Being There extracts
Extract from: an interview with David Lilburn
from: Joe Wilson in an interview with David Lilburn
DL: In your drawing and painting what is the relationship between the ‘fieldwork’ and work done in the studio?
JW: I think the best example of a very clear relationship of fieldwork and studio work is the Bearings project, which I did on Achill Island. This was a 13 metres long panoramic drawing of the northern ridge of Achill, from Achill Head to Slieve Mor and Dugort. I had walked this ridge a number of times, sometimes as one continuous walk and sometimes in separate sections.
The piece of paper I worked on was set up in a large studio, located in (the village of) Dooagh, on a custom-built wall, orientated along the west-east axis, facing north. Over 5 weeks the drawing was built up as a consequence of many treks out from the studio to make notes - discovering lakes and creeks on the other side of the mountains, and many other things.
First of all, this project combined two of my passions - drawing and walking - but the main thing was that when I was drawing I was thinking of the walking and when I was walking I was thinking of the drawing. The two activities were inseparable in my head.
DL: From what you’ve said the idea of ‘recording’ particular places and events in your work was a key preoccupation?
JW: I suppose the two most significant examples of recording or documenting ‘place’ are the studies I made of the allotments in Manchester (1978) and my later exploration of Tom Brouder’s farm when I lived in South Co. Limerick (1982-83)…
… I
moved to Ireland and I guess in a way, when I arrived here, I was looking for
an equivalent of the allotments -something to explore which would reflect a
particular kind of engagement with, and use of, the landscape/place.
Through my walking trips and through reading about how landscape was shaped, I had an interest in geology, industrial archaeology, antiquities of the landscape, etc. - evidence of what had gone before. I became fascinated by, and took a lot of photographs of, old field systems visible on the hills. This activity was fine whilst walking at weekends and during summer trips, but I wanted something to investigate, study, probe, on a day to day basis - something akin to the allotment project.
I lived in a small village in South Co. Limerick and became friends with
a local farmer (Tom Brouder). I helped (or watched) him bring in hay, herd
his cows and ‘do’ things around the farm. I also noticed small incidental details around the place like repairs and patched up equipment. I’d
found my allotments equivalent - a wonderful world of evidence of one-man-scale
activity.