Day 2
This morning I have a local herd of sheep for company. They efficiently finish off yesterday’s mowing job by chomping sagely through the grass.
I am planning to cut a series of narrow channels into the ground and fill them with red soil that I am collecting from the surrounding hills. The channels will be of varying depths: the first being six or so inches, the second slightly shallower and so on until the grass is barely disturbed. I anticipate the deeper, more substantial channels of earth to remain intact and in place for the longest.
My intention is to create a slowly evolving time-based piece in which one by one the lines of earth are dislodged, degraded or blown away according to their depth. I have chosen to keep the formation of these lines very simple, in part because the undulating ground itself provides organic curves and irregular shapes, but also because the straighter and cleaner these channels are now, the more noticeable the changes will be over the coming year.
The shed behind the chalet is home to a wealth of garden tools, most of them familiar, a couple distinctly medieval looking. One grizzly item in the corner looks like an experiment in primitive dentistry. Whether you are clawing, scooping or gouging there is something appropriate to be found here. I begin on the ground with a miniature, serrated saw that resembles a bread knife: it barely dents the surface. Reminding myself that I am not cutting into the springy bed of a Victoria sponge but a semi-frozen patch of land at 600m altitude in the middle of winter, I abandon this characterful although largely useless tool and opt for a trusty spade instead, sharpened with a flint. Within a couple of hours the four layers I was wearing are in a heap next to me, several colonies of worms have been invaded and a fair start has been made.
Jonathan and I go to collect a batch of earth. It is not until we are about to exit the car that Jonathan casually informs me hunting is permitted here at the weekends and those shrill whistles we can hear getting louder by the second are a call to the hounds. I rapidly shovel up soil whilst imaginary bullets zip past my ears and comfort myself with the notion that dying for one’s artistic endeavours is horribly clichéd and therefore cant possibly happen in real life.
Rona Smith
