Drawn Through Time: Ore to Bloom
Charlotte Law

Bringing iron ore sourced from the UK I will build a furnace on site in the lead up to the solstice, smelt through the night, and aim for a bloom with the dawn.

Following the process from one material into another the scene will be set with rites lifted from ancient alchemical practice, beginning with donations made to the furnace, itself endowed with a form explicitly female: active and fertile. This durational action will be surrounded with an expressive and automatic drawing series.

Lengths of canvas will roll out from base of the furnace, stretching across the landscape as lines of enrichment to be marked with the materials undergoing the process: charcoal and iron ore.

This drawing is sensuous and physical: made by a body moving in close communication with the earth, a dance-like expression of the process of change within the furnace. As ancient smelting is one of chance and uncertainty, the drawing will be a visual interpretation of that process, ritualized, responsive, fluid, and free from choreography.

Beyond the marks, the drawings will also endure the night, absorbing the effects of the natural environment and the immediate action.

These paper trails will act as temporal map to the process.