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Catching up on my blog - some more photos from the installation of my exhibition at An Tobar

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Arrived on Mull

Well me and all my work arrived in one piece; we'll be installing it from tomorrow. In the meantime the lovely Dawn at An Tobar has written a piece about the exhibition: here it is ! Artist Knows Where She is Going! A new exhibition is coming to the Isle of Mull this summer. The artist, Sarah Morpeth, has been obsessed with the Powell & Pressburger film, I Know Where I’m Going! since her childhood. The film, which was made on location on the Isle of Mull in 1945 is the inspiration for a collection of new work. The film centres on Joan Webster who is stranded on the island awaiting a crossing to ‘Kiloran’ where she is to marry a rich industrialist. In the intervening time this young lady’s firm plans are hopelessly unravelled as she falls in love with naval officer Torquil MacNeil, who is also stuck on Mull. Sarah came to Mull in March of this year to visit the locations featured in the film. Amongst the places she visited, highlights included a personal tour of Moy Castle, kindly given by owner Jim Corbett of Loch Buie, and a bus journey to Tobermory from Pennyghael, similar to a trip undertaken by characters Joan & Torquil in the film. During her time on Mull the artist met local people who had memories of the film being made. For each of three locations, Sarah has made a new work, building on an existing collection of artists books and installations that she had previously made for the main characters in the film. Using printed and intricately hand cut paper, featuring dialogue from the film, Sarah has constructed a body of work that comments intelligently on the layers of meaning in the film. The exhibition will be on display at An Tobar, the Tobermory arts centre, throughout July & August. Exhibition runs from until 1st July 2012 – 31st August 2012 Open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm Sundays 2 – 5pm Admission free. ABOUT AN TOBAR AN TOBAR, the Tobermory Arts Centre, was established in 1997 as an arts centre serving the isles of Mull and Iona and surrounding area, bringing the best creative talents in visual arts and music to the heart of this rural community. In its fifteen years, AN TOBAR has brought together artists and musicians from across Scotland and internationally and has commissioned work from artists including Paul Kenny, Deirdre Nelson and Dalziel + Scullion.

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Carsaig 704203

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Speak up, there’s a good chap !

Telephone Box book is nearly finished; just hard covers to add. It's all about the difficulty of communication - all the words in the scene are printed on the spine and the pages all shredded.  I thought I'd call it 'Carsaig 704203' as that's the telephone number; if you ring it you might get an enthusiastic IKWIGger on the other end ! Not sure it's very much used by anyone else !

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All work in progress at the moment...

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There’s a deep dungeon just off the banqueting hall...

I had a very exciting time being shown round Moy Castle; it's all under scaffolding at the moment, but I had a few photos from my previous visit a few years ago. That first time I'd only been able to peer through a gap in the locked door; this time I got to see inside and clamber up the narrow stairs right to the top. The best thing was seeing the dungeon off the banqueting hall - it's really there !  What's more the owner has been in it - to rescue his dog. It's called a bottle dungeon; a narrow stone-sided shaft, where standing on the bottom he said he was in water up to his chest.

its a well with nine feet of water in it and a rounded stone just big enough for a man to stand on or drown

Moy Castle looms over the whole film - its curse, which isn't revealed until the very end of the film - provides such a wonderful conclusion. The first time we see it is when Joan asks about it - it heralds the beginning of her journey's collapse.

Practically the first thing she's told about it is that a MacNeil cannot cross the threshold. It then forms the background to the heavily-loaded moment when Joan and Torquil are passing the castle; Joan intends to go in and jokes that she doesn't think the curse would apply to 'future wives' of lairds of Kiloran...at which point Torquil introduces himself properly.

There is then a wonderful 'threshold moment' of cinematography where Joan is captured in silhouette in the doorway as she decides not to go in..

Echoed later on by the shot of Torquil - when he decides to enter the castle and bring the curse down on his head..

So light and dark...silhouettes ... the dungeon.. It seemed appropriate to make a circular tunnel book - where you'll have to peer up into the light to read the words; as though looking up from the bottom of a deep hole.

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'It's a terrible strong curse'.... Written on the ramparts at Moy Castle. Not in real life, sadly. I know this because I had the privilege of being shown round Moy by its owner. Very excited to see the dungeon - and inspired to make a book about it.

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Phone calls

Eh ? Blast the waterfall. Speak up, there’s a good chap. What ?

I'm making a book about the scenes at the telephone box; it's all about communication, or, rather, the lack of it. The noise of the waterfall makes conversation almost impossible. My book will be unreadable almost; the pages are shredded with only the odd word visible; the dialogue appears on the spine but will be hard to make out.

Inevitably - and this seems to be true of all my work at the moment - its a very labour intensive process. I wanted the book to be really thick - reminiscent of a telephone directory. I also needed the spines to be padded out so that the words were at least slightly visible. So a great deal of shredding of pages...and I have yet to tackle the process of binding it all together.

I really like the process of making though - especially with a new piece - there's something methodical and slightly plodding about it. Each stage can't be rushed and brings its own technical difficulties. Its a bit daunting writing about it because there's always a risk that ultimately it won't work; but I have to commit to it utterly, to see if there's a way. Just a few shredded pages wouldn't look right - they wouldn't convey enough. It needs to be hundreds..I've already broken one shredder and wasted a whole day trying to buy another. Its more difficult than you would think tracking down a manual shredder ! Due to some panicky late night online shopping though, I now have four.

And I also want to bring colour in to reference the phone box.

At the same time I'm planning out the spiralling crow piece, trying to finish off the 16.9 metre bus book and work out a third book, based on Moy Castle. Not to mention my other project at the Georgian Theatre in Richmond. Its a long time since I've seen the floor in my studio...

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She's Running Away from You !

