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In 1993 I was Visual Performance student at Dartington College of Arts, as a mature student I was very aware of the luxury of time to discover and pursue ideas.

At that time I was studying Marcel Duchamp's Readymades of 1913 which led me to The Large Glass (Duchamp worked on his "Glass" from 1915-23) This work proved to be the catalyst to my using frozen water as my chosen medium. As a result of a tutorial with tutor Roger Bourke, when I attempted to explain that it was the spatial quality that I found fascinating. The gaps between the inner forms of the work and the outer world of reflected reality framed in the space and context of where the viewing takes place. Roger suggested I looked at John Cage's 'Essays on Silence'.

This resulted in my first Ice Installation entitled G A P's, which consisted of three large panels in ice with my text projected;

In the Beginning was the word, made flesh, manifest by sound. Sound fleshed by Cosmic Space, Universal Gaps, the between received sound that delayed split of infinity dream time, pauses of purity, flash of inflection bouncing mirror imagery, shot through space to land chaotic as droplets of solder, made readable to us as dust between glass sheets fighting the man-made treadmill. Leaving the Gaps between Our eyes the boundaries……and dreams, order and measure made chaotic. Together with a John Cage quote Silence; "By now we must have gotten the message. It couldn't have been more explicit.Do you understand this idea? Painting relates to both art & life. Neither can be made I try to act in the gap between the two"

The text worked with the ice, the result was pure magic. Listen to Ice melt, running over steel trays, droplets into rivers, collecting all available light in pools. Since that time I have had many melts including freeing text from ice blocks, one with strips of text, one complete and one with single cut words. I then took a blow-torch to the blocks until I felt the work complete. The ice, ashes and text collapsed revealing words and displaced sentences in ash islands.

I have minced and crushed ice for it's sounds and listened to the ice creaking, fracturing, cracking giving voice and moaning it's momentary state. I have gazed at rock graphology, the inscriptions of time in stone and read the repeated hieroglyphs in ice. Joining the opposite ends of the year by using Spring Snowdrops and Autumn's skeletal Magnolia leaves frozen in sheets and placed in a river. Melting in a journey to the sea.

In the process I have freed my self, so whilst one might assume my work with ice is dealing with loss, I feel it to be more life-affirming. After all we can not exist without water, it is our most precious resource. I now work in Landscape with scale memory and impact, by finding the essence of a site and producing site sensitive works in Ice, which return to the elements from whence we all come.

My work - Why Frozen Water

For me my work is as basic as bread and water. Bread as sustenance, water for survival. This becomes clear when you consider the implications of water as a basic resource and key to our existence. My work is based in the history between the sedimentary layers, stories of people from a given place and time which I uncover and make visible for a duration, sometimes it is the land itself that speaks, resounding with past echo's - this site sensitive approach is imperative for me.

The cover of ice-age sheets in geological terms have had a lesser effect on the earth than that of rivers. Streams and rivers in their rush to the sea cause destruction, erosion and transportation of silt and gravel. When ice is present it doesn't erode rocks, but shields them. The complexities of rocks and their structural patterns are built from minerals e.g. granite is composed of quartz, feldspar and mica.

White Quartz has long represented the Female Lunar Deity and is linked with her power over the sea tides. Quartz was placed at wells and other ritual sites, as were bleached bones. Prior to Christianity, Mother Nature ruled supreme. She was believed to dwell in water - possibly the origins of The Lady of the Lake.

Visually frozen water in landscape reads as quartz. Frozen water is capable of holding forms in either fluid states or in suspended animation. In its suspended state frozen water holds colour-absorbent qualities that cannot be found in any other element on earth. In earth's orbit around the sun it seeks the light and warmth. The sun fires the frozen earth in the victory of spring over winter - the return of life.

Most cities and settlements have evolved on the banks of rivers for very practical reasons i.e. water for irrigation and trade, but the reflections caught in the water are held in the hearts of the people, representing a continuity and a visually constant mirror, distortion blurring the lines and lives, holding an image and carrying it away into the unknown.

