Saturday the 4th October

Saturday the 4th October Today was my first visit to the museum. I drove into Dartmoor village with Michael (the museum owner and my host) and his son Jordy (who's 11). The museum is a beautiful little wooden slat building with a boat on the veranda. It’s a hectic treasure trove, overflowing with bizarre memorabilia, farming machinery and souvenirs of anything that’s happened in Dartmoor's existence, including a wind up musical mug from Widicombe, UK. Snap happy, I am enjoying the rubbishy aesthetic of my photographs, ugly oddball images. Jordy took me on a bike ride tour of the village. The roads are wide and we snake around, no cars to dodge. The bikes thud into a blanket of tall bright grass as we drop them and wade through. The area is lush and green although there has not been much rain this year, normally the river would be above our heads. The river scape is dusty silver, romantically soft like a scene from 'Picnic on Hanging Rock' or a sun faded photograph, mirrored by the line of eucalyptus trees. We peddled on to the hermits hut; an eerie old shack with fantastic peeling wallpaper and a skanky little fire place, stamping our feet on arrival to scare away snakes. Through out the day I simultaneously realise how amazing and exhausting children are. Their naivety is a saviour, dispelling awkward silences and interrupting my annoying ability to daydream during social encounters. That evening I was taken out with the girls. This involved a half hour drive with Ellie and Maggie (Michaels wife and 14 year old daughter) to a friend's house/ranch. Here we drink wine and the kids have a shot of snapps. During the evening I struggle slightly as I continuously have no idea what anyone is talking about; horses, local gossip, and horses. I've never been in a situation where I cant join in a conversation because I really don’t know what its about, it was hard for me to differentiate between people and horses; an interesting situation to be in and muse over. Much of my silence was filled with chocolate spiders and rollies. As the wine flowed I began to grasp what was going on and absorbed lots of tails from the recent closure of the timber mill (the main employer for the local population) and why bush life is the best. I really connected to hearing people talk about the bush like this, its this kind of emotional connection to land that fascinates me. People weren’t longing for it; I think because they live it, people seem connected and aware of their physical environment. There was a longing for England, which surprised me, so many generations down the line. People still seem to yearn for a place they belong to and faces they recognise as their own.

reflective rantings

I have just watched the film 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' (Weir, P. 1975). To me it captured an essence, a pure feeling or longing that I have been trying to articulate in my work and felt in life. The inbetween. Our connection with the land, the essence of the earth. That maybe its not black and white, maybe we don’t understand or admit but we have moments of clarity of knowing understanding and connecting. Humanity is not a separate entity. I thought in 'third time luckylusting' I was exploring this notion, but that it was almost an imaginary place- or at least I had to say that it was as this is what is acceptable. This is what we know to be true and scientific. But place doesn't have to be a physical space that we see, place is a time we experience, a feeling deep within. Animalistic. In the film the characters try to rationalise events not accept them. Visually the film had moments so similar to my time in Dartmoor and the sea, it was bizarre as I watched the girls disappear between the rocks as I did on Dartmoor and the rocks so similar to the landscape I know. The girl's almost sexual yearning, seduced by nature, willingly entering it. I wonder if there is a place we belong to where we can return to this inbetween. Was it a connection I had with Dartmoor that made me feel this way or the power of being out in the wild- can you belong to and 'return' anywhere, does everywhere have this power of rebirth. And the sea dose this draw us in because of its power to carry you away, is it a vessel to the inbetween because of its liquidity. Did I read the film like this, or is this how it was meant to be read. Why does the sun make you want to sink into the ground, the rocks make you disappear between and the sea swallow you. And what about fire, its fix on us and replacement by the screen. Other elements we enter into, fire we watch waiting to be told listening, is this why it was replaced by TV. And what if the TV were to show what we felt for the land. Why did the girls in the film succeed or did they only succeed in cinema. Maybe it is not possible but just a desire.