Saturday 18 July 2015



















I've had a week of doubt. Last saturday I went to the sculpture trail site to test out the work I had proposed and it didn't feel right. So I returned on the tuesday with a slight adaptation and that was definitely not right. I think I have worked it out but it has felt a little bit anxious and like I'm slightly further from my comfort zone than I'd anticipated a month back. Still doubts and fears of failure aside it was as usual beautiful so here's the latest batch of photos.





Sunday 12 July 2015






The sculpture trail set up is drawing closer and I still have much to do. On saturday I went out to the site to see how much. This was interesting because the idea i've been working on for the past few months needs tweaking. When I set up a practice piece it somehow felt too solid. 
I wondered how our lovely curator Sarah Cannell would be with me moving away from my original proposal. but when I messaged she seemed quite relaxed, saying it was the nature of site specific work that it might change - I could have kissed her - because it has given me the freedom to go with my intuition. 
My intention is to return this week to try out a couple of different ideas, one of which is my current favourite. It won't be any hardship to go back to the site so soon, if I miss a few weeks of walking the valley I forget how lovely it is, but there really something extraordinary there that I catch as soon as I step off the bus and take my first breath. Magic is insubstantive but I would say that there is magic in the valley. 




Wednesday 8 July 2015


I've been thinking about communication and freedom of speech and thought and how to make the 1998 Human Rights Act more visible before it disappears. Having spoken to several artist friends about the possibility of mounting an exhibition or something I decided it was about time I did something more concrete than talk. 
So my first step was to print off a copy of the basic tenets of the act and to scribble a few first thoughts on what each of those rights mean to me and to plant them in library books. This was an interesting exercise in itself because it is very easy to think from a selfish egotistical point of view, to think only of my own human rights but the basis of the act is that it is all human rights and that is very much key to it's importance. 
The idea of planting the notes in library books came from finding a samaritans bookmark in a library book a few weeks ago. And then thinking about other notes and letters I have found in borrowed or secondhand books, small traces that are all the more potent for being such very small fragments of a persons being and the books history. 
I'd also been thinking about how to relay information without using the internet or regular postal systems. Hand to hand, flags, fires, drumming and kites had all suggested themselves but simple is sweet and what could be simpler than putting a slip of paper between the leaves of a book. 
In the interests of getting started my first messages are not at all pretty or arty, they were made in a hurry. However they are planted like seeds in various books in Bristol Central Library. I hope to continue this project and would like to invite other people to join me if they feel like it.