Day 2
This morning I have a local herd of sheep for company. They efficiently finish off yesterday’s mowing job by chomping sagely through the grass.
I am planning to cut a series of narrow channels into the ground and fill them with red soil that I am collecting from the surrounding hills. The channels will be of varying depths: the first being six or so inches, the second slightly shallower and so on until the grass is barely disturbed. I anticipate the deeper, more substantial channels of earth to remain intact and in place for the longest.
My intention is to create a slowly evolving time-based piece in which one by one the lines of earth are dislodged, degraded or blown away according to their depth. I have chosen to keep the formation of these lines very simple, in part because the undulating ground itself provides organic curves and irregular shapes, but also because the straighter and cleaner these channels are now, the more noticeable the changes will be over the coming year.
The shed behind the chalet is home to a wealth of garden tools, most of them familiar, a couple distinctly medieval looking. One grizzly item in the corner looks like an experiment in primitive dentistry. Whether you are clawing, scooping or gouging there is something appropriate to be found here. I begin on the ground with a miniature, serrated saw that resembles a bread knife: it barely dents the surface. Reminding myself that I am not cutting into the springy bed of a Victoria sponge but a semi-frozen patch of land at 600m altitude in the middle of winter, I abandon this characterful although largely useless tool and opt for a trusty spade instead, sharpened with a flint. Within a couple of hours the four layers I was wearing are in a heap next to me, several colonies of worms have been invaded and a fair start has been made.
Jonathan and I go to collect a batch of earth. It is not until we are about to exit the car that Jonathan casually informs me hunting is permitted here at the weekends and those shrill whistles we can hear getting louder by the second are a call to the hounds. I rapidly shovel up soil whilst imaginary bullets zip past my ears and comfort myself with the notion that dying for one’s artistic endeavours is horribly clichéd and therefore cant possibly happen in real life.
Rona Smith
Day 1
Drawing back the curtains of my chalet window I blink at the luminous white landscape in front of me. Whilst delighted at the beauty of the scene (worthy of even the most ostentatious Christmas card) my plans to work on the ground seem somewhat threatened. This is my first morning in St Louis, about an hour’s drive from Perpignan on the edge of the French Pyrenees. I will be staying here for a two week residency working in the surrounding land.
Rather than spend the morning crunching around willing the snow to melt, I explore the area a little with Jonathan who lives and works here from his studio. I have purposefully arrived without materials, looking to use what is already here. I am keen to work with some of the striking red earth that makes up large areas of the local landscape. Jonathan and I begin the day by driving a short distance to collect some samples of its various shades, ranging from rhubarb crumble to Australian outback. I want to embed this earth into the grassy land surrounding the chalet for a time-based work which I anticipate changing slowly with the weather over the coming months and hopefully years. Details of this will follow.
We visit the pretty Rennes-le-Château where we examine a plethora of literature based on some lengthy speculations about hidden local treasure. It is very attractive to believe that this is a place rich in mystery, esoteria and secret societies as many excited historians would have you believe. It is equally conceivable however that thin rumours based on the acquired wealth of a certain 19th century priest have blown quite out of proportion and led to the various colourful claims that have been made concerning Templar Knights and the Holy Grail. Perhaps your level of sympathy with authors such as Dan Brown will decide!
On arrival back at the chalet the land is transformed by the sun. As quickly as the snow arrived, it has now vanished like a receding tide. I select a wide patch of turf to work with. Due to some regular nocturnal visitors this is largely based on how mole infested the grass has become over the last month or so. The smoothest area, which I spend the rest of the afternoon mowing, is just between the road and the chalet.
Helen and Jonathan have a truly wonderful home and workspace here. There are purple headed peaks in the distance, my breeze-blocked Hackney Wick studio is miles away and the silence is delicious.
Rona Smith
Our next artist in this residency programme is Rona Smith, a London-based sculptor and installation artist. We are very pleased to have Rona on this residency. She has just completed a window commission for Lumen United Reformed Church in Bloomsbury. More information can be found on her website: www.ronasmith.co.uk
Her proposed title for the piece she is creating is "Timelines". Rona will be contributing to this blog over the next few weeks and we will be documenting the evolution of her project in photos and video.
My final days in the Pyrenees were spent finishing my installation. In my original communication with Jonathan and Helen I had discussed many different ideas that might convince them and me to take on this project. The idea that got both sides most excited was to create an installation that could be permanently exhibited on the land surrounding the chalet. I intended to light and photograph an area of land, which would be determined when I arrived, building a frame for the resulting image. The frame would need to withstand the turbulent winters experienced in that part of the world, so it would need to be weatherproofed, whilst remaining aesthetically appealing. My idea was for the resulting image to be installed at the exact spot at which it was photographed. This idea was intended to engage the viewer with a view that remained, and an ephemeral one, that had been documented and presented in contrast to the present. In this way my work takes on a less anonymous guise; no longer plucked out from an unknown and forgotten location, the image stands directly in front of its subject, its inspiration if you like. The viewer is encouraged to look for change and similarity between both views and is allowed to see the transformation that took place with a more informed perspective. The image therefore speaks of change, of aesthetic appreciation for both the scene and its image, and like every photograph, the past.
Nothing much changed from those original thoughts; therefore the result was not overly surprising. I completed the piece the evening before I left France, and therefore I was unable to spend some time with it and really access how successful it was. My own niggling insecurities about the image are most likely influenced by my need to move on and produce something new, something detached from the work I have been doing for the past two years. What the image does represent for me is a more positive outlook. It’s as enthusiastically bright as it is dark. And although the colours are bright, and the contrast between light and dark still shine through, it’s a somewhat quieter image to my previous work. For me, it’s a piece for contemplation, and hopefully this is partly what it will represent for those who will now live with it.
I’d like to thank Jonathan and Helen and their two children Louis and Emilie for inviting me into their little corner of the world and sharing the experiences of the past weeks, and to all those I met along the way that made this experience memorable and worthwhile.
—Peter Watkins
The weather became less predictable as the week went on with rain forecast and delayed finally reaching us on Friday night through Saturday. The performance was set to be compromised and I started to wonder whether anyone would even make it to the evening.
By late afternoon the rain subsided and I began setting up for the performance. This was the first time I’d ever showcased my lighting techniques to a live audience, so the task was a little daunting. I’ve always acknowledged the performative aspects of my work and seen potential in removing the medium of photography from the viewers’ experience. But lighting for a photograph and for people is so totally different.
Löis Laplace’s music was a fantastic addition to the evening—a blind collaboration that somehow just worked. At 0730, as dark began to settle, I began illuminating the surrounding landscape out the window from the mezzanine of my chalet. The window was small and further dwarfed by my projector half leaning out of the available opening. I began to hear voices, laughter, friends chatting, and strangers meeting. People had obviously arrived but I had no idea how many, or what their reactions might be. After a good two hours I had finished lighting live, and set up a slideshow of the evenings performance.
Once again, I’m grateful to Löis for creating music specially for the occasion, and to the people who braved the cold and stayed longer than was necessary to be polite. It seemed the evening was a success and people seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the evening’s entertainment. Maybe this is the start of something different for me.
