Day thirteen – and not unlucky. Not at all. Today felt like a massive step forward on many fronts – I feel that we are now at the level of busy, frenetic, and productive (that we possibly needed to be at a little earlier than now, but I am just glad we are) we should be, with multiple aspects of the undertaking playing out, from canvasing businesses to meeting people to – guess what – actually drawing the bloody thing.
So what happened to make that the case – to achieve the momentum I spoke of at length in the last blog? Firstly, I had a nice quiet morning getting into the guts of my spatial problem with the drawing itself. I cut boards (though I turned the air blue somewhat after a cutting accident ruined a board), worked out scales and satisfied myself that everything could fit. My drawing of Market itself is still at slightly the wrong scale and so needs to be downsized, and I think we will inevitably, need to tweak here and there, but overall – it IS going to fit, with minimal redrawing. This was very good news and cheered me up greatly.
It’s always good to be in with the nitty and the gritty; cutting the boards is a simple thing, but it was an important part of shaping the materials, getting my hands onto the realities of the work – its concrete core, if you like. This stage of the proceedings, before I have to listen to the interviews again and again, is always nice as i can listen to music, podcasts or youtube videos as I work. Today i caught up with some of the History of the World in 100 objects episodes I had missed. it all felt civilised, progressive, yet calm and soothing.
And then some sudden injections of that momentum thing. Victoria (Evans) came in to start her contribution as a volunteer. Enjoyed our chat, as she asked the questions a practitioner would ask, and they made me go a little deeper inside in order to answer them properly, and some of the responses surprised even me! Among this was a realisation that I did not want to be too prescriptive with the volunteers in terms of what they should be looking at. Why should researchers who are from different backgrounds, of different genders try to be me? Why should I expect them to be? It raised the interesting question of how i see the researchers. Are they just amputations of myself? Mere proxies, representatives? Or is there an opportunity to be genuinely collaborative here, and admit their perspectives, their way of looking, seeing and performing as a researcher, into the mix? Obviously, the answer is there in the oppositions i have just presented – it’s the latter. In fact, i would be a fool to buck the opportunity to really open this process out. Obviously, i need to impose a certain uniformity on things such as data collection methods (and have), but the diversity of view on offer here could really enrich this. And I realised all this in just a few seconds of speaking to Victoria.
I wonder though, how far will this opening up go? Will I still keep a tight rein on the ‘processing’ and the selection of material to be laid onto the drawing? Or are there going to be further ‘incursions’ into that? It will be interesting to see.
So that was Victoria – just before 1 I sent her off to explore the west end of Duke St and see what she could see. I got down on the floor to start checking the boards and transfer reference points from there to my new and developing scale drawing. Then John Mallon came in, and we went over to the tea drinking area to drink tea and talk a bit. This was more an exploratory talk rather than an interview, but I really wished I’d been recording as he had some fascinating stuff to say about the grittier side of Duke Street. We spoke until about 3 (!) and Victoria came in during to say she’d done very well. I was able to catch up with how well things went on the Facebook group Ainsley set up, so that has proved to be a really useful move.
John headed off to get his grandson so I went back to it. It is interesting how I WAS able to just get back into it though – usually, I find it hard to make such switches, but the headspace in this project has had to be different, and I am adapting to this. I worked further on establishing the shape of the street, correcting errors, and laid out all the boards at one point, so they could be numbered and matched up. All useful stuff. John popped in again, and we agreed to sort out a formal interview and perhaps look at his forthcoming poem – on Duke St! – for inclusion.
Once he had left for the second time I checked into the Community Council meeting and saw it was at 7, so decided to work beyond six and then just go straight there. I locked the door at six- not so much because I was worried, but because I feel it puts a firm line on what I am doing and whether I am available. It meant that last hour could be just about the drawing and making. I had a good forty five minutes, then headed up to Whitehill Secondary and the Community Council.
Stephen had slotted me in right at the beginning to give a very brief five minutes on what I was doing. It’s interesting going to such events – it was just a bunch of folk round a table, but when you have MSPs, City councillors, Police and of course, the community councillors in that same constricted circle, there is definitely a ‘charge’ of sorts, in the air – an electricity. Is it all the different agendas? The feeling of so many different types putting up a professional and public front? The unspoken politics, interactions and what have you? I don’t know, but it made me feel surprisingly nervous – I did feel very much a guest on Stephen’s goodwill. Having said all that, this was all in my overly-febrile head perhaps – they were very courteous, asked good questions and it looks like a lead or two might pop up from it.
And that was that – five minutes, and I was out in the wet and windy Whitehill Secondary School playground, heading home. Looking back on the day, it is interesting the variety of experiences, destinations and spaces just being plonked in a gallery can bring to you! It went from being private, solitary, almost a canvas, to convivial, with Victoria, talking practitioner to practitioner, to out on the street, showing her a few things about Duke Street (and suddenly being the local guide), back to solitary. Then John comes in and it changes again; I am a listener now, responding and trying to create a mutually comfortable, respectful situation as we sit in the research area. Then as things warm up between, it becomes a little more relaxed. Then he goes, I am back to the solitary feel again, and retract very much into my own head for a while. Then I’m hurrying over Duke Street itself, into the side streets of Dennistoun and into a school, a public place, then within that, a very political space that has set up camp within that, and am suddenly acting as my own spokesman – being very politic, actually – in describing what I want from them, and why. And at the end I am striding onto a wet Onslow drive, spat back out as just another local man, heading home to get his tea.
But then does it stop there? Tea has been made and eaten. But here I am, in the bedroom so I do not disturb Emma, finishing off my blog (putting my head right back into all these places, momentarily), listening to some geeky stuff on my computer, finally bringing the day to a close. But I’ll still be thinking about all this, as i go to bed. The gallery, the walls that wait their drawing, my trestle table and the coffee table and the urn, move with me it feels. For me, anyhow, at the moment, Duke Street itself cannot contain them, or itself.
And there we go! The purple-prose alert has sounded! Time to down tools.
The Duke Street Diaries 