#24

On Prayer Room, 'Peasants...' and other fictions

In a dream I was a werewolf
My soul was filled with crystal light
Lavender ribbons of rain sang
Ridding my heart of mortal fight
Of mortal fight

Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc (1948) dir. Victor Fleming.

I stand fatigued in fields of beech, skin sweat-strewn and muddy. A sudden glow – tart, hard and yellow – envelopes mine body.

Prayer Room, baby-angel, is finally here. You may recall from my previous letters to you, many moons ago, of an idea birthed by Ishmail, Dinosaur and I. A collaboration, an artwork, a project space. Group shows, solo shows, workshops and screenings. The gallery as community. We’re in the final throes as I write, reader, and the work has not been easy.

Beech nuts lay strewn beneath me, embellished in part by pewter magnolias. A pool of chartreuse cloth hangs tranquil above the glossed, grey concrete floor. Ishmail and Dinosaur are mounting a photograph with steady, outstretched arms. I sit beside a wash of red light, incubating.

As I write, dear reader, our inaugural exhibition Peasants Revolt Now! opens on Friday, 1st March. Curated by Dinosaur, with sweat, toil and tears from Ishmail and I, the exhibition title stems from an artwork by Black Lodge Press, featured within the show.

Dinosaur writes, fervently so:

You’re in a forest after a storm. Broken beech tree branches lay at your feet.

When I first saw Black Lodge Press’ banner reading Peasants Revolt Now! in 2023, it resonated with me, because this show has been in my head for a long time. Now, developing Prayer Room with Ishmail and Leah has allowed it to happen. 

What does ‘neo-medievalism’ mean? You see it within popular culture, video games like Skyrim and The Witcher, TV like Game of Thrones and Vikings, you know the stuff. You see it within contemporary art practice, too. The early Middle Ages, or the ‘Dark Age’, was from 476-1000 AD. Five-hundred-and-twenty-four years of mud.

A medieval peasant worked 150 days a year. You work 250. We’re grinding into a latepostcapitalismclimatecatastrophehellscape, and the mud’s up to our knees. If you focus and lay in bed long enough, you can feel it, the shape of it… but what are you doing about it? Think of what you could do with those 100 days. Maybe that’s a capitalist mindset.

Everyone always looks to the Enlightenment (1685-1815) or the Italian Renaissance (1340-1550) for inspiration. The En-light-enment, when the light was literally turned on -  the Dark Ages were no more. I think there’s a lot we can learn from the dark. I’m scared of the dark, everyone is. If they say they're not, they're fucking lying. Put them in a forest at 2am in rural Derbyshire in November and see who’s scared. 

I’m reading Riddley Walker, a science fiction novel by Russell Hoban at the moment. I meant to read it years ago, and it feels like I already did, but there’s this great part:

Time back way way back befor peopl got clever they had the 1st knowing. They los it when they got the clevverness and now the clevverness is gone as wel.

Every thing has a shape and so does the nite only you cant see the shape of nite nor you cant think it. If you put your self right you can know it. Not with knowing in your head but with the 1st knowing.

The devolution of the UK is imminent. We’re going to break apart and return to regional governance. 7 kingdoms, 7 different ways of doing it. 39 counties, 39 different ways of doing it. London, more specifically Whitehall, can’t continue.  

It’s coming and this land is haunted - this wretched rock. 

There’s an inability to change, or maybe change is just not possible. It’s said that change comes slowly, but that’s not good enough. Peasants, revolt now?

Max von Sydo as Antonius Block in The Seventh Seal (1957) dir. Ingmar Bergman.

Tentative Press has, too, been birthed into the world, with a sugar-soft launch of Valentines’ cards earlier this month. Dream, Vision and Apparition. For years upon years, I have wished to produce love letters and, in doing so now, I realise all of the flimsy, little intricacies that I wish to perfect. Cherry-red wax seals on baby pink paper – rose scented and velvet to the touch. Gold foil embossing to run your fingers along with a deliberate slowness.

Lilac petals pulped and pressed, amulets, coins and talismans.

Soon to come, Outbursts Year Two.

I’m working towards a show, slowly but surely, as part of More Art Inc. with Wolverhampton Art Gallery. I’ve been thinking much about the Black Country, an area of the Midlands where I’ve lived my entire life. I have come to find recently, dear reader, that my family have lived within these here Middle Lands for over two-hundred years. The earliest record that I’ve found dates back to 1791 in, of all places, Wolverhampton.

Skulking through the archives at the gallery, staring into copper, marble and granite rock, I’ve been thinking a lot about loss. Absence, neglect, age. Terms of Endearment, too, a series of works I have previously divulged to you. Darling, angel, little one. Perhaps now it is time to finally paint her.

Until Spring, babe.