An imperious moon is rising in an uncontested night time sky, but continually redrawn by an incoming tide, rising with gravity to its invitation.
Author Archives for Eggman
Egg Wear
If a place is not just scenery, but is rather a sequence of evolving events, then my world really is a stage. In my role as a custodian of nature, I needed a collection of clothing that was sustainably made, comfortable to wear and was also appropriate costume for a 21st century Beadle. I have been working closely with a small team of fashion students at Solent University Southampton, led by Sue Carley and Katie Jackson who have created made to measure Tshirts, shorts, trousers, snood and an impressive cape – that works as rainwear or a blanket and has a liner to add warmth in the winter. There is also an impressive gander bag. Most of the fabrics are recycled including items made from my own cast off clothing.
The team is :-
Sue Carley & Katie Jackson, with assistance from Abbigail Carter and Leila Alloush.
It sprang from an interest by Matt Weet of Solent Creatives after being approached by Mark Drury from SPUD. I will post further clothing photos and drawings.
Stalking the marsh high ground in July
Power Lines
The Egg is powered by a 12v dc current generated by a solar array in the nearby field, then carried on galvanised tracks and in armoured cable through the thorny thicket to an underwater umbilical cord to the egg. It is inverted back to 230V ac at 150 watts, which is sufficient to drive my cameras and charge the lap top. An unasked for 20 watts for lighting will provide me with back up, as I intend to rise with the sun and sleep with its setting as an induction into a more natural lifestyle – where the working summer day will be longer than that of winter and the annual 9 – 5 put aside.
The Buff Orpington
Nick and Caroline came visiting today, bearing a gift of fresh eggs from their own Buff Orpintons. Vasari wrote in his ‘Lives of the Artists’ that the Florentine Piero de Cosimo (1462 – 1522) lived largely on hard-boiled eggs, which he prepared 50 at a time while boiling glue for use in his (egg) tempera artworks. Vasari wrote that he lived “more like a beast than a man” and was not inclined to clean his studio. I hope to be more rigorous with the broom and also manage a more varied diet, but I do share Piero’s love of landscape and quest for knowledge of flora and of animal life.
Temporal Gateways
Access to the Egg from the land is via a path through a thicket of old oak, hawthorn and bramble through the fields below Lower Exbury House. The gate and wire fence is newly made for the Exbury Egg and echoes the remnants of an earlier version of itself a few strides further along. Like the egg itself, it reflects the action of the elements upon all things manmade and is a reminder of my intention for the exterior of the egg itself.
Beaulieu Beadle
In the character of the Beaulieu Beadle, I intend a performative role which is both practical and poetic as a guardian of the foreshore and the ‘herald who makes aware’ in my personal parish around the Egg. I’d like to provide a voice for mute nature, to be amanuensis to the tides, the terns and the turnstones.
Eggshell Finish
I needed a symbolic form that would evolve and change though time as it is bleached by the sun, scoured by the wind and rain and below the waterline accrues algae, worm and barnacles; an evolving form that echoes changes to the surrounding landscape itself and turns the egg into a natural calendar of the seasons.
Inside, my own journey will be catalogued in collections of digital imagery, found objects, drawings, maps and natural colour that are all derived from this particular estuary location. During the next twelve months the egg will evolve, until it becomes a sculptural element in a time based happening, integrating inside with outside in a creative archive that reduces the distance between people and nature.
Local colour made from sawdust created during the construction of the Egg at Battramsley Farm and used to paint interpretations of how the Egg might look when completed.
On the Importance of the Egg
Ex ovo omnia. Detail of the frontispiece, probably drawn and etched by Richard Gaywood, from William Harvey, Exercitationes de generatione animalium: Quibus accedunt quaedam de partu: de membranis ac humoribus uteri& de conceptione, London: Octavian Pulleyn, 1651. 21 x 16 cm.
By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
The blueprint for the egg structure, echoes the symbolism of the egg as a blueprint of life. An aesthetically perfect and compact capsule, the egg contains in embryo the essentials for new life in most of the animal kingdom and is closely related to the seed, which encapsulates the same meaning within the world of flora. A great scientist of the Seventeenth Century, William Harvey, wrote ‘ex ovo omnia’ – everything comes from an egg. From primate to plankton it embodies the idea of new birth and renewal, protection and fragility. In an urban 21st century world where we are increasingly disconnected from nature this ancient archetypal symbol will nurture re-enchantment and understanding as a step toward a sustainable future.
While these ideas will be shared virtually online, I am floating older tried and trusted means of making contact…
Names and Numbers
When the Egg was launched into the river at Lymington last week, I poured a bottle of fizzy stuff over her ‘bows’ and named her ‘The Exbury Egg’ in homage to Neptune, keeping the cork and bottle label (signed by the principle partners) as a memento. We also screwed a boat registration number over the port door, so I will now need to carve her name – we are all more than numbers.
Loaded Up
The Egg by moonlight on Tuesday May 21st, made ready for transport to Lymington Yacht Haven where it is due to be launched on Thursday.
Rob, Mark, Natalie, Me, Trisha, Paul, Wendy and Phil enjoy a last supper in the barn at Battramsley after loading the egg onto its transporter. Scores of midges join our party to remind us about the environmental intent of our work.
The Exbury Egg 