Salamanca Place, Hobart, autumn. The ground is russet with fallen leaves from European trees. Exotic, exquisite, anticipated.
I’ve hired a studio for two weeks, in the artists’ heartland; well, that’s what’s performed here.
I have so far met no artists, not yet – aside from Joe CEO, a composer I have known for a long time – but I can hear one, scratching behind a closed door; and I heard a brief conversation between artists as they unlocked studio doors. I felt like an eaves-dropper, illicit, inscrutable.
Studio spaces are set up for visual artists, not sound artists. The rooms bleed noise, and walls, or partitions, are separated from the roof void by dusty beams, electric wires and netting. The tin roof is sectioned by strips of dirty, opaque, corrugated fibreglass to let in light. There is one small sash window with twelve panes. No heating is provided. I sit with a knee rug to write.
This is not the west coast of Ireland – that wild, imagined and remembered place where I dwelt in stone towers and halls – but local, and good enough. I step through a portal and the ordinary transforms. I’m sitting at this table, writing, in the soft light, knowing I will soon need to walk up Kelly’s Steps to move my car; and that I will need to prepare for tomorrow morning because I have invited Ruth, an artists’ coach, for conversation, about how I might begin to glean and be. I feel ready to float things, but the imposter inhabits my mind, ghosting.
I have set up four tables with several notebooks, work-in-progress, art materials, sound gear, my laptop and a typewriter. My intention over this fortnight is to collate fragments (and create palimpsests) from residencies in Ireland and Tasmania (since 2015), in preparation for an installation inJuly, in the Side Space gallery nearby. A gleaning, bricolage, a showing, an extended improvisation.
piano rolls on the roll