Studio-Intensive 10
The amount I have gained from these past few days has been incredible and I am loathe to give up this intensity. However, I realize that there was a huge quantity of preparation put in to achieve it that cannot be sustained. Therefore, I need to find a balance without compromising too much.
I began my daily, almost, drawing when I was doing temporary work and had little time to go to the studio. I now have a sketchbook of huge variety and standard but its proving invaluable for keeping me connected when I am really busy with other things. Obviously, I would prefer not to be but…. I write down, in yet another book, ideas, thoughts, problems, how to’s and references which has the same effect – one of the 66 books I have been writing about.
I am currently looking at all the sound recordings I have made over the past week to see how I can best download them and utilize them. My latest has been to record underground. These files are huge! The premise is to hear a stalactite forming and I have been so grateful to Treak Cliff Cavern in Castleton, Derbyshire for allowing me to leave my recorder there overnight. This is the recording site in the cavern showing the stalactites only a few thousand years old. It also shows a Blue John vein.
Wrapped everything in cling film to keep the damp away and made little skirts around the mics so as not to obscure the sound. It seems to have worked well. Managed to persuade the guide to do a quick humming session as well to test the resonances. Thanks, Gareth. Experimenting in all these different spaces has been really important. I now think that I should look at it from the angle of time rather than space although of course they are interlinked and by doing this, it has created some new ideas and thoughts about past work.
Now beginning to rewrite my artist statement, understanding what I am doing a little better. There is such a temptation to rehash previous words. Hopefully, I can now come up with something that feels a little more honest and truer to what I am doing now, although, of course, the past words were and are also true.
