So I thought for interests sake I would put up the proposal I made that initiated the process I've been going through over the past six months, the focused meditation on love. I woke this morning thinking that maybe love resides not just in my heart but also my backbone, it is not only my desire, my pulse, but also my will and intention, my stem. I'm preparing for set up like a warrior going in to battle. I know set ups are a make or break moment. I'm excited and longing for it to be done. Here is my proposal.

Love is a Long Road

My proposal for the Cley 2017 exhibition stems from a train of thought I have been mulling over for a while. I’ve been waiting for the right site, the right moment to give my thoughts a body. This exhibition would seem to be the perfect time and place if I am selected.

My proposal is to place a line of white painted uprights (wood or bamboo) bound around with red inked-paper to repeatedly spell out love in braille. The line to continue for some  metres length. 

My preferred site would be on the beach, some way above the shore line, preferably not too far from the entrance to the beach on the side that leads to Blakeney. 

My hope is that the viewer will see in the work that love is tested, that there are breaks and hardship within any love story, that love is not only romantic, but is a universal link, a connection that keeps going and going and going, no matter what. That it marks time like a heart beat, is as essential as breath, is shown in words or gestures, is one foot in front of another.  

The use of red is related to blood, the stream that flows through all our bodies and the bodies of all other animate creatures, links limb to limb, feeds and nourishes from inside to out. Also the red thread - a popular notion in Japan that binds two people, or spirits across time immemorial so that if they find themselves parted they can be sure that one day they will find each other again. Red is about the heart and the fire that burns within the heart when love is present.

The white is for grief and innocence and spirit. Grief is the emotion associated with the metal element in chinese medicine.  The metal element holds the breath, that which maintains life within us. There is no love without grief for love will end in parting. But is parting the end of love or does true love continue still pulsing, still beating it’s gentle rhythm for ever. And who, knowing that would ever dare to love but the innocent ? I want my piece to recall that innocence, the simpleness of a hand in a hand, the courage it takes to reach out from ourselves to meet something that is other than us. 

I have produced a couple of outdoor site specific pieces for exhibition before and the challenge and joy for me is making them stable and visually interesting  and sympathetic to the environment in which they are set. This asks for ability to adapt, to yield and to push through adversity which in many ways echoes the demands of love whatever the love subject may be. And although I may have a message I want to convey to a my viewer I want my work to be spacious enough for my viewer to put themselves into the work and become a part of it. 
December 2016