Artist's talk

Welcome to Ice and Fire – awaiting transformation

Are we ready for trans-formation?

Ice and Fire is a journey through a process in which we are all participants.

Much of my work involves preparing processes, and then letting them run their course, by allowing the innate properties of materials to speak their own language to make the work – an inevitable unfolding through time.

Once ‘out there’ the work no longer belongs to me, it has its own energy and you have your own interactions with it. We are a shifting community of participants that engage with it, here in our bodies or virtually over the web around the globe!

I think one of the most valuable things someone said to me about looking at art was:

‘Artists rarely do things for no reason’

…being with art (not just looking at it) is a matter of a fierce attention to what is present, which may be challenging and hidden. We are asked to be present to the precise details of the work, but also to what is going on inside of ourselves hidden – what are we thinking, feeling, sensing? So what is going on – here now?

I’m not going to explain the work but I’ll describe it… so let’s start with ‘awaiting transformation’

A – wait: In our culture waiting is seen as something passive and a bit of a waste of time, but the word’s root means "to be strong, be lively". This root also gives us awake, watch, and (in an extended form) vigil. So perhaps "waiting" is not so passive as it might first seem - it has a sense of being awake and an aware state of being. Contemplation even…

Trans – formation: Trans- comes from the root tere - to cross over, to pass through, to overcome

Form: comes from the Greek root merph which gives us morph/ morphosis meaning form, beauty, outward appearance.

So we have:

Being strong and lively as we pass through, cross over, beauty and outward appearance.

In the WEST, under the mass of the tower by the door that opens directly onto the City, there is a block of ice, it is:

- Rectangular, at the moment, but it’s going to melt in about 24 hours

- It’s cold - if you stand under it

- It is slightly yellow because it is partly made of Thames water

- It is suspended high up in the west – the occident. It is the furthest point in the building from the East – the orient. You could say it is dis-orientated.

- It’s hung by a strip of linen frozen into it; an 8 foot long piece of linen 18 inches wide: a shroud, swaddling, bandage or Fair Linen altar cloth perhaps?

The ice is hung by a hook – not a neat butcher’s hook from a trendy kitchen shop, but an industrial meat-hook. When I found it lying on the pavement, it still had blood on it – it is an instrument used in mass slaughter. It is hung by a piece of stainless steel wire from a loop in the light of the setting sun.

At the EAST end

- nearest the orient

- nearest the sunrise

- nearest Jerusalem...there is a circle of ash.

Ash – what happens when you burn matter, it is the quintessential essence of a material made formless. Before we had square hearths and chimneys we used to sit AROUND the fire with our backs to the dark. The hearth was the ancient heart of the home, a place of safety, warmth, conviviality.

The circle is 64” diameter – 5’ 4”. In it are placed small candles

- they are creamy yellow with a coating of ash because they are made of bees wax….

- they are all slightly different because they have been made by hand

- as the wax burns it is melting into the ash

- they are giving out light and heat

- the ash is held in place by a steel band

And in between the west and the east at the moment we have space with people sitting it. We have a North facing wall along which are stacked:

- 11 empty steel bowls that have been blacken by extreme heat

- Art materials

- 300 bees wax lights

- Chairs

- Cushions and rugs

- Poetry, prose and stories

- Later, a musician will play the Oud there and Contemplatives will meditate

A wall of provisions for the journey perhaps…

Under the ice there is a 12th bowl – it is catching the melt water. In it is a spoonful of powdered bronze. Every two hours a new bowl will be placed under the ice until 12 bowls have passed under it and placed in a line up the aisle. At the end of 24 hours of waiting:

- The West will be connected to the East

- The City to the Sanctuary

- Cold to the Warm

- The linen released

- The ash bear the marks of 300 beeswax candles- burnt

- 12 bowls transformed

- A poet and musician ‘enchanted’ the space

- A community of people will have borne witness here and around the globe…transformations will have taken place….crossed over and through…

I would like to thank St Ethelburga’s Centre for hosting the event especially, Helen Gilbert, Jeff Parkinson, and Simon Keyes.

Also Hazel Bradley- the narrator,

Philip Wells – The Fire Poet

Attab Haddad – Oud Player,
Diana Wackerbath for her wonderful writing on my blog.

I would like to finish with a quote from Heraclitis – a Greek philosopher born in 537 BC. It can be translated in several ways:

‘ Everything flows, nothing stands still or


Everything flows and nothing stays or


Everything flows and nothing abides or


Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed or


Everything flows; nothing remains or


All is flux, nothing stays still.’

Thank you