Today is my final day in Gwithian Chapel

I have not made a body of finished work in the way I might have expected. There is no clear outcome or resolved installation. Instead, the time has been spent in a different way.

The chapel has given me space.

Both physical space and mental space.

Coming straight from three months in India and Morocco and returning to a small, cluttered studio, this felt a gift.  I have been able to lay things out, move them around, remove them again and sit with them. To bring objects in, test them and take them away without pressure.
There has been a lot of sorting and sifting. Trying to piece something together without yet knowing what the full picture is. Following threads, noticing connections without needing to arrive at a final answer.

Earlier in the residency I was working with fragments, frames and arrangements on the floor, looking for relationships between objects. Later, I found myself stripping things back, letting go of materials that were not working, and moving towards something lighter. Taking impressions, noticing shapes in the chapel itself, and responding in smaller, more direct ways.

Throughout this time, I have been thinking about sacred spaces. How space is used and how it feels .... different.

I’ve also had time to go through footage, sounds and photos I gathered while in India and Morocco, reflecting on moments of devotion, ritual, and the atmosphere of those spaces. This in itself has been hugely valuable.
Alongside this, I have been thinking about the way I work more broadly. During my time away, I made temporary arrangements as I often do when away from my studio. Small, instinctive groupings of fragments and materials that would be made, observed and then left behind. That way of working has continued here.

It has made me realise how much I value that kind of process. Work that is not fixed or permanent, but exists for a moment. Work that is more about attention, placement and response than about producing a finished object.

This has led me to question my relationship to ceramics. Whether I want to continue making more objects, or whether I want to move towards something more impermanent.  Working through interventions, using existing materials and allowing the work to remain open and unresolved.

If anything, these two weeks have been a return to a way of working that feels more open. Observing, responding and allowing things to unfold slowly.

I've been grateful for this time.

Today felt like a shift.

I have removed a lot from the space. The square frames have gone, along with many of the objects I had been working with earlier in the week. I needed to clear things back. It had started to feel too full, too heavy.  
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Clearing the space has made a difference. There is more room to think and more room to notice.
I found myself drawn to the wooden structure at the front of the chapel. There are carved shapes within the panels that I had not really paid attention to before. The form of the arch reminded me of spaces I have spent time in recently. It felt somewhere between a chapel window, a temple and a mosque, a shape most of us are familiar with.

I did not try to analyse it too much. I simply wanted to record it.

Using a Takuhon printing I took an impression of the carved wood. Rather than building something new, I was working with what was already there.

Strangely for me, I  added a small amount of colour. A faint mark of pink and orange. These are colours that have stayed with me since returning from India and Morocco. I have found myself drawn to them again without fully understanding why. The marks are minimal, not decorative, more like a trace, just a point of contact.

The process felt simple. I noticed something, it connected to something else in my memory, and I responded to it. I recorded it and left it open. Letting go of what was not working has opened up a different way of being in the space.
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I do not feel like I need to resolve anything yet. For now it is enough to continue noticing what is here and to respond in small, direct ways.

Over the past few days I have been catching up on writing and reflecting on the work, but today I am noticing how the space is slowly beginning to organise itself around how I naturally work.
I have made a small workstation for myself in the corner of the chapel. A table, my computer, books   It has become a kind of quiet nest where I can process ideas, next to the heater!

The rest of the chapel is slowly becoming a working space.

On the floor I have placed a number of square frames. I began doing this on the first day and the idea has stayed with me.  They are small fields of attention. Into them I’m placing fragments of my work. The fragments are currently stored along the pews simply so they are easy to reach. The pews are currently just acting like shelves in a studio. I am not sure if they will be part of the work. At the moment they are just practical.

The floor is where most of my attention is focused. Placing objects inside the frames, moving them around, taking them away again and trying something else. I’ve realised that what I am doing feels very similar to those puzzles you sometimes see in newspapers where you are given a set of words and have to find the hidden connections between them. The game is often about grouping things into fours.

Not so different from what I am doing here, looking for relationships between all the different strands I’ve brought in from the studio.  I collect and keep materials that might otherwise be overlooked, fragments of wood, broken ceramics, rusted metal, dirt. Over time these things begin to matter simply because they’ve been kept. They gather a kind of significance. I’m interested in how objects can hold traces of reverence, ritual and meaning. Maybe there is something about attachment there? Questions also about how one person might deem something valuable, important and presenting it in such a way that others can hopefully feel that.

For the moment I am simply allowing the chapel to function as an extension of my studio. I move between sitting in the corner writing and thinking and working on the floor with the frames and fragments. It is a slow process of arranging, noticing and rearranging.

It mirrors what is happening in my head. I am sorting through ideas and memories in the same way that I am sorting through objects on the floor.

This residency is less like a place where I need to produce something finished and more like a place where I can  work through these connections. 

I’m back in the chapel, settling into the space and thinking about ways forward .

Yesterday and the days before were mostly about reflection, processing the travel, the studio and fragments of work. Today I’ve brought selected objects from my studio, On my computer and iPad I have photos, videos and sounds from temples and mosques, as well as the small shard temples I made during my time away.
 
Now I’m trying to figure out how to use this time in the chapel. How to gather thoughts, whether to bring in digital material like video or photographs, and how—or whether—to link all these threads: the studio objects, the travel fragments, and the recorded experiences. Perhaps a formal link is not necessary. Perhaps the work will simply be about the coexistence of these things, and the attention and care given to them in this quiet space.

I’m doing what I do in my studio, moving and rearranging objects, sorting through fragments, noticing connections. At the same time, I’m doing the same in my head, sifting ideas, trying to make sense of what’s going on, seeing what matters and what can be left aside. 

The chapel feels like an extension of the studio, a place where this thinking and handling can happen, quietly and without interruption.

Van issues meant I didn’t get into the chapel today, but I have been reflecting on sacred spaces and on memories from recent travels. I am a week back from spending over three months in India and Morocco, spending time around temples and mosques, listening to the sounds and observing acts of devotion.

This is my third year doing this, and I have noticed that I am often drawn to making work in wastelands, beaches, roadsides or derelict buildings. I collect dirt, fragments, shards and small materials. I spend time selecting what to keep, what to photograph, and what to discard. I also film myself arranging and rearranging these objects, exploring connections and rhythms between them.
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I have not yet had the time to go through all the photos and videos or to fully make sense of what I was doing. This residency and the very act of being given this chapel, feels like a rare opportunity. It is a quiet, contained space where I can sit, think and gradually sieve through my thoughts.  

Coming back to the studio after time away was overwhelming. There were many different strands of work all over the place. The chapel allows two things to happen at once: I can reflect on India and Morocco, on the rhythms of ritual and attention that I witnessed and I can process the physical objects and materials that exist in my studio. Thinking and handling, observing and sorting, are happening together. The chapel residency will give me time to notice connections, make sense (or not) of fragments and consider how all of this might feed back into my work.

The question of what makes a place sacred continues to return. Is it the architecture, the actions, or the attention and care given by those within it? Remembering the temples and mosques and the devotion I witnessed, I realise it is often both. The space and the gestures within it, the rhythm of repetition, the focus, and the small acts of care make a place feel alive and sacred.

Having time in the chapel just after returning from months of travel feels deeply aligned. It is a perfectly timed opportunity to reflect, to process both experience and material and to make sense of the many threads of work.