Stones and the death of Virginia Woolf – thoughts behind my film

Stones, Gregory Hayman 2014

Stones

This film was inspired by a found sculpture with stones in a Perspex box attached to a telegraph pole. When I shook the pole the stones bobbed about. Their movement interested me as stones are usually inanimate and we don’t see them move, bar the odd rock fall in mountainous places.

I filmed them in situ and the result was disappointing as I had too much camera judder and background noise that was distracting. It was hard to imagine that I would retrieve anything from my poor rushes and I had no other chance of filming them. I resolved to make something similar in my studio and film that. But in the meantime, I decided to use the footage I had got to make a prototype of the film. I felt that this would assist the construction of the piece so that the shots I got were appropriate for my intended outcome. I didn’t get around to making the stones piece as time intervened, so I made use of the film I had shot.

While I as doing this, someone had posted online a piece about the only known recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice. I know the recording from my time at the British Library, where they had used it in a collection of writers’ voices on a CD. Funnily enough, I had recently been watching the wonderful film The Hours based on the book by Michael Cunningham. I commented to a friend about how interesting Woolf’s voice was and what a surprise too. I had expected her to sound frail and timorous given her history of mental illness. I could not have been more wrong – Woolf sounded confident and in control.

Thinking about Woolf’s death (seen at the start of the film of The Hours), I then thought about Woolf filling her pockets with stones to weigh herself down.   She committed suicide by drowning in the river Ouse near her home, Monk’s House, in Rodmell, Sussex. It seemed that my film of stones and Woolf’s voice might work together well. The stones nodding movement appears to be mocking and taunting as the bob silently and pointlessly. Woolf’s voice talks about the use of words and language. I have been reading about how memories are dependent upon language and I have been trying to make forgettable artworks. I wondered whether this combination of an essay on words by Woolf and the silent overlooked stones might be forgettable or at the very least, deal with some of the issues around forgetting.

Screen Grab from the film Stones, 2014

The film I made has a soporific quality. The stones do nothing except gently move and the voice intones in grand old-fashioned English about the use of words. The words roll down from the past but fail to resonate deeply. They become a vehicle for a wider meditation but fail to gather moss.

Does the film succeed? On some level it is packed with zero incident (sic) and as such, is hard to watch all the way through. Should I be concerned about this? No not really. I wanted something that might be forgettable and it incurs feelings of boredom and drowsiness, a bit like slipping into unconsciousness through carbon monoxide poisoning, or becoming unconscious as the water fills your lungs.

Review of Little Egypt by Lesley Glaister, Salt Publishing 2014

Lesley Glaister, Salt Publishing, 2014

Little Egypt is a house belonging to two fanatical amateur Egyptologists in 1920s England. The husband and wife owners abandon their two children to search for a tomb on the West Bank of the Nile. The story traces the lives of their two children, a sister and brother, who left behind, have to make their own reality from the tangled remains of the house and their parent’s obsession.

Written from the point of view of Sissy (Isis), the story focuses on her childhood and coming of age. It is a story about a world within a world where an Asperger’s–like tunnel vision has far-reaching consequences for others. It is also a story about betrayal, betrayal of trust by the parents towards their children, and betrayal by those who see passion as a route to profit.

It is a bleak world where those that provide love are without the ability to embrace it and save themselves and others. No character will find love and adult relationships are denied the two children, who might remain cyphers of a dead religion.

The book is also about isolation. At the heart of the story are four people, Isis and Osiris, her brother, their housekeeper and their uncle. All fail to realise relationships and in failing to so, remain victims and alone.

To an extent, Little Egypt mocks the idea of Egypt proper. Egypt is teeming with people, myriad people, people down the ages, all dependent upon one another, all living and dying and being buried atop one another. But Little Egypt’s is beyond people and the real world, a gothic setting that contains the majority of the action. Little Egypt is also a mausoleum, literally and metaphorically for a past and for an obsession, where the living are as hopelessly and gloriously entombed as the Egyptian dead. In this rarefied setting, the contents of the house are as helpful to the inhabitants as the contents of King Tut’s tomb are to a mythical afterlife. In a way, an afterlife is all the hope that this novel offers because the lived life for all is bleak and ultimately transactional.

