Strange notes from the countryside

For a couple of days I’ve been preparing something about mosaic jigs but I thought the oddness and mosaic relevance of an event yesterday deserved a post.

We moved into the countryside not for idealistic or romantic reasons — rather the reverse. Having two studios and a house to pay for in London meant we had to work every second of every day just in order to keep going. There was no time to think, and not much time to experiment as we had to be pretty certain any experiment would help us pay the bills. Although we wanted to be in the orbit of London, anywhere close by was too expensive. We had quite specific requirements. We wanted somewhere with space for two studios, a bit of storage, and enough room for all the family to come and stay. Those needs governed our choice. Not a beautiful view, or a large garden, or a community of the like-minded. For a while we wondered why we hadn’t prioritised these things too, particularly the aspect of living near people who seem a bit like us, but we didn’t, and that was why we ended up in Norfolk — we found somewhere that fitted the bill, in a shopless village on the edge of the Fens. Our area is rather socially deprived, people who formerly worked on the land, and whose jobs have been largely lost, or replaced by others who do the back-breaking work either for less than they did, or are in fact willing to do it at all. At first we were preoccupied with setting up the studios, and making the house feel ok (undoing things, rather than doing them, as we didn’t have the funds for anything we couldn’t do ourselves). We were often in London, so it only gradually dawned on us that living in a place where we never met anyone (and even when we did, they didn’t appear to share our values) might cause us to feel a bit lonely.

This may appear to be an irrelevant anecdote, but it is by way of an introduction to a curious mosaic related fact. I’ve been having a big clear up of the studios, and part of what has prompted me to do it is the fact that we are opening them as part of an arts trail, set up and organised by an energetic, amazing and very community-minded guy in our local Labour Party. I have no idea if anyone will come, and in a way, I sort of hope they don’t. Neither Matt not I have anything to sell — we have been working on some large paintings. They aren’t finished, and I don’t think they would be of much interest to anyone who came, even if they were. I’m hoping I might find time to make some little cast mosaic objects, but as I’m about to start a new mosaic job, I think it’s very possible that I won’t, so all anyone will see is our curious set up. But last night, we hosted a party for the artists taking part. Eleven artists came to dinner, and had a look around (at studios that were still rather untidy, but definitely more organised than they had been) and of those eleven, four were mosaicists. You might think that it wasn’t a coincidence, that mosaicists came because they wanted to look around a mosaic workshop, but far from it. As far as I could see, no one had any idea that I was a mosaic professional, and in any case, so what  — they were mosaic teachers themselves.

It was heaven. Everyone was funny and interesting. There was a guy who builds houses from straw  who brought walnuts and salad — both of which he’d grown in the garden,  a fantastic woman who described herself as ‘the hag who lives on the edge of the village’ who told stories about the energy communicative power of triangles, an archeologist turned mosaicist, a woman who lives nearby with the most beautiful garden, one I always stop at and admire, but everyone was great.  No one was pretentious or reined in.  We chatted about local issues and the importance of the local as a counter to the horrible tentacles of corporate finance. We discussed the development of a local silica quarry (the sand seems likely to be used as part of the fracking process) and the existential threat of climate change, and what we could do, individually and collectively. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening — no surprise really to find mosaic at its heart.