Being dissents
Horizontal connections with Block_II Karen and Ash:
Hi Karen and Ash, your words back and forth are resonating with me, the very idea that as an artist, one is ‘dissenting by being’. That is what I am exploring, being… ‘outside the system’, ‘off the grid’ (no mains electricity – rainwater collection – compost toilets – burning olive wood for heating), ‘outside the norm’ ‘perverse’ – in the margins, that is my dissent. My making of work is part of the exploration but the ‘being dissents’. I’ve really enjoyed following your journey. With dissent, foggy mountains of Catalunya.’
plaster, volcanic rock, paint on fabric & digital print collage
I leave an image from a previous installation ‘Con-nec-ted’ 2014, comprising volcanic rocks on the island of Jeju, South Korea. Signed by the artist in red.
Splitting
After forecast heavy rain for next couple days (always welcome as is so rare) spent morning preparing. Choosing wood to split, seeking out pieces with best cracks, lend themselves to splitting. Olive wood been seasoning years, since pruning trees heavily to re-cultivate farm. Now have few days wood for heating. Smell always gets me… freshly split olive and pine emit intense odour, comforting.
…choosing
chopping
breathing
splitting
smelling
stacking
heating…
Ashes to Paint
1 oz Ash
1 oz Distilled Water
1 drop White Vinegar
Filter the Ashes to remove all debris left from the fire (including any matchsticks)
Mix Ash with Distilled Water
Add Vinegar and mix well
Keep in sealed glass jar until required…
Ruining it
I took the drawings out on to the land today and set fire to them… ruining them, destroying the work I have produced so far on the Block Chain project. I have saved the ashes in a jar and want to use them somehow to progress this further. I documented the process and the resulting imagery offers beauty and perfection out of my control. As the flames engulf the drawings, the mundane A4 paper becomes a silky, sensuous material. Liberated by the non-existent artwork, there’s no need to continue the quest for the perfect drawing on the golden section line. The ashes are beyond weightless.
Drawing the cracks
After a Sunday morning of pointing old stone walls (filling in the cracks) here on the studio renovation, I spent the rest of the afternoon drawing from the photos of the ‘found’ cracks from the previous day.
These drawings are on A4 paper, folded to find the golden section line on each sheet, then creased along this line.