20 September 1999

Hi Rita (aka S BOLTON ;-)

Happy Monday! I feel very positive - we've got the website up and running, your technology is working, and from what you've said you've got the feel of the place now too (and the accomodation ;-) I don't think we could realistically have expected to achieve more in the first week.

I had a wheelchair assessment this morning, which was great - I've spent so long walking when it's both painful and tiring, and sitting on unsuitable chairs in meetings etc, but now I'll be able to take my own chair with me to conferences and so on and cut down on the walking when my pain's bad. I'll also be able to do my GLAD work entirely from the chair, so I won't be so tired in the afternoons. Unfortunately the slowness of paperwork means that I won't get it for at least a couple of months, but I'll look forward to having it for the new millennium.

Anyway, while trying it out I was able to focus really well on the work that we've done so far, and as a result had the following thoughts.

First, because collaborating is always slower than working on your own, and collaborating virtually appears to be a lot slower still (don't forget, most of the kit was designed by men!), maybe we should concentrate on one piece rather than a series, and see how long it takes us. In terms of Mount Grace as a place to create work, I still think that there is a lot to be said for a series in an ideal world, but I probably wasn't being very realistic time-wise when I suggested it.

That being the case, I wanted to suggest siting the work in the middle of the Great Cloister, on the site of the water tower. From looking at the photographs and plans in the booklet, that seems to me to have several advantages: it's a natural focal point; the work will stand out because of the space around it; people will actively have to come to it rather than stumbling across it on their natural route round the Priory; and it fulfils the criteria of being a good point from which to view the site as a whole (and will create time to reflect while people are doing so). It also marks a very important spot in the Priory, but one that, unlike most of the other buildings, has completely disappeared. (I think that's got resonance with our idea of traces of the past, too.)

As you know, I wanted to incorporate water in some way in any case, but it would make extra sense on this site because of the original water tower and the part that it played in supplying water to the other buildings. What I would suggest is incorporating a bowl of water, which would also have connotations of the font. I understand from the booklet that the Church was not used for the local population, as some Abbey churches were, so I doubt it was used for christenings, but I do think that the monks in some sense were reborn when they took their vows - and, I guess, renamed, since they would change their title to Brother. (I don't know if they actually changed their name, too, as nuns do?) I was wondering whether you would be able to create something in clay as a container, as that is one of your main media, and also if we could incorporate some kind of body shape into it? That would seem to me to flow from the images that you sent me of your past work, and also, issues around the body are an integral part of this project.

Perhaps we should consider something octagonal though, as the tower was octagonal? Or perhaps we could do both?

Anyway, as we've already discussed, water plays an important part in both Christianity and Celtic paganism, so there's already that rationale for it too, and looking into water can be very meditative, which has resonances with the monks' contemplative lifestyle. Equally, water reflects different things according to the viewing point, and distorts those things in the wind, which has resonances for me of the different meanings that the Priory has had over time, and also for different visitors today according to their perspective (Abbey fans, Christians, school students etc must all take different things from their visit).

What I wondered from your description of casting different bits of your face is whether we could use those round the "font", reflecting into it rather than simply outwards as decoration in order to continue with the idea of looking into the water and also to show the monks' common focus of communion with God. As well as continuing with the theme of the body, it seems to me that doing this would continue your idea of traces of the people who used to live here. I know that they lived solitary lives while I am suggesting a grouping, but according to the modern Carthusian website that I mentioned last week, the monks also felt very much part of a community, not just in God, but - this guy's example - sitting next to the same constantly farting person in church day after day! Moving swiftly on, the other reason that I liked the idea of using the casts here is that it reminded me of what you said about the masons' marks on the stone, since I know that masons often used to incorporate their own features into carvings for cathedrals etc.

However, it was pretty much a silent community: the voices they heard were inward and the external sounds would mostly have been ambient. So incorporating some closed mouths might be one way to reflect that? I'd also like to both heighten awareness of ambient noise and reflect the bells which regulated their lives by, as we've previously discussed, incorporating a mobile element made from found/natural objects that will also act as a wind chime. One way in which I thought that we might be able to include this is by stringing things round the base of the "font".

I still very much like the idea of being able to create a shadow, as it has resonances for me of the shadows of the past; the shadow which the outside world cast on the monks' lives (after all, despite their separation from the world, they couldn't prevent the eventual dissolution of the monasteries, and the way in which shadows lengthen over time seems to me to echo this); and the shadows/traces of the people who used to live there. I also like the idea of creating an area of intermittent darkness - we've discussed the dark side of the Priory (the prison etc) and the dark side of the contemplative lifestyle where you can't avoid coming face-to-face with yourself, both of which would have been intermittently present. We've also discussed the light/dark opposition within Christian philosophy and, in contrast, the way in which Celtic paganism accepts the light and dark as two sides of the same coin - you only have a shadow when the light is present too. Shadows also make you more aware of light - light is a very important concept within Christianity (particularly as the Word of God is so often described as Light) - as do the reflections from water.

What I wondered is whether we could use a plinth, both to cast a shadow and to create the depth for mobile elements to hang? (Having a plinth would also contine the font connotation.) In an ideal world I think that this would be from wood, because that has resonances of time, as well as the fact that the building elements which haven't survived from the past are the wooden ones, and these seem from the booklet to have been quite important within the original architecture. I don't know from your description of the wood whether this would be possible?

Finally, going back to your original proposal and our subsequent discussions, I wondered if we could incorporate a snake curling up the base of the plinth?

Anyway, let me know what you think - all of this suddenly crystallised incredibly quickly when I was sitting in the demo chair; which I hope means that the ideas are really flowing and we're communicating on some deeper level too and not that I've gone off at a complete tangent!

I hope for your sake that the weather is better than it is here, and also that the youth hostel is better than I imagine it to be!

Love Ju

ju90

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