Winter here has been particularly hard, cutting wood and frequently loading the fire has figured highly, but strangely for this time of year has been eclipsed by trips to Berlin and London for exhibitions and screenings and an exciting collaboration with a composer who lives up the road.
Blaise Merino, the composer, is the bassist for what could be described as a thrash-metal trio. He has locked himself away for the winter and focusing on his own work. I emailed a video to him before Christmas as we had previously talked of a collaboration – he finished the piece yesterday. I visited him, not too sure what to expect. There is definitely throbbing bass, but echoing the rhythm of my footsteps and syncopated juxtaposition of frames. Crackles and distortion give way to hypnotising waves of sound. It’s refreshing to work with someone in tune with what I’m doing and sympathetic to the visuals. I plan to upload it to my new website (www.jonathan-moss.com).
I’ve also found time to start a new series of paintings (sounds like a luxury bonus in the daily routine of things) – I’m basing the images on the wall textures of the huts. Weathered surfaces and drips revealing the passage of time are dominating the work. I intend to spend a day at the camp this week to draw and paint to feed into the process of making.
The wind is strong here at the moment. I’m not looking forward to sitting in a ruined hut waiting for it to crumble around me – they’ve stood for 70 years, but recently some of the rooves have been partially removed which could have weakened the remaining structure, so I’ll probably wait till the wind has died down.
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