I was looking forward to this morning and catching up on admin
I spent nearly 2 hours finishing up my expenses, earnings admin microsoft excel spreadsheet of doom stuff..
I updated my whiteboard to do board
I sent invoices
I wrote more emails off to try secure funding for the Negative space electrical box painting project
And yet I feel like Ive been on the doss and have not used my day productively.. I will go train and return to the desk after..
Next morning
I made the work on Tuesday gone, 1 June. It was relatively, I repeat relatively easy, that is, compared to past works I’ve made. Location- it was only up the road, so no travelling. A local land owner Barry had kindly agreed to let me use his field. I know Barry, its a long story, as I rented a container from him during our house renovations. Then found out he owned some fields up the road from our house, where i asked if i could potentially put my bees. he said yes but thats an ongoing story.
Making the piece was an interesting reminder of how time passes. There’s no adrenaline in a durational work, there’s control and consistency. It reminded me of the tide map trial, when my shoulder started to ache, and my feet were very sore walking over the sharp stones, every pain became huge and had to be managed. Also theres the thinking. Its like a dialled down fight or flight feeling- I crawled around and around, trying to navigate the direction so as to maintain the pattern, and thinking all the time about what would happen if the field owner arrived (although he’d given me permission but this is the shit that goes through your head) and other more practical matters like would the rain hold off and all the other usual negative voices ‘this is stupid/what are you doing/you are too old/ have you nothing better to be doing etc’
The difference being with a shorted performance you live with these voices before hand and then, after, they are gone. Long durational pieces mean you have to work through these narratives throughout the making of the work. Or at least I do.
The result was rewarding though. I had indeed managed to create a crop circle like effect in the grass. In fairness also Paul, long time videographer, had suggested I start from the middle and work outward in an increasingly spiralling pattern. I had originally planned to start at the outside edge and repeat a trail around, going over one rail repeatedly so as to result in one circular mark. His idea was much better.
Also the weather gods aligned to allow us to go ahead, and the rain stayed away. Technically the drone cannot fly in rain, also we had to take time to work out where the crawl should start at also, so as be able to frame it properly from above. I needed a particular distance from the lens so as to achieve a similar spatial relationship with myself and the topography, (myself very small, almost indistinguishable as a human figure, and landscape dominating) as in Tide Map. This was important as it changes the content and narrative of the work. It took approx 90 minutes to complete the circle.
