The visit to Harewood House was interesting. It was a bit different to what I was expecting but I am not really sure how. It was good to talk to the people organising it and get a better idea of what their vision is and how they feel I might be involved. It was a very interesting place, a very traditional stately home and typically laced with that hard to penetrate, ropped off feel. But once you start thinking about it in different terms, looking at what it is and how it has changed through the hundreds of years, you really do start to feel something underlying and very interesting lurking beyond it's cold exterior. It's contrast to how most of us experience the home today is bewildering. I felt that I had to focus very hard to even imagine it as a place to live. Is it merely the scale, the grandeur, the extravagance, the smell of years held in the air, that gives it this distance? I felt I had a strong desire to be in there when it was empty, just me wondering around. Maybe because it was something I knew I would never be permitted to do it.
So now I have come back home to think about how I might respond to this place and what I might put forward as a proposal. It has produced a million thoughts which are all buzzing round my head so I will get into the studio this week, draw up some plans and try a few things out.
