Day 6
Today’s drizzle makes the going soggy. My channels are getting much shallower now so whilst I am having to snap the grass roots rather than dig then all up in one clump, the work feel like less of a challenge as there is less excess soil to be removed.
I discuss with Jonathan and Helen the practicalities of working with sandstone. Jonathan calls a geologist friend of his to ask his opinion. We are considering chipping a well into the top of a rock so a reservoir of water collects and then seeps through. I wonder, however, if it would evaporate before it even got a couple of inches down. It turns out that the stone in this area is so hard that a diamond drill bit would be needed to cut into the stone, and even then it is likely to split. This sounds all too familiar: for a previous project I decided I was quite capable of drilling holes into some sheets of glass with a diamond bit rather than pay to have it done professionally. After several days work all I had to show for my efforts was a large pile of smashed sheets and tears of frustration!
An amusing conversation follows, suggesting various inelegant ways in which the project could manifest successfully and I realise there is a danger of the work turning into something not far off from a science experiment, especially since the idea is in such an elementary stage, without clear intention.
Just before sunset, mist coats the hills in cobweb-like drapes and I spend some time trudging about with my camera shooting a bathtub sheepdip in the field behind the chalet.
Rona Smith
Day 5
Jonathan and I head out in the car on another soil collection trip. The road winds through the rising and falling land in a charmingly indecisive manner. The views of the hills are lovely and we snap photos from the car window. We arrive at our destination and hastily shovel soil into shopping bags lest the authorities catch us digging up the landscape. I hadn’t realised quite how much earth I was going to need until I observed the rapidly growing mountain of original soil that I’d turfed out from my trenches.
Back at the chalet. another curious local stops by to enquire after my apparently pointless activities. I explain what Im doing, not really giving much away due to my limited vocabulary. He looks at me with a quizzical expression then asks tentatively, ‘c’est tout?’ Yep that’s all! There’s an almost apologetic note in my voice, and regretting that I am unable to conjure up some sort of elaborate gazebo to appease him, I busy myself with the trowel.
Whilst the current cold weather slows me down a little, I am working at a steady pace and I think I may be finished by the weekend. This will leave me a few days to experiment with some other materials. I discuss with Jonathan an idea I have had inspired by a passage in the novel I am reading, Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Set in a cholera ravaged Carribean island, the protagonist describes the family’s typical stone water filter that fail to purify drinking water and stop the spread of disease. There is a fair amount of sandstone in the area. I would like to experiment with the possibilities of ‘filtering’ or channelling water through slabs of the stone. It remains to be seen however whether this is possible or at all practical.
Rona Smith
Day 3
The morning frost melts rapidly under a glorious, cloudless sky. My string line has left a paper-thin frost free stencil across the grass which I follow with the spade. Tonight I will set this up purposefully for the following morning. The day is spent measuring, aligning and digging. I have begun with the deepest trench, it is hard work but satisfying and I am glad of the exercise. I discover that after cutting down with a spade, strips of earth can be peeled out of the ground like great caterpillars.
A local shepherdess who I met briefly the other day leads her sheep into the neighbouring field and pauses to ask me what Im doing. I rack my brains for remnants of GCSE French and begin by telling her I’m an artist – as if that explains everything. I manage to muster up a few comments concerning ‘la terre rouge’ and coupled with some meaningful hand gestures she seems satisfied, if a little bemused. By the end of the day I have dug two and a half trenches and half filled one of them. If I knew I was going to be spending the 1st of December in a vest top I would have brought my bikini.
Importantly for me, this project is a new one. Whilst it naturally relates to ongoing themes in my work, for example organic processes, evidence of passing time and responses to minimalism, this is my first installation piece to be completed outside and to respond to the elements in such a way.
I am interested in the faith that is required of the viewer when seeing this work after it has just been completed: for the first few months, the red lines in the ground will all appear identical and it is only until they begin to change and degrade that it becomes apparent they are of varying dimensions. The dramatic difference between the structure of the lines happens underground and initially out of sight.
Rona Smith
