A Tangle of Strands
A painter, a writer and a film maker walk into a barn... But I can’t start there. That’s the problem. This whole thing is a tangle of strands. And there’s no ordered way to lay them out.
A few months before the incident in the barn, I was in Leicester, sitting in the cafe at Phoenix Square, talking to a man called Gordon Kerr, who’d just flown in from Macau. He was trying to explain the concept of a creative circle and the aims of the Dazzling Sparks Foundation.
“You want to bring artists together?” I asked. It was the one thing I’d understood.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s my experience,” he said, “that when you put the right mix of people together, with the right motivation, things happen.”
“What sort of things?”
Instead of answering, he said: “The theme will be Writing the Future.”
The more questions I put to him, the more confused I became. Only in the aftermath did I begin to suspect that this very vagueness was deliberate. He was creating a fertile meeting point.
Did I agree to go? Well, Gordon had flown half way across the world, so it seemed important. And according to its Facebook page, the Dazzling Sparks Arts Foundation was created ‘to foster excellence in the arts in service to humanity’. How could anyone refuse?
Northumberland. I should pull that strand from the tangle. Its northern edge marks the border between Scotland and England. Hadrian’s Wall cuts across it. I had a vague recollection from history books that armies had marched through from century to century, on the way to do battle in one country or the other.
“It’s a Bestle House,” said our host, Garry Villiers-Stuart. “A farm building fortified against border raids.” As he showed us around the cluster of ancient buildings that make up Burnlaw, I could see the evidence of that history: arrow slit windows set deep in thick stone walls.
Great change has come over the centuries. The Burnlaw Centre today is a peaceful place: a small, loose-knit community based in an organic farm, informed by Baha’i, Buddhist, environmental and co-operative thinking. And it has the facilities to host residential events. For six days, it would be the venue for our creative circle.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m a novelist. Somehow I’d been invited to a gathering of artists. I must lay that strand out as well.
A few years ago, I might have drawn a distinction between art and my work, which is producing novels. But taking photographs informs that process. And walking. And teaching, performing, podcasting...
The full article and photographs can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
A few months before the incident in the barn, I was in Leicester, sitting in the cafe at Phoenix Square, talking to a man called Gordon Kerr, who’d just flown in from Macau. He was trying to explain the concept of a creative circle and the aims of the Dazzling Sparks Foundation.
“You want to bring artists together?” I asked. It was the one thing I’d understood.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s my experience,” he said, “that when you put the right mix of people together, with the right motivation, things happen.”
“What sort of things?”
Instead of answering, he said: “The theme will be Writing the Future.”
The more questions I put to him, the more confused I became. Only in the aftermath did I begin to suspect that this very vagueness was deliberate. He was creating a fertile meeting point.
Did I agree to go? Well, Gordon had flown half way across the world, so it seemed important. And according to its Facebook page, the Dazzling Sparks Arts Foundation was created ‘to foster excellence in the arts in service to humanity’. How could anyone refuse?
Northumberland. I should pull that strand from the tangle. Its northern edge marks the border between Scotland and England. Hadrian’s Wall cuts across it. I had a vague recollection from history books that armies had marched through from century to century, on the way to do battle in one country or the other.
“It’s a Bestle House,” said our host, Garry Villiers-Stuart. “A farm building fortified against border raids.” As he showed us around the cluster of ancient buildings that make up Burnlaw, I could see the evidence of that history: arrow slit windows set deep in thick stone walls.
Great change has come over the centuries. The Burnlaw Centre today is a peaceful place: a small, loose-knit community based in an organic farm, informed by Baha’i, Buddhist, environmental and co-operative thinking. And it has the facilities to host residential events. For six days, it would be the venue for our creative circle.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m a novelist. Somehow I’d been invited to a gathering of artists. I must lay that strand out as well.
A few years ago, I might have drawn a distinction between art and my work, which is producing novels. But taking photographs informs that process. And walking. And teaching, performing, podcasting...
The full article and photographs can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
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