PROJECTS

 Paper

‘And so a day isn’t really a day because each day is like another day and they begin to have nothing.’

                                        

                                                          - Juliette Blightman.

 

A day is space

and so is a year

and an hour

and a second

and a life.

Should we live by the year?

or the hour?

or the day?

or the second?

I love space

and I feel immense

when I dream

of the infinitely great

or the infinitely small.

Equilibrium doesn’t exist in space

and yet it isn’t chaos!

That’s right,

I feel it, its right

I want space.                          

      

– Yves Klein (1952) Selected writings, p20

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 The Weather Balloon Project.

The story of the weather balloon.

One fine Saturday, I set myself a task, my intent was to coat a full blown weather balloon in PVA and flour, once the glue had dried I was going to deflate the balloon, peal the latex rubber balloon away from the then crinkled glue and flour surface, in the same way I had successfully done on normal sized balloons. This intricately crincled surface would then become a most marvellous work of art, simple I thought. Not so.

On Saturday morning I started the long process of inflating the balloon, a foot pump made the work a little lighter and after a good four hours of stamping my foot down whilst pin pricking tiny holes into a piece of drawing paper, indenting where the panels of the wall would allow, as a way of using my time productively, - I had pretty much fully inflated my balloon. But the bell sounded college was closing, I left the pump in the nozzle of the balloon, there was no air escaping as far as I could tell. But you guessed it, on returning on Sunday, the balloon was completely deflated. Off I went again, pumping and pricking, (as least I managed to get the drawing finished) until the balloon was its full 8ft diameter self once again. This time I tied the nozzle with several elastic bands and plenty of electrical tape. I had a little time left before the bell, just enough to prepare for the covering that would now have to take place early tomorrow morning, I poured three 1ltr bottles of PVA into a big container for easy brush access, covered the floor with grease proof paper and emptied at least six bags of flour on to it. There I was, finally absolutely set.

Monday, I was up with the birds.. in my mind’s eye I had imagined I would be deflating the balloon at this stage in time, a little behind schedule, but none the less rather excited, i began painting the PVA onto the balloon, bit by bit, I had to do it in sections so as to get the flour stuck on before the PVA dried, section one done, about a 20th of the overall surface, section two going well, getting into the slightly meditative actions, one had to be almost underneath the balloon in order to control it and apply the glue and flour easily, there I was happily painting way, when suddenly, wait for it, there was an enormous ‘BANG’ in an instance the whole thing disappeared before my eyes, sending flour flying everywhere, covering me almost entirely, the balloon had popped, the most almighty bang I had ever heard, I jumped out of my skin with shock before dissolving into laughter. And no, it wasn’t a simple whole in the balloon that could be mended; it split into three pieces, now lying limp in three corners of the room. That was the end of my balloon, and the end of my story.

*Written for the event of finding another weather balloon, a reminder and recipe for a marvellous work of art, now to take place sometime in the distant future if at all, if I ever dare.

‘An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all’                         

'Ambition is the germ through which all growth of nobleness proceeds’

‘Ambition is the last refuge of the failure’   

  - Oscar Wilde

 ((look up: Karla Black – Material World. Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow.)))


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Salt works at the Sea   (PRESTONPANS)

 FLOWERS BY THE SEA.

                 by  William Carlos Williams

When over the flowery, sharp pasture’s

edge, unseen, the salt ocean

lifts its form – chickory and daisies

tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone

but color and the movement – or the shape

perhaps – of restlessness, whereas

the sea is circled and sways

peacefully upon its plantlike stem