My camera has been up to it’s old tricks again. The ghost in the machine has been reordering the images I’ve collected of the Abbey and of my work in progress, I have no idea why it occasionally does it but I like the chance element of it.
I use making because it let’s me invoke a chance element in my work. I can combine control of materials with their chaos too – a piece of slate that breaks away and becomes two fragments of the original carving, or a big dent in an otherwise perfect sheet of metal. I respond to this and find value in their power to record process. I think these say much more about the history of materials, objects and place than the anonymity of high skill and crafts’ traditional quest for perfection and function.
When things go wrong in making and repair human fallibility is recorded. We have palpable evidence of interaction, just like the broken walls and bodged repairs in the Abbey dormitory.
A large piece is now up at Valle Crucis, two more are in progress and should be making their appearance alongside the smaller interventions over the next week or so.
Artist in Residence - Valle Crucis Abbey 