desert videos and weaving text

Wednesday the 22nd October Well the weekend was a success. The workshop was fun; I met lots of local artists including Carolyn Rundell. Michael had been in contact with her prior to my arrival as he thought her recent project 'stones streams stories and dreams' would be of interest to me. It's a community cultural development project that " explored the relationship between the people and the landscape dominated by volcanic monuments and traces" and sounds fantastic. I have a copy of the book produced from the project, which I really connect with and may use to generate new texts. An important part of this project has been realising how easy it is to become involved in the arts in a new location, and that there is something happening everywhere. I'm really interested in rural arts, how it exists and its possibilities. Natimuk was great to visit, I'm so pleased Elise took me there. A fantastic little community of climbers and artists who were welcoming and enthusiastic and proactive about there work. The performance was in a gallery in nearby Horsham, and very much the type of contemporary theatre I associate with Dartington. I was slightly anxious about being able to find Tim camping in the desert at 10 at night, it was a bit of a scary drive as it was dark and I had never been up to this area but I made it! As Tim was working I managed to have a productive Sunday; walking through the scrubby desert, making some videos, thinking, absorbing the landscape. We spent the evening cooking on the fire, eating dampa, and weaving baskets (Tim's is incredibly neat, putting mine to shame). I would really like to spend some more time living out in the bush, but need to work on being scared when I'm alone. On Monday I did a rather badly organised workshop with the kids at Dartmoor school. I had overslept so it was a rushed drive back to Dartmoor and a few hours frantically getting the 16 mm projector working and bleaching film. I think they enjoyed it though, and will have to go back in for a follow up session, as we didn’t have time to view the films. I also had my first random local visit me in the museum, which was satisfying! I learnt some interesting things about fishing, had some help with the 16 mm projector and know where I can get another super 8 projector if I don’t get the museum one working. Yesterday Tracey visited me and asked if I would film at the Mumbana hall on Friday. She is keen to get peoples stories and memories of the hall documented on film. It sounds like an interesting project, and is an ideal way to introduce myself to some locals and discuss starting a sewing/tales/tea afternoon or evening. I spent most of the day working on 16 mm film and then began weaving with text. The text weaving is very therapeutic and allows me to reflect through generating and reading text, but incredibly time consuming. Today I have focused on writing and thinking about the work I've made so far. Elise has invited me to take part in 'Chameleon Arts', a weekend festival in nearby Balmoral. It's in a week and a half, which is ideal as I had on my timeline a work in progress showing of some type after about four weeks. It will be so useful to try something's out, and get some feedback even. I had another local visitor at lunchtime, which was great. We had a really interesting chat that lead to a new piece of text just now. I would like to continue generating text from conversations and slowly weave them together- I also need to get some more tech so I can do some little performance/actions and reflectively play with my videos and text, merging them.