my life as a artist
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fieldwork
Monday 20th July 2009 12:24 AM
One of the black hens has been secretly egg-sitting under the caravan and yesterday afternoon I met her and her six hyper-cute fluffy newborns grubbing for food in the shade of my new poet's car. (It's a Toyota Palindrome 1.62)
I looked under some of the bigger plant-pots until I found them a worm and a few wood-lice and then I called Mark the farmer on my mobile and kept an eye on them while he came over with a big green bucket and a cricket bat. Mark told me that in the UK, more people are killed by hens than any other farm animal, and when they've got young ones with them they're especially dangerous, so he asked me to guard him with the cricket bat while he deftly but gently lifted the chicks into the big green bucket.
The whole operation only lasted a minute but the sheer tension of it left me exhausted. At one point I thought the hen was going to fly into his face and slash his jugular open with one deadly sweep of its powerful talons, and leave him lying in the sun like a sticky burst fruit, but instead it just hunched its shoulders a bit, and clucked.
Afterwards, as a libation to the gods to honour their protection, but also to extend that delicious atmosphere of shared manliness, we shared a pot of Orange Pekoe China rose-petal tea and watched the field through the caravan picture-window. The field looked back at us unblinkingly with its big green eye, kohl-rimmed with hedge-shadow, its iris daisy-flecked and tufty, busy with birds and bugs and cluttered up with buttercups.
Under the steady green gaze of that ancient pasture we enjoyed the swaying yellow waves of massed ragwort and the soft random hop of occasional rabbit. Mark said that in the UK, more buttercups are killed by rabbits than any other cute wild animal, and when they've got young ones with them, they're even cuter.
The field's eye was so open and honest, we started calling it Frank, and it was as though all it's to-ings and fro-ings and little dramas were somehow telling us the very soul-story of the planet.
Looking deeply into nature's grassy optic through the magnifying glass of our imaginations, we felt like analogous iridologists, diagnosing war in the east from the movement of crows and seeing potential peace in the slow patience of nettles.
Entranced by this cavalcade of mythical truth, we lost all track of time, until we noticed that the sky had put on a rather attractive pink negligee and was obviously wanting to go to bed. Mark got out of his chair, saying that even though we'd established that the universe was fundamentally made of consciousness, he still had to go and feed the hens.
With magnetic, strawberry, morphic, Gracie and W.C., there's still many different fields out there to explore, but for now I'm happy with the one outside my caravan window. Sometimes, for a joke, I call it Frank Eye-Field.
Posted 12:24 AM | 7 Comments | Permalink
my blog smells
Tuesday 14th July 2009 11:25 PM
Les Miserable writes in the comment box. 'Anyone attracted by the smell of Rory's blog should watch 'Home' on You Tube. Beautiful images of a dying planet. Funny, the validation word is 'alive''
First of all Les, thank you for implying that I create beautiful images of a dying planet, although I must say that personally, in my mind, from where I'm sat, rorycentrically speaking, I don't believe the planet's dying. I think it's suffering labour pains and I think we need to be busy knitting the baby a new bonnet. The validation word knows.
As regards this film 'Home', I'm sorry to say that I have six-foot-deep grave reservations about it. I don't like to disagree with you Les, because I've met you many times in non-cyber life, and am keenly aware of your manly, furzed forearms of polished granite, but to be quite Les with you, frank, I felt sick after the first few minutes.
The opening sequence of the feature features a featureless black void of empty space into which there is a dawning of white words. '88,000 employees of PPR group' they says boldly. These letters then boldly go and explode into 88,000 star-sperms which fertilise and vivify the aching emptiness of space, and lo, from the fathomless, fatherless mother and motherless father of all nothingness, life is born! This new universe then starts pulsating with labelled planet-gods, and as they orbit into view it's possible to read their names; Yves St Laurant, Alexander McQueen, Stella MacCartney, Puma and Gucci.
Except for Stella's early consumption of her mum's vegetarian sausages, I don't associate any of these people with sound ecological practice. The images in the film were, predictably, very stylish and well cut, but so much so that the whole thing felt a bit creepy. In amongst all those super-high-definition swelling mounds and plunging clefts, (never mind the glistening, moist hollows and steaming flanks), I felt as though I was watching my first eco-porn movie, with Earth playing the part of Busty La Rue and Mankind in the role of Dirk Diggler.
These 'slick, mental pick-pockets' are so well versed in the mechanics of persuasion that they're able to sell a nasty little handbag for the same price as a small saloon car, and I'd take everything they say with a pinch of salt, some holy water and a cleansing ritual.
Well Les, I hope this time-saving, sometimes harsh, judgemental response won't put you off posting further comments in the future, as I value you as a loyal, and often astute contributor. If some sort of rift has been created, and it gets extended into the non-cyber world, and you never want to see me again, can I keep that really nice little Stanley saw-blade that you lent me when I re-located that plug-socket?
Posted 11:25 PM | 13 Comments | Permalink
