Shivery cold through the birch tree rising to the east.

Hang out the washing. Nearly dark. Peg the cold wet clothes to the line as three blackbirds scare each other in the thin blue dusk. A curl of moon high in the south beyond the phone lines, scratchy Jupiter nearby. Read More...

Little Chef on the 303.

At Tate Modern to see the AnimateTV programme in the Starr Auditorium, introduced by Stuart Comer, Tate Modern Film Curator. A sumptuous setting to see our Sea Change film Teign Spirit on the big screen. Read More...

Up past Burrator and miserable dripping Princetown to the carpark beyond Merrivale, five rooks hopping and bobbing in the misty drizzle on the grass. Read More...

Jem Cohen sitting on the stage at Norwich Arts Centre. Read More...

Unseen people talking behind me as I sit in the cinema and wait for the next programme: “This tiny gesture that she, no this tsunami ... that ripples out across the whole family ... this idea of desire starting something ... under the caravan setting it on fire to stop it ... but then we see him with his ... and watch the whole thing come down. It’s such a small thing. I sent an email it was really great ... she’s got a mouth on her. No, I was impressed. It’s true, it is true. Yeah yeah. Sorry. That’s what it is I think ... she feels ...” Read More...

Cathedral Apartments: the large window on the stairs has crimson and deep blue glass panels framing the central pane. Read More...

AFTER Artist’s residency at Plymouth Arts Centre

Studio One: Inspector Specto from Kayla Parker on Vimeo.

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AFTER Artist’s residency at Plymouth Arts Centre: camera handheld at arms length up to the moon through the birch leaves. Traffic, warm, no breeze; faraway mewl of a cat and helicopter drone; a splosh in the pond as a fish scares itself and flips in the water. Read More...

Studio One: Artist’s residency at Plymouth Arts Centre

Inside/outside
Dream: in a small waiting room, with a glass wall and door, on the border between nature and culture. I stand in the corner next to the door and display my ‘pieces’ - small creative objects, personal records - on the wall. I reach up and pin them to the wall, above shoulder height. Behind me a group of First Nations Canadians file in and sit around a low circular table: elders, with their tribal collections of knowledge coded into artefacts made of wood, berries, stones. I am in some way being judged, behind my back, but am accepted. I look through the glass to where I will be going: the wild land, trees and scrub ahead. Read More...

Studio One: Artist’s residency at Plymouth Arts Centre

Turn back the clock; we’re locked into Greenwich Mean Time for the next 6 months.
16.16 BATTER STREET Gavin sitting up in the projection room getting ready for the Sunday evening screening. Whir of central heating pump, faint keyboard. Dry fruit and sawdust smell. Read More...

Studio One: Artist’s residency at Plymouth Arts Centre

ROLLING PICNIC
Two small round plastic caps at the top of Peacock Lane: cerulean blue E63 and light lime green FLIP OFF. Fresh fast wind off the sea, blazing horizon. M+S Super wholefood salad and a plastic fork; then latte in the arts centre café. [TINKLY TOP NOTES ON A PIANO, CONTRALTO SMOKY SOUL DIVA IN CONVERSATION WITH A MELLOW SAX] [“Feel your touch... the thrill [...] nights are [...] lovers can [...] the thrill... is gone... this is the end...”] Women grouped around a table in the upstairs gallery by the café, making things out of scraps of material, lace edging; speaking quietly. French and English voices, pinning and sewing; soft and communal. Read More...

Studio One: Artist’s residency at Plymouth Arts Centre

10.16 BATTER STREET Back in. A mushy warm kind of day. Skylight leaking into an empty 5 litre Hellmann’s REAL mayonnaise tub (“...The only mayonnaise”) and a Pure Brilliant WHITE (FOR WALLS & CEILINGS) Dulux Rich Matt (WIPE CLEAN) 10 litre plastic paint pot. Behind the deep blue door: rap/hip-hop [“Birdz ov a feather now [...] get back muthafucka, u don’t no me like tha’] Young male voices [YOU HAVE LISTENED TO RAP ON TELEVISION! YOU LOVE METAL... RAP SHOULD BE LIKE THAT!] Read More...

Studio One: Artist’s residency at Plymouth Arts Centre

14.50 BATTER STREET deep blue break time [THUNDER OF TRAINERS ON WOODEN STAIRS]. Simon comes to check everything’s ok.

THE MEASURE OF IT: I use the window as a lightbox, scrape the skin of the film, peel back strips of emulsion with the blade. [THE FLY DOES A LITLE BUZZY DANCE] Leaning on the glass I am in/outside, my vision flexing. A youth on the phone outside the door [AND HE SAID WHAT?] (His voice breaking into the mouthpiece). Read More...

Studio One: Artist’s residency at Plymouth Arts Centre

10.10 BATTER STREET I’m in. Thanks Simon for giving me the keys. Studio One: undisturbed air, chalk dust taste. Against the wall, some random tables, blue plastic chairs in stacks, a white kettle jug on the floor. Read More...

Our final day on location. Read More...

Teignmouth, Friday: the day of the first Muse concert on The Den. The home-made signs and posters were the best: there is a tabletop sale 10am to 1pm at the MUSEum on Saturday morning 5 September. Moments: getting my feet wet, dance steps of seagulls printed in the sand under the pier, sitting on a flower bed wall eating sweet greeny-pink Victoria plums in the sun, and rescuing a giant-size Elephant Hawk Moth larva: we tempted it off the pavement onto my Thomas Luny postcard of Teignmouth, and transported it to safety near the Quay Street carpark. Read More...

I’m now adding stuff, but expect things to shift around as the site progresses

This is so delightful: looking through the glass wall I can see the rectangular lake. It’s enclosed on three sides by buildings, open on the shorter edge opposite to the hills on the horizon, like Bute park in Cardiff. The feel of an Oxford or Cambridge college quadrangle, or Dartington Hall: there’s an air of learning, of being involved in a long term creative thinking project, and of being connected to the past with a line stretching out from me to the future. It feels privileged, a marvellous opportunity. Calm.

Small groups of people are walking in the water, others stroll along the banks, and some people are crossing from one side to the other. I have multiple viewpoints: I am able to look at the scene from my vantage point behind glass at ground level, but also see from above and to the side. Water in all its forms: milky steam ice snow rain.
Teignmouth mermaid, small watercolour painting, Teignmouth Museum collection. Reminiscent of Hokusai’s woodcut of a young shell diver’s reverie 蛸と海女, published in a 3-volume book of shunga erotica in 1814.

Teignmouth was invaded by the French in 1690, and part of the town was burned to the ground. Sodium chloride, or common salt, was one of the main economies until Brunel’s railway opened up the town as a seaside resort from the 1840 onwards. Charles Babbage had a holiday home there.

Many years ago my large colour prints of 16mm film frames taken from Unknown Woman were shown in an exhibition of landscape photography in the Orangery in Bitton Park (which was built in 1842, during the railway boom). The other artists were James Ravilious, and Paul Warner, who also curated the exhibition.