Handel's Water Music or Smetanas Morldau have the poetic accessibility of generational rivers. Paul Robeson was the first to sing 'Ol Man River' [composed by Jerome Kern] in London in 1928 [first sung by Robeson in his Harlem flat in 1926]. Water-born songs such as 'River' from the classic 'Blue' by Joni Mitchell 1971 or 'Cry Me A River' by A Hamilton, 1977and Patti Smith's recording 'Pissing In A River from Radio Ethiopia, 1976 continue to hold a relevance to subsequent generations. There are many more.

Water has the power to draw people towards it, the energy may be harnessed for good or ill. We are used to the luxury of water, after all "It's on tap"- but 1.4 billion people do not have access to safe water. Water-related diseases account for the deaths of 25,000 children every day.

Water saturates both legend and history. Elf comes from the Anglo-Saxon word necor meaning water-demon. The Scottish Kelpie is a water spirit, which has the power to change form into a horse and drown travellers. Around the coast there are many stories of fishermen being lured to a watery grave by siren singers and mermaids.

We speak of cleansing the mind and body, cleansing the body of toxins by fasting and bathing, purification in wells, pools, under water falls, in rivers or sea, all are part of our human ritual and our sense of rebirth from font to flotation tank, there is a sense of sanctity and a recognition of water's healing quality. There are spiritual connections with old holy wells, which were visited for enactment of healing rituals [the collection of leeches for medical practice], and associations with fairy and giant legends.

Underground streams from Greek mythology : The River Styx, the departure point of life that all crossed to get to Hades, the underworld and residing place of spirits. The need for spirituality or 'otherness' is still a basic human requisite. Many modern belief systems search for a sense of harmony and balance, e.g. Yoga, Feng Shui [Wind & Water] the ancient Chinese art of harmonious arrangement bringing good luck. All objects belong to an elemental group. This reflection of need, suggests that as, mostly urban dwellers, we have lost touch with the land and need to be 'earthed' by natural forces. To be in touch with nature, equals harmony, happiness but much more than that, back to the garden of associated memories, when all the world was new but possible even more than that, back into our primordial soul. Dust to dust we are as elemental as the landscape.

I have chosen to use frozen water for the ephemeral quality of ice, a constant reminder of our mortality, a metaphor for life and death, 'Here Today - Gone Tomorrow'. As water we return briefly, leaving our mark in the landscape. As with footprints in snow, the indentations leave the earth surface disturbed and compacted, momentary shadows of the way we were.

Frozen Assets

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This project has been building since 1997 and I am heartened by genuine responses. I have sought marketing help from South West Water and a top advertising agency and await responses from Sattchi and Sattchi and the secretary for International Development, The Hon.Clare Short .

I have a freezer facility thanks to Richmond Frozen Confectionery and Roadford Reservoir site for the public event, thanks to South West Water.

There is use of the carpark and possibly of cafe.

Together we could build an Ice Mountain using buckets as moulds. The mega freeze and melt-down would raise money for Water Aid Charity, Registration number 288701, President: HRH The Prince of Wales. Water Aid is at Prince Consort House 27-29 Albert Embankment, London SE 1 7UB or email wateraid@compuserv.com web site www.wateraid.org.uk

What is the rap of a dripping tap; a drop of life. People have the power to improve our global future.

What monetary value has a bucket of water? What would you offer? Take a few minutes to think of your water usage and then consider the global picture. Ten pounds can improve a well in Zimbabwe; Two hundred and fifty pounds can provide a tub well serving 650 people in India. To date Water Aid has enabled many communities to source clean water and has provided maintenance, training and health education. All involved in this project are volunteering their time and skills as indeed I am, having in reflection, a particular love of water and all it represents.

Help us cost a bucket and put a real value on the contents. We can make a difference: ten pounds will buy a shovel to dig trenches: fifteen pounds will cover the cement for a family latrine in Zambia: twenty five pounds will provide safe water for a family in Nepal.

We are also looking for companies to put up some money: donations for transport from freezer to site, buckets, etc. in advance of this event.

If your company is interested in this project and wish to contribute please fill in the form below