meeting / returning

met up with megan at the bus stop in staple fitzpaine just after a partial solar eclipse which was barely visible from here and goes unnoticed. megan calver is the 'placement artist' with the neroche arts project. i took her to the cornfield i've been returning to, filming at different points of the year, to perhaps make a short film where the seasons change visibly around me. we talk while staring at the field and watch the rain approach from the escarpment.

megan noticed a sign out for tea in the church, so we go in: a friendly welcome, tea and donut, rambling conversation. they organise a cafe on friday and saturday mornings so that people from the village can meet up. i mention the listing in the doomsday book for staple fitzpaine and the conversation rambles around village life.



we head up to staple common. i've been wanting to return here since the herepath walk - it invites historical reflection around common land, people, agriculture and the enclosures act. this land has a different feel to it, the grass looks and acts as if grazed for centuries, the trees are kind of wise looking, and the banks around the edge of the field are mossy, and the right height and width for sleeping on. we go as far as a fallen pine.




lunch stop

second meeting with kate about the website design, where all my hard work over the past few days preparing materials pays off. we can both 'see' it, and what is needed, and after much talk of resolution, pixel size and load up time, i fully understand that the pragmatic issues will determine many of the artistic choices.

i want to map the entire neroche area, even though much of it has been beyond me in terms of contact, i want it to be there through the road junctions, names and waterways. but a background map (flash image) of this size (equivalent to size A0 probably) would simply take too long to load. so i am left with the notion of needing to collapse the 'real' map into fictional space somehow - to make a landscape with gaps/other connections. this seems reasonable in relation to an artistic process - but i'm resisting it. i can see that kate likes seeing the way i've mapped the area of neroche where she lives, and it is this sense of familiarity-unfamiliarity that i know will connect, particularly to people who live in the area. so i will have to live with the problem, and see how it unfolds.