Living in a lighthouse is paradoxically both reassuring and faintly unsettling. I’m not living in the round bit – I’m in the assistant keeper’s cottage, which is built square with small sash windows and a flat, leaded roof. The lighthouse itself is across a small courtyard and up a flight of steps, and it’s been there for nearly 200 years. It is not likely to fall down while I’m here, however strong the winds may be (and they’re pretty strong at the moment). The light shines steadily, seeming to wax and wane as the beam passes around the headland, over my head. The lens rotates slowly all day and all night, and the mechanism makes a low-pitched trundling sort of noise, audible from my bedroom window. It doesn’t stop, but it’s quite comforting. Built to last..
It’s also a little uncanny: all this heavyweight machinery grumbling away on its’ own without any apparent human assistance. Until fairly recently the headland was busy with lighthouse keepers, their families and livestock, but now the light is automated and the Northern Lighthouse Board keeper pays regular visits but does not live here. The light just rotates slowly and deliberately, independent and alone. The electricity failed briefly on Sunday – my lights went out, but all the outside lights and the lights in the engine room came on as the emergency generator started up automatically. The courtyard filled with diesel fumes and the noise was considerable. I was the only person on the site at the time – for once there were no visitors, probably due to the thick fog – and it was definitely a bit strange, with all this machinery automatically working away. But also reassuring, knowing that the light does not fail.
And what effect is all this having on my artistic practice? Not sure, at the moment. I am spending a lot of time thinking, which can be overdone. I am spending a great deal of time looking at the land and seascape – both genuinely Sublime (with capital “S”). I am feeling increasingly conscious of my own smallness in relation to my environment. My sketchbook drawings are becoming correspondingly smaller and sparer of detail. Perhaps I shall end up making tiny drawings on huge pieces of paper.
