Decay

A benevolence of dirt /  by Justin Harrison

An experiment in placing words alongside the image. Perhaps more of a graphic design approach to my work but I don’t mind it…for now.

Capitalism doesn't work. A benevolence of dirt. We perform but we don't act. 

Also a subtle fast food vendor reference for bonus points…

Also encouraging is that this work has now been accepted for an exhibtion- ‘The Festival of Dissent’. I’ve printed it up to A1 which was pushing the image as it was originally shot on a iPhone. There’s always something and you just have to push and make it work. I’m a little unsure how I feel about it as it’s gone very graphical, but then it also works as magazine spread but a disruption of that media and culture where we obsess about food and being seen eating. Out culture is obscene in how it wastes food stuffs, we have a growing crisis with a huge increase in the use of food banks. We can’t live in denial. Oh and there’s achy reference to fast food to but one subtly.

 

Drawer Paddle - Ritualised tools of passage /  by Justin Harrison

Completed recently is the paddle cut from the front of a chest of drawers. I chose to leave in key details as I wanted to maintain elements of it’s history. The key hole and holes from where the handles were once fixed and the dark varnish.

I like the way it sits when folded back on itself, again a sense of animation, movement, something animalistic. I like how the gesture is minimal but also suggestive of presence. It leads away from the notion of a paddle that works, that is ‘fit for purpose’ and is becoming.

There is a passage to be made through. Through uncertainty, through mystery, through the unknown.

It does feel incomplete - that it need s something to pull the narrative through. When I say narrative I don’t need an explicit story more something of the mystery to continue on. I need to think about whom these paddles belong to and why.

 

It seemed like a good idea at the time /  by Justin Harrison

Mud

Smells bad

I look weird

Forest smells good, wet

Trees look fecund, perfect light

I rush

Forget to photo in sequence. My keenness blindness

Mud applies odd full of sticks and stones

Realise the smell is also duck shit

Drawing is hard, feels silly

Like a bad idea, not how I had imagined

Run down my arms

Not as good idea as I thought

Drawing is not working how I planned

Maybe that’s ok

I left in a hurry and didn’t ask the tree how it felt about it

///////

The above is my notes - I was gonna write a detailed journal entry but I think I prefer just the notes.

Further thoughts.

I think about using terracotta clay it would apply easier and I’d have more control with the drawing but I also know that the materials would need to be integrous, If I were to buy the clay it might feel synthetic.

I need to look around and find a river with red clay, maybe go onsite and collect it and work with it. A set of drawings across 5 or so trees?

Sources for naturally occurring clay

https://victorianweb.org/science/geology/smith3.html

https://nativehands.co.uk/2016/11/wild-pottery-clay-digging/#:~:text=You%20can%20also%20look%20for,area%2C%20that's%20a%20good%20sign.

I did like the blackness of the pond mud against the lightness of the tree. It has a quality to it that feels satisfying. The materials matter. It was textured too with leaf matter and sticks, this to gave it a unique quality and tone of voice.

I do need to go back and visit. See how the drawing changes as it returns to the forest 🌳

A ritual tool

Addendum///

I returned a month or so later, I really wasn’t expecting to find much and was suprised to find most of it intact. I find that I like it but not enough, it feels like it needs more, but I can’t quiet figure what. I do like that I’m drawing in mud. Mud made up from decaying elements of the immediate surrounding, leaves , twigs, dust and yes duck feaces. Some how it rising up from the ground feels interesting. I do still worry about it feeling ‘Andy Goldsworthy’ but again if I could push the work a bit harder it might stand on it’s own better.

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Encombre In Autolysis /  by Justin Harrison

It’s as if the house began to consume itself. Autolysis.
The structure that was akin to a vessel or a body - is now aggregate.
I know some of the properties history, a grubby past that is hung upon darker secrets.
There is a little sadness with its passing, more relief.

The site has become passage and place at the same time. Khôra the space outside, a dumping ground and non space or ‘antiland’

What is Khôra? I need to define better.

Division  for generation?

 

I am everything you left to decay /  by Justin Harrison

I am everything
You left to decay
As walls fail
And fluids leach
Billions multiply

Out of my body
Yields possibility
I am given up
To the earth
In smaller parts
Than before

(((Discarded squash left on window sill, decaying and desicating.)))