Mark Dion - "The Maritime Artist"
"The Maritime Artist" is a moment paused in time - not tied to a particular day, year or decade, but instead embodying the sense of evocative, timeless nostalgia attached to a space that holds a rich history. It shows the two parallel identities of the Porthmeor community, and St Ives in microcosm - an unusual companionship of painting and fishing. Like a stage, just vacated, set for the artist/mariner to return at any moment. Frozen now, the space has in fact been through a great number of transformations since its conception. I was invited to take part in the last few incarnations, as part of a group of volunteers.
In the early stages of the project, the cellar was a gloomy cavern, crammed. We were tasked with sorting through basket after bucket after crate of fishing equipment, left to the studios by the fisherman that once used the cellar as his working environment. Alongside the equipment, there were more personal items to be discovered - letters, newspaper scraps, a collection of books and ornaments. En masse, they became a three-dimensional patchwork of an everyday life, but it was individually that I found these objects particularly interesting. Each float, rope and buoy bore the marks of their age. You didn't have to see hand or fingerprints to understand how many times something has been held. Shadows of unknowable numbers of hands, scuffed, dusty and faded after years of exposure to the elements, only to end up here - in the hands of an artist. I was very aware of the significance of this tactile relationship as we measured, categorised and organised each object - a relationship that would soon end in that moment, the freeze, in which object became artwork.
Over a series of weeks, we categorised every object in the room, counting and measuring, compiling an extensive inventory, partially for reference during installation but also to ensure that we ourselves could cement each entry into our minds. Like a strange archaeological dig, we became incredibly familiar with the objects, some more than others. Our learning was not cemented in absolute fact, but playful. We felt our way, understanding the objects by their colour, size, texture; inventing our own histories. During this process, descriptive words became important, particularly when knowledge of the identity of an object was lacking. Names were replaced with details, forming an image with language so that identification by sight was possible. Surprisingly, even the simplest of objects were troublesome - we found that there were in fact many ways in which to describe a humble piece (or length, or section, or bundle, or coil) of brown rope, and as we were working individually, creative licence was taken, and different descriptive styles emerged - some concise, some playful, even an occasional offering verging on bizarre poetry.
Upon Mark's arrival, each object was stripped of its identification once more, before being carefully and systematically rearranged within the space, so as to appear unarranged, as you see it today. In order to do this effectively, we became acting understudies - putting ourselves into the shoes and mind of the absent artist/mariner, playing at being a painter in order to correctly discard a paintbrush or pencil sharpening. Through the categorisation process, we each had built up our own back story to this character - an understanding gained through the objects in his, or her, possession, just as each new visitor to the finished installation will experience upon entering the space themselves.
Written for Chris Hibbert, Porthmeor Studios, St Ives.
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