Friday 1 August 2014

My own proposal was to gather a collection of words and to use these in some unspecified way. I was very aware of walking into a group of strangers and did not want to be overbearing in my gathering as I am pretty painfully shy. I try to hide this with a smile but it is something I have battled with since forever. The group at the Merz Barn were in the main absolutely lovely, welcoming and friendly and very open so after a couple of days of mulling ideas I got a lift in to Windermere with a girl who was dropping someone off at the train station and we spent an hour browsing the charity shops. I had anticipated finding a book and using that in some way to beg a word but none of the books felt right instead I found a couple of old seventy eights which later I asked people to scratch into. Names on one and words on the other tho' not specifically one or the other. I have ideas for how to further use the records including printing from them but in the mean time with no print materials to work with I simply wrote the words and names on thin strips of some fabric that I had brought with me and began to bind it around branches and posts on my walks. In this way I felt that we as a group left a small biodegradable trace on the landscape and the notion of script and also the re-using of materials (records) seemed to tie in with Schwitters' work. It also meant that a part of my residency project required me to go for walks in the beautiful countryside which was just lovely, even the time when I was a little lost.  

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