Mentoring.... musings

Had a really good mentoring session today with Steven. Useful initially in that it gave me something to pull things together for, to stand back from what I'm doing - I printed, photocopied bits of stuff I've been working on and pinned them up. Surprised myself in that it kinds of makes sense...!
Reinforced for me the importance/validity of that visual musing process or furrowing the soil as Steven puts in... and I could add in at times leaving it fallow... or 'set aside'... Discussed a fair bit around the need not to 'top load' it... to be confident in myself with my practice... that it is critically framed, it is political - can actually just get on with it, do the musing bit, do the play, the research - cos the rest is there and will come through.
Covered stuff around research-led practice, socially engaged/relational practice... role as artist working as agent within the system, as discursive agent within society... artist as conduit, tipping heirarchies up side down...
All good stuff. Now got an MA application to write. Followed by weekend - I have four children... don't need to say much more!!!

A mid winter day up on the top of Galva, far removed from the hint of Spring we've been used to. Spending an hour or so up there taking photos and drawing, it is easy to see why people who lived up there in Early Neolithic times moved down to lower ground when the climate changed - will we adapt so readily?

Having spent so long poring over archaeological surveys it was really good to just spend some time up there in an absorbed creative space, pacing the ground, exploring, imagining myself into the tor enclosure. I had forgotten just how rugged it is up there amongst the granite boulders on top of the carn - the google earth images flatten it.

You really get a sense of how the enclosure would have been laid out for habitation and of the almost inpenetrable granite defenses to the north and south, and the sight lines reaching across Mounts Bay to the Lizard on the south and the Atlantic a mile to the north. Exhilerating.

Off to Galva pencils in hand!

Layers & networks... connections across time & (s)p(l)aces...

Playing around in my head, researching, some really good conversations with other artists... but also beginning to play with materials, drawing, layering with photoshop, lots of beginnings - bit like a rabbit down a warren at the moment, could go anywhere!

Started to look at Postmodern Geographies: Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (Edward Soja) and planning the ALIAS seminar with Andy, thinking about the curating but also the practicalities, like having fun. It should be a good weekend (19th - 21st September) - watch this space!

Off to the top of Galva now to try & work out the archaeology and yes, do some drawing!

I'm getting a cow shed!

Had a really important meeting today which sorted out lots of outstanding issues around working space and practicalities. I'm going to be based in an old cowshed! It will create issues around damp (used to that in West Cornwall..) but somehow it all feels part of working off site and I am excited, but also feeling apprehensive as it means I really have to get on with things... Doubts (the self doubting variety) keep trying to creep in, but increasingly now a days I can see them coming, see them for what they are, sift out the useful bits of learning, of development and leave the rest, put them gently to one side. Long may it last!

I am going to hold on to the sense of excitement and opportunity... and the incredible setting to work in. I just can not describe how breathtakingly beautiful Bosigran was today, drenched in sunshine facing the sea.

A mixed week

A bit of a mixed week... lots of ideas earlier in the week which are all scribbled down so they don't get lost.

I've pushed ahead with the background research... I've been trawling through 19th century census results and apportionments in the Cornish Studies Library. That was a really strange experience as they are all on microfiche, something I haven't used for over 20 years.

Also been in the National Trust office playing around with Map Info, a GIS mapping programme they use for landscape based work-planning and trawling through their Intranet looking at strategies etc... This project is very much about working within relationships whether that be conversations with tenant farmers and wardens, or the wider working of the organisation. Interested in layers and layering... layers of history and pre-history and also interested in using the tools that the Trust uses in its day-to-day work within the making process.

Reading what I've just written I am wondering why I started by saying its been a mixed week... probably the effect of going down with a cold! The week was overshadowed by ongoing discussions around a relationship central to the project - it looked as if we were just going round in circles. But tonight I heard that the problems were due to nothing more than a misunderstanding and are resolved! Great as it now means I am going to be able to push on with the real research, meeting people, developing relationships, listening and seeing where it goes...

Bosigran?

Bosigran is an area of land sitting on a shelf above the sea under the harsh granite shrewn moorlands of West Penwith, dominated by Carn Galva (protector in Cornish). So if you take a trip west down the A30 as far as you can go without getting your feet wet, well you'll be close by.

It is a magical landscape with layers of history going back to Early Neolithic times c. 3800BC when Galva was probably an ancient Tor Enclosure, the most westerly of a chain of Tor Enclosures covering Cornwall that acted as a central point of exchange for the area.

Getting going...

So Re-Connections then... Sounds good! Its that getting started thing, the blank canvas. But now its a blank screen with an even more unknown audience.

This blog has come about as a result of putting together a proposal to the Arts Council G4A to develop my practice... with particular reference to a residency I have developed with the National Trust in West Penwith: The Bosigran Project.

On one level this blog is about the development of the Bosigran Project, on another and perhaps more fundamentally it is about the development of my practice.