Monday 8th October First Blog

This is a drawing from my sketchbook from a meeting about a project.  It is a doodle to distract my hands and in some way help me listen by getting me to think about something else. The day before I was also in the middle of building an Arial runway - or Zip wire at an adventure playground - so I drew from memory all the tools I would need for the next day's work.  They are specific and not generic; actual and not symbols.  The chain pull was my Dad's from when he worked as a Linesman for Yorkshire Electricity Board in the 1960's; it is for tensioning wires.  I have had it for about twenty years and not used it yet.  The hammer was bought for me by a friend for helping to put up his MA show at the Royal College of Art.   It was the same year that Gavin Turk presented his now famous blue plaque - we worked in its shadow.  It is an American Roofer's hammer made by Estwing - it used to have a sticker on it that said 'Estwing - King of Hammers' - it's forged from a single piece of steel and has a leather handle.  I could go on and describe each item doodled on the page but I hope I've made the point that these things are very specific and they are what you need to do a job.  The job is at height - it requires two hands - it is imposible to do the job safely or without an element of measured risk.  This feels a bit like the start of the PhD and the reading you shared with me feels like the start of working out what tools I will need to get ready.  Some of the tools feel very familier, some of them, like my mighty Estwing, feel like the supreme nail hammers of thinking, others feel more difficult to use.  Like the old chain tensioner which was condemned as it was broken in about 1966, which can, if nudged and aided with shims of copper, just about do the job we ask of it.

From this I have decided I need to properly read some Freire - Pedagogies of the Oppressed probably.  I also probably need to read some Dewey which I've avoided for years due to a dislike of American pragmatism.  I then asked Geoff about Hegel and dialectics in relation to the idea of the irreducible totality within new materialism but also within notions of the Event and some Deleuze and Guatteri.  I liked this thought and then after Geoff's response I thought of our fear of totalitarian regimes and felt a bit like things had never connected properly in my brain.  Of course we are afraid of the idea of anything singular or irreducible as it leads to a potential repeat of a terrible history - a state of things that rarely offered much to the world in a material manifestation of a different more human or more than human world.

I then got distracted and watched a few things on YouTube about Lacan which was useful as I've read a bit but always resented the near adoration of Lacan by many artists who make work about their desire or the gaping lack at the centre of everything.

Then I did some planning with Abi on the train about ethics and realised that like with any job, building a zip wire or starting a PhD, there is only so much you can take on at once so I have steadied myself. I have had a cold and for much of last week was semi-delirious so I did not take notes when I read.

When I was putting the zip wire up I fell about nine foot from a ladder.  It is the only time I have fallen far enough to have time to contemplate my fall before I hit the ground.  It felt like I was falling in stages and the ground was coming towards me rather than the other way round.  The fall was in a strange way sublime.  The next day I went and bought a proper safety harness and made sure I carabenared myself to the structure as I worked.  I have thought about this harness in relation to my PhD, I had forgotten to draw it in my doodle plan of bits for the job.

I am compelled to bring it home and start to do a few drawings of it, not because I do drawing or they will be good but I suspect that my practice explicitly linked to my identity as an artist will provide a harness, a thing that will only let me fall so far if I attach it to the strong pieces of structure that are already there.  Not an excuse or a safety net but some sort of reassurance that if you are going to take risks you can be more ambitious if you are aware of what is keeping you safe.