‘Things seem permissible underground that would be absurd or even wrong in the clear light of day”-Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children, 1981
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| 35" Deep at end of Day 2 |
DAY 2: Mostly cloudy, low 80’s, a little muggy. Still good weather
for digging.
Here I am standing in the hole after one hour of digging today.
This seems to be my energy limit. I thought I was smiling for the camera, but I guess not. The hole is now 35” deep – down 5” from
yesterday. Digging was harder today. I encountered lots of stones and rubble, plus a few big marble rocks that I dug around, but did not have the
strength to remove. One monster stone may be a big boulder poking into the
hole. Jonathan the Studio Manager said he’d see if he could extricate it. Still not thinking about the spiritual me. The physical self demands all my attention.
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| Hole site at the Carving Studio and Sculpture Center in West Rutland Vermont |
The Carving Studio has kindly provided me with a tent,
tarps and tools.
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| spade-pick-shovel and gloves |
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On Day One I used two types of shovel. The pick ax was too
heavy. Now that I’m down almost 3 feet inside the hole, the space is too tight to swing and hoist the shovel, so I use the pointed spade to shave away at the
sides and base. Then I scoop and scrape the dirt into a little plastic pail
with the hand trowel.
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| Pail and trowel-adjusting the tools for the changing space |
The pail doesn’t hold a lot, but it’s a good weight of
soil for me to fling up and out of the hole onto a rising mound of dirt. I
posted a 1minute 20 second closeup digging video to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5f9kYjice0
I’m feeling the effects of the digging tonight. Not pain...just some soreness in the
calves, biceps and waistline. I
recognize a fuzzy buzzing in my head. This sensation is my body’s gentle
knocking at my consciousness that I’m exerting myself too much, and to slow
down. I shook up a fizzy concoction of water and “Emergen-C”– a super dose of
Vitamin C that has boosted my core stamina in the past. I also pulled something in
my side when I tossed a pail of dirt out of the hole like a shot putter. We'll see how it feels in the morning, but so
far so good. I’m craving
fresh spinach, real butter, meat and chocolate.
I leave you, tonight with some hole drawings from last
summer when I was contemplating this project and had a studio in Brandon, VT.
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| Hole 1-side cutaway |
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| Hole 2-topview |
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| Hole 3-side cutaway |
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| Hole 4-side cutaway |
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| Hole 5-side cutaway |
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