery in Ely is coming over for a mentoring session. She's coming along to Wood Dalling church with me and then on to the pv. There'll be lots to talk about and I'm looking forward to it.
The work I have in slash07 has all arisen from Rogationtide, and has all been made within the last two weeks!! And the last three days of that have been occupied with hanging the exhibition … some sleep will be nice.
Meanwhile, I'm posting a few pics of what I've been up to since my last blog entry and looking forward to being able to update 'at leisure' (?) tomorrow!
festial@world-tree[dot]co[dot]uk
I'm really in the thick of it now, with a giveaway publication to cobble together asap and all the work for our slash07 exhibition (www.world-tree.co.uk/slash) to put together before the set-up a week today. Is this a crazy thing to be involved with? To add to the madness, my head of department has asked me to teach four mornings next week when I'd banked on having every day – apart from Friday when I teach anyway – to make work from the Rogationtide performance/installation. Aaaghhhh! Not to mention the small matter of being interviewed on Radio Norfolk tomorrow afternoon.
Wednesday and Thursday went well, at least. Miserable weather on Wednesday, so we ended up working in drizzly rain for much of the day, but at least it started off dry so I could get into a rhythm.
Basically, wherever we could access the point where a road or track crossed Wood Dalling's parish boundary, we parked up the bikes a short distance away. I wandered around for a while to get a feel for the place, writing down any words that came to mind, and then took a few photos. Meanwhile, Trevor was taking photographs too – including documentary ones of me doing my thing. Then, I dug up some earth (or collected water at the two river crossings) and took it to the next point on the boundary where I tipped it out, finishing back at the first crossing point. At each point, too, I collected a flint or piece of pottery that caught my eye, and a stick from the nearest tree. Finally, I struck my singing bowl with the stick and Trevor videoed the action. We visited eight places on Wednesday and six on Thursday, and finished by sharing a can of abbot ale on the verge in the (by now) glorious late-afternoon sunshine. Well, I did mention that in the index of 'The Stripping of the Altars' the entry drinkings leads you directly to the reference to Rogationtide!!
So this is the material I have to work with.
The next day I took the laptop to the church and sat in a pew and just wrote whatever came into my head – the first of twelve 'despatches' from St Andrew's. An interesting experience.
I'm thinking a lot about the urge I have to make rurally-based art that's as urgently relevant as any socially-motivated urban practice. The past is where we all come from, and our ancestors lived in the country.
Where to begin? Tuesday was a bit of a washout, rogationally speaking. We set out in the rain, calling in at the church for a reccy to work out where to position ale, food, laptop etc. for the launch. We made our way to the first boundary crossing – still in the rain – but the vibes just weren't right. I had all the equipment with me, but the rituals I had planned – including printing words on strips of cloth using individual letter rubberstamps – just seemed a penance in the cold and wet! In the end we went home and dried off.
The evening launch went ok though – buns, gingerbread, apple juice and ale seemed to go down well – and while I'd been baking buns and gingerbread Trevor had kindly put together a powerpoint presentation listing the festivals interspersed with images (some of which have been seen on this very blog)! Thank goodness for the laptop. I said a bit about the project to the assembled artists, churchwardens and two potters and took some questions. Yeah, it was ok. And the sun actually came out for the first time that day and cast some nice light into the church.
