Nobody told me they were blasting yesterday, they forgot. To see a blast firing in the snow…
So today I climbed up the hill and over the security fence to photograph the quarry in the snow. A landscape devoid of scale, hills looking like mountains. The only colour was the yellow of the diggers and the blast shelter.
The character of the quarry has changed since they started on the new phase. Before we had shelves mimicking an amphitheatre, now it’s a mountain range of promontories and landslides, all very ordered but primitive, earthy.
I’m finding photographs as well as film are becoming important. I’m using them more and more to make connections, or just to ask questions. The boulder just outside the studio window is intriguing me. Why is it there? Why hasn’t it been crushed? It looks defiant. It looks so small. It echos Nash’s wooden boulder – what’s it’s journey?
I hope it’s still there everytime I go into the studio.
It seems appropriate to post about explosions on bonfire night.
As part of my exploration of how the stones in the quarry fracture, I’ve created a small work of fractured stones held together by the shot blast wire.
Water and a sink – the studio can function…
Process
The way in which we create work has come into focus for me at the moment. Because I am in the ‘spotlight’ so to speak by my hosts, I feel that I should have work to show them. They have nothing tangible to see for this collaboration so far. So it has made me think about how I create work. I find that a huge amount of preparation goes on, especially in my head. Then comes the gathering stage, where all the components are created. Then and only then does it start to come together. Usually in the last few days or even hours. I think a theatre background is the reason why. All elements only coming together for the performance, the installation. Creating a blog is also hard as part of the creation process is to remain invisible, maybe so as to not spoil the illusion when it appears!