This single phrase is almost shouted by Catriona at Torquil - I love this moment.  It's really charged; I think Catriona was in love with Torquil when they were young - there are little hints scattered through the film and I believe that quite a lot more of this backstory was filmed but edited out. So its charged because she's being noble and giving him up for Joan as well as frustrated that he can't see what is so obvious. I made a small piece with these words spiralling round (the whirlpool again)...and am going to do this as a larger installation at An Tobar.

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Torquil

Sometimes I make work around a single phrase; sometimes its a whole person. I have made a series of books about individual characters over the last few years, some of which will be on display in the exhibition. The book I made about Torquil - and I keep revisiting it and making versions - contains all the words he speaks in the film. I devised it as a book in the round - I wanted a sense of things whirling round - echoing the key whirlpool moment in the film. It has an edge of chaos and perhaps slight threat; reflecting the effect the character has in the film. Torquil throws Joan's ordered life into chaos - she is afraid of him, or perhaps what he makes her feel, what he represents.

I've always thought the scene on the stairs where Joan is leaving, having forced Kenny to agree to take her to Kiloran, is extraordinary. The expressionist lighting, physicality & violence - Torquil takes Joan by the throat and shakes her - quite shocking I think. 

Wonderful shadows ! And the scene ends with another doorway - a recurring motif in IKWIG (must go back to this idea some time....)

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Nice article I've just read highlighting another tiny moment in the film that I hadn't registered. The joy of still finding unconsidered moments.

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A bus journey and a book

Taking a quick break from cutting ... I wanted to make a book inspired by the bus journey scene. On my residency in Mull I spent a day taking the local bus from Tobermory to Craignure and then on right down to Ffionphort and back again. No hurry, no need to get somewhere for any particular purpose, the journey being the point.

Wide open empty landscapes and the bus rattling through at a tremendous pace along mostly single track roads with barely a pause. In the film it's an uncomfortable journey for Joan. In fact, thinking about it, it's an uncomfortable scene for the viewer too - she's very much excluded from the conversation and is made to feel a complete outsider. This is emphasised through the use of Gaelic at times, so a cultural outsider, but also by the overwhelming 'maleness' - she's the only woman and is essentially ignored. Then of course there is the content of the conversation - it becomes about the 'rich man on Kiloran'. Joan's fiance.

'Like a little king he is'. Torquil tries - rather half-heartedly if you ask me - to turn the conversation a little but he doesn't introduce Joan or really acknowledge her. Its a scene where I feel a lot of sympathy for her. She stands up to it though and asserts her independence:

You didn’t mind what they said ? I thought it was nonsense.  Why shouldn’t one build a swimming pool if one wants to ? Personally I like swimming pools.

Its only a short scene - 169 seconds but it seems longer. Something to do with the journey, the awkwardness of it; also a revelation to me having watched the Criterion Collection version - there's a couple of extra precious seconds that I hadn't seen before, and a tiny bit more dialogue. So it's become about that precious length of time and my book (or perhaps scroll might be more apt) is going to be 1690 centimetres long (by 8 centimetres high). 10 centimetres of physical paper for each glorious second of film. It looks  like a coiled film strip. I'm handcutting all the words from the scene and interspersing them with the names of the bus stops that in the real world they would have had to pass through to get from Carsaig to Tobermory. I know that immediately prior to the scene they have been at Moy Castle, but in the real world Moy is much further from Carsaig than the film makes it appear. So I'm taking it as a trip from Pennyghael to Tobermory. And I've spaced the stop names proportionately along my scroll. It took me ages to work that out and no one will know I've done it that way but it doesn't matter. Its important to me that there are these things happening behind the scenes, if you like. I've always been interested in the hidden structure of films and books, the way that transitions, edits, jump cuts all happen without the viewer's conscious mind registering them. Or in a badly made film or badly written book sometimes that structuring is really visible. They creak at the seams. So I have these background reasons and purposes and the structure is there but I don't mind if it remains hidden. Its really compelling though - once I have the idea I have to go through and make it and it seems to me that it couldn't be made in any other way...so at the moment my hand is aching rather and after four days I've managed nearly ten metres. Still quite a way to go. Measuring my days out in metres.

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Beginnings of something...sampling for my first piece based around the bus journey scene.

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I also prefer to call up the fishmonger if I want to eat some salmon instead of wading about knee deep in water waiting for salmon to pass by. Really ? Really.

IKWIG

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Carsaig Harbour and the Seals Singing

I had the joyous experience of seeing seals here on this visit ! The last time I came (about eight years ago) it was very foggy which was lovely as it reminded me of when Joan first arrives. Having now watched the wonderful documentary 'IKWIG Revisited' and read quite a few bits and pieces I'm not sure whether they were using smoke machines or not, to create these atmospheric shots. 

It's here that Joan experiences the first real hitch in her journey. Everything has gone as per the detailed itinerary she has been given...although the journey has taken on an increasingly magical feel as the train winds its way through tartan-covered hills and we participate in Joan's slightly surreal dreams. At Carsaig though there's no boat and inevitably it falls to Torquil to tell her this. The man who is going to derail Joan's whole journey.

Bad luck, no crossing today.

Joan sticks to her plans however; I've always loved her stubbornness.

I intend to spend the night on Kiloran. Oh. Would you like to wait up at the house ? I Know the people. Thank you but its been arranged for the boat to meet me here and I’d better be here to meet it.

Until even she has to admit defeat when the wind whips her itinerary out of her hands.

Lovely echoing scene - this time its Bridie sitting and waiting as Joan has got her way and made Kenny attempt to take her to Kiloran. Rather dismaying though to see this time how much of the harbour is in ruins; the photo of me was taken a few years ago when the harbour was in much better repair. As was I !