Video Diaries: Gathering and Preparing
June 13th 2003
I’ve been busy with domestics: decorating, moving home, children... endless and ongoing. Want to think about my work but can’t. I want to play with stone. So that’s the PhD then? How ridiculous, useless etc. does that sound. I doubt myself endlessly. I have this feeling, that’s all. There’s loads and nothing to it. The stones I desire are very specific and that’s all I know. The sensible thing is to practice playing. Trying the work out might help me to understand it better. ‘Stones are for building with’, says (my partner). I like this gravitational pull towards utility and reality.
I have a very specific head-picture of the stone that I need to get for my project (that I think stems from a memory I have of spending time in Babylon, Iraq, as a child). I need sandstone: white, yellow, rough, dusty stone. What to do? I search on the internet, I go to garden centres, I search builders yards but cannot see anything that looks ‘right’. It’s all too polished. What is this stone that I am seeking? I think of Babylon in 1968. Yellowy, sandy stone fills my memories of being there at that time. ‘I’ll know it when I see it’, that’s all.
But this is difficult to explain to a builder when the question posed is, ‘what are you looking for?’ Anyway. I find a company at Garforth, ‘Procter’s Cast Stone and Concrete Products’, (who mix sand and cement for garden sculptures), and I give them a ring. The person on the other end of the phone is an angel. He doesn’t take the piss, he says ‘come down and have a look’. So I do. He has some big blocks of scrap for the skip and says I can take what I want. He won’t take any money for the stone. I get home with my lumps of sand and concrete mix and put them on the flagstones in the back garden. Donning my visor and wielding a lump hammer I start to pound the stones (worrying that I look a prat). An hour later I’ve got a pile of rubble, a range of sizes, suitably rough in appearance but not quite right for my needs. ‘Too much cement to sand ratio’ I think to myself.
I decide that I shall have to make up a ‘mix’ of stones for myself. While musing about my time in Babylon, Iraq 1968, I remembered the ‘special stone’ that I’d got from that place. I was only eight years old at the time and was visiting Babylon with my parents. A German man was visiting at the same time and was walking around with us. He bent down, picked up a stone and threw it to me. ‘It’s got writing on, you keep it’ he told me. And so I did. It’s a baked-clay brick and it feels gritty. I got it out recently to have a look at it. It’s not how I remembered it. It is more real, more special. I felt it, loving it, thinking how fucking amazing it is.
I feel certain that this desire that I have to hear, feel and see a specific type of stone stems from my memories of living in Iraq, and more specifically from my memories of visiting the rubble and ruins of Babylon. But memories and feelings are not 'certain' things and I don't want to try and find 'causes' for my feelings, just to go with them. I want to build a pile of stones, that when I climb into them, they look, sound and feel like the stones did in Iraq. This will also require that the intense sunlight of Iraq (which illuminates my memories) must also be present when I video myself interacting with my pile of stones. This is not so easy, as I live in Yorkshire.
I collect some more stone from my family and I have to seriously pummel the big rocks to get them down to rubble, but the stones mix was coming along fine. However, it was still not ‘right’. I knew the stone I needed did exist in England because I’d seen piles of it lying around building sites. I decided to go to yet another builders yard. At first I couldn’t see anything suitable in the bags lying around, but as I’m about to leave I see an open topped wagon in the yard full of the stones that I need. I ask an assistant if I can have a bag or two. He says the lads are too busy to sort this out for me and the hardcore, or aggregate that I wanted is normally only sold in bulk. I ask if I can borrow a shovel and a couple of bags to go and get myself some. He’s okay with this and so I go and find the bay that the aggregate is stored in. I’m in heaven being surrounded by a mountain of the stone and I sort myself some out. When I got home I mixed the three types of stone together.
Now I’m getting there... Summers coming so I need to get my skin darkened (like my skin was when I lived in Iraq) in preparation for the video recording.
August 1st 2003
Back from summer holiday fun in Gran Canaria. I made sure I that I didn’t get 'sun-tan' lines and I darkened my skin in the intense Canarian sun. I’m not as dark as I was as a child in Iraq though. I’ve been working, reading, thinking, since I got back. I’ve moved my stones to make ready for video work. It’s frustrating. British leaves creep into the pile of stones and ‘contaminate’ my desired for ‘Iraqi’ look . The stones are physically difficult to move or manipulate.
August 3rd 2003
I’m almost ready with preparation for video recording. I’ve moved the pile of stones into location and the weather forecast for the next three days is as hot as it’ll get in Britain so I shall have to act fast. It’s more about the video than the event itself when I think about it. I don’t want people to see me ‘whole’, so a video format is good for cropping. I need to go over the possibilities and really consider the viewer. In a way I just want to play with the stones. it’s for me, but with regards to the video I’m doing it for viewer. Need to think. I don’t know how I’ll keep the children away while I record or whether to include them asking for drinks and stuff?
August 4th 2003
I’ve just finished recording for the day. Trying to avoid injury was difficult as the stones scratched and hurt me (soft git). Dilemma. Trying to do it for me and viewers. Doing the video today was like going to a new place and feeling ill at ease. I hope to be more relaxed tomorrow. Is the camera a cathartic object? Need to re-record anyway because the sound hasn’t picked up.
August 5th 2003
Screening One: I’m going to watch my recording now. It got a bit cloudy today but I managed to find a clear time, 3.19pm - 3.39 pm. Blimey. I’m shaking. It took it out of me doing it and watching it. Need to watch again and again and write. I’ll have another go tomorrow while it’s still hot and dry. Once the rain comes I’m fucked.
Screening Two: Prior to viewing the second screening I felt embarrassed, slack. But there may be possibilities? I was not so scared watching it for a second time. There is something about this video that is very moving for me.
August 9th 2003
Following a supervisory session I recorded my video again. I worked on producing three narrative strands and pinned key words to the house wall to remind me of the areas to talk around. I’ve tried to organise the pile of stones better too, from a formal aspect. I need to work fast while the sun shines and the kids are out.
August 14th 2003
Fucking hell! No sun out (morning). It came out intermittently in the afternoon. I’ve made three video recordings today. I’m just exhausted and stinging from being scratched by the stones.
August 15th 2003
Didn’t plan to work with the stones today but I got the opportunity and took it. It seemed to go really well today, lots coming together. The sun comes over the stones intermittently. It’s really hot and bright between 1.30pm and 2pm and then 4pm and 5.30pm. I wait for it to come over the stones and then I get stuck in.
August 25th 2003
I’m on the bus to Leeds. A woman who cleans at the old folks home (next door to us) just turned to face me from the seat in front and said. ‘excuse me but we’ve been watching you from next door, sitting in some stones and wondered what you were doing?’ I expained I was working on an art project. The woman replied ‘I thought you were doing a project, with the video camera being there and everything. I told one of the old ladies that was what you’d be doing. I’m going to college myself...’ and she told me about the course she was attending. A superb meeting.
My (later) video editing diaries are continued here...
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