Day 12
Drizzle, damp, mud, numb toes..and it’s finished. A horse in the neighbouring field surveys me stoically as I make the finishing touches to the last and shallowest line of soil which I have pressed on top of the grass without digging up any of the roots. Stenciling the outline with a couple of roof tiles, this has been the most delicate and painstaking part of the process and also the most ephemeral.
My last long-term project, a public art installation at Lumen United Reformed Church in London, was constructed for me by art fabricators. It is a change therefore to be back making the work myself, directly responsible and in control of its visual outcome – the gruelling labour of a "real artist", as many (including my driving instructor) would believe!
Rona Smith
