Enchanted Encounters Evaluation Exercise

Today I completed a  reflective exercise  for Intobodmin as part of their “Enchanted Encounter project .The project started in July 2021 and is due to end in July 2022

Unfortunately I ended up having to suspend my contract end of January due to physical ill health leading to hospitalisation.

One thing that falling ill has really bought to the forefront is how little people working in community arts are paid. I’ve never earned enough to save a penny and as a freelancer i can only apply for universal credit of £75 a week . So i’m wondering a lot if I can really afford to go on being a creative working in community arts?

I am not yet able to share the outcomes of the task yet . I will do once the team have agreed what to share in the public domain. So for now I can just say There were days on this job I felt ” I’m being paid to do what I love” and there are things that I look back on and wish I had done better and an opportunity was missed by trying to do too much.

But there are some nice moment capture on our project instagram feed.

https://www.instagram.com/bodminbodmaxx/?hl=en

I can track this back to:

In 2009 I dug a hole and took the earth back to my studio . The pile of earth inspired various other ideas.  Steven Mackay  filmed me digging the hole.  It felt like an important moment. Digging into the Cornish earth making friends with it in preparation for the next stage of my life. There is a short film of it’s entirety .  

This phase started here.

I dug a hole and took the earth back to my studio . The pile of earth inspired various other ideas.  Steven Mackay  filmed me digging the hole.  It felt like an important moment. Digging into the Cornish earth making friends with it in preparation for the next stage of my life. There is a short film of it’s entirety .  The following video includes  some shots .

SPADE as game weapon

So far Spades are objects I like but I have carried out almost no research.

Generally Spades are for digging . Digging what?  is a question that immediately comes to mind.
hand on spade
Thinking of spades takes me back to being at a garden centre looking for willow and this retired gardner showed me how to pick a spade of the right height.  An upright spade should be around elbow height  for gardening but shovels are can be shorter

The google search bought me to this  image

Pixel spade for game Screen Shot 2014-09-26 at 16.19.08

IN this case spades are a weapons in a game Ace of SPades. A multiplayer shoot em up were eapons are trowels and spades.

ladder of matrimony , ladder from the crusifix

Today I put ladders and art into the search and came first to V&A collections who in turn have a great image search engine.There are a number of images , sculptures, artifacts relating to ladders in the V&A collection.

The first was a card in the shape of a ladder called the ladder of matrimony. Artist unknown. I was not particularly drawn to this but it was the first to come up
ladder of matromony

 

The second I was drawan two was a relief carving of Christ being bought down from the cross
Christ being taken down from the crusifix

looking at the relief of christ coming being taken from the Cross I think of how christ looked up to the heavens at his father…Oh why have you forsaken me..Then men had to climb a ladder to bring him down from the cross. Down to their level. The ground in readyness to bury him. To dig. In this case to put him in a cave. I’m interested how the ladder in this case is to take down rather than bring up. IN this case the fruit is the dead christ. THe descent from the cross is a powerfull point in the story. Looking into other images on the dreaded Wikipedia I notice the ladder

Then returning to the card I notice that the fold, the join is tapered to a centre point. This could be seen as one ladder or two connecting. I reflect on the dynamics of my “matrimonial” relationship. Our challenges, were we devide and meet.

At the cross there were two women. his mother a Mary and his lover Mary Magdalaine. Ok I don’t know if Mary was his lover. The saved prostitute whose feet he washed. I charachter I have always been drawn to

christ being taken from the cross.

El Descendimiento, by Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400–1464) prado

Excerpted from WITTGENSTEIN’S LADDER: POETIC LANGUAGE AND THE STRANGENESS OF THE ORDINARY, by Marjorie Perloff cover of majorie Perloff bookpublished by the University of Chicago Press. Copyright © 1996 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

 “He who understands me,” says Wittgenstein on the final page of the Tractatus, “finally recognizes [my propositions] as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it) . . . . then he sees the world rightly” (T #6.54). But no sooner is the world seen “rightly” than new obstacles appear which require new ladders. “Forcing my thoughts into an ordered sequence,” said Wittgenstein, “is a torment for me. Is it even worth attempting now?” (CV 28).

Artist Filmmaker