24 September 1999

Thoughts on the sketches

Hi again Rita :-)

I've been given a really good printer for work, which I finally got working yesterday - lack of the correct lead having prevented me before! - and I was able to print your sketches out for the first time this morning. It's quite an odd sensation to see them appearing!

Anyway, having spent some time with them, my thoughts are as follows:

I definitely agree on having a very plain shape for the "font" - although I still like the idea of using bits of facial features too (not complete faces).

I still like the idea of the wooden plinth, both for all of the reasons already stated and because it looks good on your sketches! I think a log rather than a tripod though, because that will throw a shadow like a sundial. I guess there is something to be said for a tripod too, though - it's very witchy, and brings in the triple aspect of the Christian God and the Celtic Goddess.

I'm quite convinced by the snake/river of stones; I think it does work well for several reasons. Unfortunately I had these reasons clearly in my mind last thing at night, so I've forgotten them again! I vaguely remember ideas like connections, passages of water within the Priory, and the pathway to God that the monks were following, but that's all!

I like the suggestion of using footprints from clay within the snake - this seems to me to resonate with both the monks' movements around the Priory and today's visitors. If we do this, perhaps we could persuade visitors etc to participate by casting their footprints - presumably they could just tread in the clay and then wipe their feet? It might be rather fun. Could we also get any school kids etc involved in lugging stones, or are their visits too structured for this? It's a way of involving visitors, anyway :-)

This virtual business is a very odd experience, but very interesting too, and something that's constantly making me think. I think the Priory for me is gradually changing from the sunny, idyllic picture shown in the booklet - through your descriptions of wind and weasels more than anything else. As well as living in the East End, missing Cornwall and Wales makes me very open to the idyllic perspective; it's good to be reminded of the reality.

I know that Cornwall was a rude shock in several ways . . . first because I was told it would be warmer, but actually I don't think I've been colder even when I lived in Norwich (where the wind blows straight across from Siberia); only at the end of the first winter did someone remind me of the existence and necessity of electric blankets - it's so warm in London you rarely need those. Then it's a place characterised by rigid definitions and resistance to change, whereas I blur boundaries in my very being, and love change. Unsurprisingly, then, although I found the landscape incredibly powerful, and the experience transformed my creative development, I wasn't very happy.

It did make me appreciate my home more, though. Travelling between Cornwall and London, I always loved the contrast between the empty, almost totally natural environment and the teeming, almost totally man-made environment. But although I'd never had a fantasy of moving to the country, as many people do, I did, when I went to Cornwall, welcome the opportunity of living in a village. Only when I returned did I realise that I already did! Apart from that, being in Cornwall made me realise what a very tolerant place the East End really is, considering that so many people are crowded together in such difficult conditions. Whatever the undoubted problems (my lodger was nearly murdered by queer bashers at my local bus stop last summer) the majority of people here live by the rule that you can get on with your life only by respecting other people's right to live theirs as they wish.

Moving back to Yorkshire, I actually loved your Miss Marple description of the village - apparently idyllic and old-fashioned, but a place where a murder could easily take place! I think I probably find villages more sinister than any Soho alleyway! Of course, London is like a country within a country - outside the M25 is England . . . so I could understand the Cornish attitude that anywhere north of the Tamar is "up country" - where the natives get wilder the further north you go!

I'm gradually becoming aware of the proportions and size of the site, and this has also made me aware of how my reactions to distances are coloured by my mobility, which is not so comfortable . . . but hey, I'm getting my wheelchair soon, and if I could cope with walking around in a silver back brace, I daresay I can cope with the social implications of the wheelchair. I was actually on a total high the night after trialling one.

So, some thoughts and some meanderings . . . I think it will be a very emotional experience when I finally see the site and meet you IRL. In the meantime, my thoughts are with you.

ju90

Webmaster/site slave and Multimedia Storyteller
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ju90@netmatters.co.uk
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