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.
