It's exactly a week now until my first mentoring session with Katie Walton, artistic programme manager for BCA in Bedford. My Arts Council proposal included a programme of mentoring for the year of my residency to help me shift my practice up a metaphorical gear or two. So Katie will be giving me advice on marketing/promotion and getting the work out there. And Jo Clemence, gallery co-ordinator for the Babylon Gallery in Ely will be giving me critical feedback on work produced during Festial. I'm excited about this and anxious to make the most of the opportunity, but at the same time it's somewhat nerve-wracking, especially the 'critical feedback' bit!
At the moment the whole thing is gloriously fuzzy and abstract and full of potential. I don't need to know what I'm going to make in response to the site: that's the whole idea!! BUT …. what if there's nothing to offer Jo to criticise? What if there is, and she has to gently tell me I'm wasting my time (and worse still, hers)? I don't like the sound of either of these scenarios. But I know that the sort of work I do always involves risks of this kind.
Anyway, more positively, I'm looking ahead to my first date in the medieval calendar. Or make that three dates, as it's Rogationtide — the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Ascension Day. Now, this really was a time of feasting, fun and letting your hair down in medieval times (not to mention sending those pesky demons flying over the boundary into the neighbouring parishes!) In my excellent resource on these matters 'The Stripping of the Altars' by Eamon Duffy, the entry drinkings in the index refers the reader straight back to the information about Rogationtide!! But more on all that later. For now, I'll just say that Trevor and I spent a lovely sunny Easter Sunday afternoon cycling around Wood Dalling investigating some of the places where you cross over the parish boundary …
Oh yes, I've just realised I haven't yet mentioned quite an important feature of the project. I'm going to be keeping medieval time, instead of today's calendar. In pre-Reformation days, the Julian calendar was still in use, but adjustments made in the name of accuracy mean that we are now 13 days ahead. So, for example, St Andrew's Day is 30 November, but to experience it at the same time of year as medieval people did, I will have to keep it on 13 December. Wood Dalling church is called St Andrew's and I've discovered that churches were actually named after saints' days rather than after the saints themselves — a subtle distinction.