The prose is concise and uncluttered. The period detail unforced and gave a sense of time and was particularly evident in the touching moments between Sissy and the housekeeper sharing information about household skills.   I was left wondering whether it was a story about ciphers or whether the story was the cipher. Did it need a Rosetta Stone to decode it? I’ll let other readers decide.

Thoughts on a Discussion with Roger Ackling

I had a meeting with Roger Ackling which was really terrific. He’s an older artist who does pieces with wood where he burns a design into them with a magnifying glass in a single sitting usually. They are quite small and he exhibits widely throughout the world and lives at Voewood at High Kelling near Cromer. He is also and external examiner for Edinburgh School of Art.

Roger left me feeling well and truly challenged and I began looking at my work to date and the possibilities of things I could do in a new way. As a consequence, my mind has been racing ever since and I had a night of wild thoughts and crazy dreams!

We looked at my imagery and the biblical themes and myths, he was especially interested in the Angel piece and I shared my thoughts about trying to make a series.

Roger also thought I might have something good going on with my hanging/suspended pieces and suggested I might want to investigate further possibilities of doing more of that and using/suggesting the weight, he said I might consider using my own weight and calculate what it would take to support that and to represent that in a hanging piece and multiples or additions in weight might be used and represented.

We also talked about things half seen or where a sense of illusion is created using a wall and a viewing hole and maybe mirrors behind to give a sense of false depth or distance. He also showed me a trick using a coin where you turn it to reveal the same face you were looking at!! I have tried to recreate this and cant master it!! Grrrr

He suggested looking at Alexander Calder, Rainer Maria Rilke’s poems especially the annunciation for inspiration – I talked about the very masculine representations of angels and why I had given this one genitals and the resulting pregnancy of the virgin Mary.

We also discussed the Holy Ghost and the ways that it/he is represented and then about ghosts in general and how many people in discussion have a ghostly tale to tell….I didn’t tell him any of mine!

We also talked shadows and silhouettes.. things that are there but not mentioned and a reply Lowry gave to someone who once asked him why none of his figures had shadows and Lowry replied: ‘because they are real enough already’.

We talked presence, inversions, elevation and playfulness, Tony Cragg and illusion – Roger did 2 drawings in my sketch book to try and illustrate what he meant…

He suggested that I set myself a challenge to build something and then to see what I can do with it from the POV of the viewer – to get an idea, develop it, respond to it e.g. I may take the idea of angels but set out not to let anyone see what I’ve made, rather a hint of trace of its presence – a reflection or shadow maybe….

We also talked about the trajectory of things – how they fall eg we looked at the Mourning cast piece I made. He especially liked the use of the plasticine bits that I cast the aluminium figures from – he said imagine how the white ball might fall if it had rolled down the incline of the base and onto the floor and where it might come to rest and how that would change the way the viewer would experience it….

We talked about vacuums and I thought again about the vacuum forming plastics and how I might make objects in outline form from things I had already made but taking them on to another level….

He told me about a pocket exhibition he had given of his work (which are small) after taking pieces to an exhibition in his pocket to Japan.

We also talked about exploring performance art – he mentioned a Yoko Ono piece in a café in London where she and a friend walked into a café got out a large black bag unzipped it then they both climbed in and rolled around on the floor looking like they might have been making love – they then stopped got out as if nothing had happened packed up and left the café – he said it was a great compelling performance..it made me think about parachute games the kids have played at their parties and the shapes made under the silk – will do some more thinking about that and have already had some ideas about how I might use the parachute in a piece….

We also talked about things moving and letting things go – look at David Nash’s work he said.  Also transformation and fragmentation, non figurative and my desire to be more abstract – release the object or the image. 

It was the most stimulating tutorial yet that I’d had in terms of setting me thinking about taking my work on.. liberating productive thoughts in many new ways while using some themes and materials I had already worked with.