Late March 2024 – I’m back at Cove Park for the third time, the third spring, the third carload of assorted materials and a head swimming with ideas which I will hope will not tie me down.
Wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, just for starters.
In the face of which I want to fly a white flag on Loch Long; to build a raft for it to sail on.
Under the nose of Trident, the submerged heart of Britain’s nuclear arsenal. Proof that we are still one of the great powers, or want to be. We still have the brocade and the medals and we want to punch above our weight.
Coulport naval base at night.
The white flag is the ultimate subversion, isn’t it?
I surrender. Don’t shoot. I’m a civilian. Save my body and my life.
Is a flag a nation?
Whose job it is to defend itself and its citizens?
Is this the nation of pacifists?
Would it let evil roll over it without resistance?
Is it the weakest and most despised of nations, allowing the worst to flourish unchecked?
I’ve sat squirming with all this.
But the white flag also just says STOP IT, ENOUGH NOW.
So, how to start? I wanted her to be very minimal, a sketch of a raft.
Oak, mainstay of British sailing ships which powered the empire, here reduced to the scrapings, the thinnest of laths.
40mm grey plastic waste pipe…..ubiquitous material of the late 20th century. The business end, the petrochemical oak of now.
Birch for the flagpole, humble pioneer timber of marginal land and the north.
Cotton. Of which no more needs to be said? Except that, as my Cove Park neighbour Morwenna Kearsley remarked, it’s torn cotton, a sheet repurposed for escape. Ripped, then stitched tightly onto the birch so that the texture of its bark reappears in a white fabric version of itself.
I know nothing about boats or floatation, so I’m working on hunches about weight and surface area, and hoping for a steady wind.
Here she is on dry land outside the studio, overlooking the loch, and here’s the launch party… Morwenna videoing; Kseniia Kari and Martin the party, making it a wonderfully playful adventure.
How beautifully she sailed. The rainbow was either corny or absurdly perfect; either way, it appeared while we were filming.
Maybe I’m working up to a flotilla of vessels; a series of short stories or one act plays on the loch.
Life and fate (2023)
High water (2022)
Exciting to corral the projects of these three years and start to think about how they speak to each other and where they might lead.
So many thanks to all at Cove Park for helping me reach this point.
