Hiya!
It’s been over a month since I last dispatched one of my e-novellas. The past month has been spent with my nose to the “art-making grindstone.” But this art student’s grindstone probably looks different than you might imagine. Picture the processing of acorns for food and you’ll be on the right track.
With the conclusion of the intensive teaching segment I began exploring various themes, mapping, human-land relations etc. I tried using some of the different fieldwork methods suggested in the module intensive to examine myself, my body as a place. From my exploration of cognitive mapping and the constant but ever-changing rhythm of the breath I made a short video piece called “Breath Map above - below” using my breath as a mapping medium. I layered correlating images of “above” and “below” with the sound of my breath as I walked a stretch of trail on the way to Dartington College. It is not an earth-shattering piece, but it was highly satisfying to conceive of an idea and learn the technological elements necessary to manifest it. I used morning pages and daily “thought drawings” to chronicle my journey through the module. I found fulfillment in self-discipline, repetition and routine, taking the time to slow down for a morning ritual even when I was under other pressures. The exercise was so fruitful that I didn’t want to stop with the conclusion of the module.
On the last day of the module intensive Anna Keleher, a fellow student, invited me to work with her on a sound project on Dartmoor National Park. Because I am without a car and buses to Dartmoor are few and far between in the winter, I jumped at the idea of a project that would regularly take me out to the moors. The “sound project” which started slowly soon grew into a massive and all-consuming experience-based research project on prehistoric food sources of Dartmoor. Our interests led us on an amazing journey into ancient food processes and processing and gave us a glimpse of the time that we humans used to spend on subsistence.
Letting go of “accurately” recreating prehistoric conditions, we began to simply explore the processes themselves. After extensive research we decided to focus on acorns and dairy processes. We collected bags full of acorns (which included lots of exploring on foot, as we lacked the lineage or previous years of observation to tell us which trees are the best). We experimented with different leaching processes, different hulling, pounding and grinding techniques and tools and finally with different recipes. Eventually we made three different “breads”: very basic patties of acorn meal, water, salt and wild fennel; a cider leavened short bread of acorn flour and spelt; and a modern acorn quick bread. With the dairy experiments we tried to find a place where we could milk goats or cows, but could not find a source on Dartmoor with our time constraint. We played with different butter-making techniques (shaking in jars, putting containers in our rucksacks to harness the jostling movements of walking etc.). We also made simple cheese using vegetarian rennet made from nettles. We stored the butter and cheese in square wooden boxes that we made at the “hard 3-d” shop at college. These boxes were symbolic of the wooden barrels and vessels that were used by ancient peoples of Dartmoor to store butter in the oxygen-free environment of the bogs. The project culminated with hours in front of the computer spent editing sound, photos and movie footage of our experiments and experiential-research. We created DVDs of our “food research” processes using still images accompanied by processing sounds and passages from our “desk” research as well as a 12 minute film about prehistoric subsistence juxtaposed with a 48 second shopping spree at the local supermarket.
For our assessment exhibition we buried the boxes of butter and cheese along with our research documentation materials in a small bog on Dartmoor. Our tutors and classmates were given a page of directions to find and excavate the parcels in the bog. The day was rainy, gray and extremely atmospheric. The hole that had been nearly dry the day before was filled with water. When the farmer and owner of the land that we had used for our installation came striding sternly across the moor I was very nervous that we were going to get a tongu-lashing. When he said gruffly but with interest, “Alright then, show me your installation!” I couldn’t have been more relieved. He went on to say after I told him what our project was about, “It’s my people’s diet your researching you know! You should have come ‘n asked someone with dirt under their fingernails what the ancestors might have planted!” Wet to the skin, we took the bog parcels back to the “exploratory lab” and prehistoric tea room that we had set up the day before where people could view our research documentation and drink gorse and rosehip tea, acorn coffee and eat acorn breads with butter and cheese. There was something special about eating butter and cheese that had been stored in the bog!
I thoroughly enjoyed collaborating and I hope to continue in this vein of enquiry as it touches on many of my areas of interest: human-land relations, time, food, authenticity etc. Anna and I generated lots of ideas during the project, few of which we had time to follow through. I am currently culling through some of these to pull out the jewels. However we are just beginning the second module intensive teaching segment on “psychological aesthetics” and already there has been a great influx of new information and experience. I never know from one day to the next how new information will shift my focus and trajectory!
Although the past month has been filled mostly with walks on Dartmoor, hours gathering and processing food, mad dashes to the supermarket to film, hours of photo, sound and video editing and cramming on the written statement at the end, I did fit in two trips to Bristol (nearby city about 80 miles away); one to attend an arts conference and the second to visit with Stephanie, a friend from UNM. Both trips were wonderful and a breath of fresh air outside the small Dartington College world. Stephanie and I spent the day tracking architectural and monument references to the slave trade and its connections to Bristol. This marks the Abolition bicentennial in the UK. Because Bristol is a port city, it played a major role in the slave trade. We managed to see quite a lot of the city center and had some good chats in cozy cafes along the way (the second was called “The Boston Tea Party which I liked!). We even stumbled across a famous Banksy piece on a sexual health clinic building. The stenciled piece is of a window with a man looking anxiously out, a scantily clad woman (presumably his wife) in the background and a naked man (presumably her lover) hanging from the window ledge by one arm. Apparently there was a debate within the city whether or not to paint over the piece. In the end it was decided that having the piece on the building actually increased the value of the building itself, so it was voted to stay!
Now I am attempting to remain rested and healthy in a country where people seem to be constantly coughing and sneezing. As soon as the weather turned more wet and cold people’s health seemed to take a turn for the worse. So far I am managing pretty well. Between my busy schedule, occasional days of sunshine, an ample supply of B vitamins (thanks, Mama!) and good music (thanks Joan!) I have not yet begun to suffer the psychological affects of the gray climate. The next three weeks will be packed with new information and then I move into a new house where, Chris and I will be living together for the next 3 months. I will meet him in London for a few days in the big city then back to Totnes for my first non-New Mexico Christmas!
I hope that your fall has been filled with brilliant colors inside and out!
Much love,
Claire
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