News from the Quarry/Gwari
The Fools on the Hill
Short story of the evolution of the quarry/gwari
We got a quote for the repair of one quarter of the studio roof in the quarry/gwari, which, when repaired, will enable shows and workshops to resume.
As a result of some sleeplessness last night thinking through options, I am pulled to write the story of the quarry or La Pedrera as it is officially known (after Gaudi’s last completed building in Barcelona, locally known as La Pedrera; means the quarry in Catalan Spanish). I also affectionately call it the Gwari, Cornish for Play, after Plen-an-Gwari, which is Cornish for Playing Space or Place - Cornish ancient theatres (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plen-an-gwary).
I wrote this a week or so ago. First we got the roofing quote for one quarter of the roof £1,000. Within days, of wondering how to pay for that and the other three quarters, I got a phone call from a Star Wars memorabilia company offering me some autographing work, enough to pay for half of the roof rebuild! A sure sign from spirit that this project is to be reborn. Subsequently, more money has been raised by a German facilitating fool and some of his players, as I write the story I realise Germans seem to play an important part in the Gwari story.
I first visited the quarry in 2000 on the occasion of Ray’s 50th birthday, I hardly knew him then, but I did know some of his friends who took me along. Then, it was just ex-quarry tips, mountains of stone, piles of old farming rubbish, an old car scrap yard, barren of any organic matter at all.
Ray had recently acquired the land as an escape from the sunless winters in the Trebarwith valley (the sun doesn’t come over the hill from November to March) and a place to continue his blacksmithing, an occupation incompatible with expensive holiday lets (noisy hammering). Ray didn’t know that the other half of the quarry, that had been in disuse for years, was about to be reopened, and the quarryman being in direct opposition to the re-maturing vision Ray had for his half of the old quarry. And so, a kind of Yin-Yang situation developed, as Ray planted trees, cleared away rubbish, rewilded and landscaped, creating space for nature to thrive, the quarry diggers dug away, and piled up mountains of stone, denying and denuding any attempts of nature to re-establish herself in all her glory.
The Gwari was still pretty barren when Ray and I became a couple in May 2003. I moved my caravan onto the site, but couldn’t envision staying there long, as my love of caravan living is rooted in stepping out barefoot in the morning onto dewy grass and feeling divinely connected to Mother Earth. Here it wasn’t possible to take one’s shoes off without shredding the soles of one’s feet… however it wasn’t long before the slugs, snails and rabbits provided the base material to make soil as a medium for grass to grow. They didn’t let me grow veggies, and the deer and sheep that visited kept eating the new tree shoots, I guess leaving their poo for the development of earth… This was the beginning of phase one of the quarry project, getting to understand the way nature works to heal and grow itself and our role in assisting, nurturing, facilitating, following rather than leading or forcing our will.
“Thy will, not my will be done”.
Very soon we were gifted two mobile homes. Up until that point, access to the quarry pit on the other side was through our side, great big lorries and diggers constantly churning up the clay road through the centre, turning our road into either a mud bath in wet weather or a hard baked deeply trenched and rutted way, unusable by a car.
After despairing over this shared roadway, Ray suddenly had a brainwave: this clay sets like rock or cement. So, he experimented by building some walls using the clay as mortar: 20 odd years later, those walls still stand despite all the weather throws at it. This revelation that he had the perfect building material in this road (radical acceptance or love what is) saw the quarryman build a new road into the pit on their side, leaving the access road free for us to return to nature. When the mobile homes, with their ridiculously small wheels arrived, the road was still a mess, but through sheer madness, brute stubbornness against defeat and joint effort, we somehow managed to get those huge caravans into a place that would block any further access to quarry vehicles, and provide a home for us to root ourselves into quarry life.
Here was my first challenge to turn scanky, unloved caravans into homely cosy spaces, providing all the facilities we needed: toilets, shower, kitchen, heating, telephone (we needed that for the internet then)... Utilities came without usual enormous costs somehow magically. The area that is now the studio was covered with a tarpaulin to provide covered space for meetings, rehearsals, showing films, dining, etc. It was rough and regularly blown to shreds, but worked, some wonderfool times were had. Another large caravan was added to the mix providing more guest accommodation.
Trees grew, grass spread, lusciously and then the land on either side of Ray’s holding came up for sale, and a kind and dear friend offered to buy it for us, for the project, for her dad who had died, who would have approved of what we were doing. Now there was the scrap yard of old rusting cars and a bus to dispose of, it was a busy time, and such a positive, hopeful time of growth and possibility, capped by Wildworks theatre company choosing our place to do their Research and Development for their new show “A Beautiful Journey”, loosely based on the Odyssey Myth. At this point we had our first grandchild just learning to walk and interest by the father of a fool in investing in the building of a permanent studio on the site as we were getting fed up with replacing tarpaulins. At the same time, the quarry on the other side was up for sale (the quarryman was, until then, only renting it) and we hoped to gather people together to buy that and complete our Fool’s paradise around the lake, we put in an offer to the agents responsible for the sale, it was Christmas 2010.
The Fire
It was the morning after a lovely cosy Christmas day with fool friends, the phone rang, early morning, the owner of the other half of the quarry informed us that there had been a fire and our caravan (actually a large mobile home) has been burned. When we arrived on site, the reality we found was alas, not one but both of the mobile homes that provided an anchor for services plus the large caravan which was used for guests to stay in had been completely destroyed, the only remaining caravan was my little caravan that I originally came to Cornwall in.
We faced complete disaster, telephone, electric supply, plumbing, kitchen, showers, workspaces etc. all gone, all that Ray and I had built together over the past 7 years, gone... All that was left was a blackened, twisted, charred mess, remnants of what was once “home” broken and scattered and lumps of melted metal to be cleaned away…. Ray and dear supportive friends did most of this clearing up work as January-February were my busy touring time…..
Then, in spring as new growth began to cover the caravan graves, a commitment to a summer camp for a German group, booked the year before, needed to be dealt with. It seemed impossible to recreate and build a new infrastructure to host this project, but the German organiser insisted “we can camp” and Ray didn’t want to be beaten, he wanted to make it happen. The farmer next door had some old wooden chalet panels in his barn, he needed Euros, I had Euros so a deal was done, and so Betty Blue (after the beach huts on stilts in the movie of that name) our meeting room was born, and the toilet and shower shed complete with plumbing put in the space left by one of the mobile homes (the roof being a recycled roof of an old bus).
Tarpaulin was bought, to cover the space that is now the studio, to create a kitchen dining area. We were up against time, we constantly asked ourselves whether it would be better to relocate the camp to somewhere else this year, but Ray was insistent, he was unstoppable! Then came the weather forecast for the week all our effort was directed towards, STORMS! The quarry is on the top of a hill (the fool on the hill) and exposed to wind, although we had booked a local hall for workshop space, I couldn’t imagine “playing” when players basic needs have been soaked and blown away…. How to meet basic needs of safety so that play can be?
I decided to find caravans, from eBay, from local caravan sites, anywhere that had end-of-life caravans cheap enough for me to buy, I bought 4 caravans (with my little one making five) someone would sleep in their estate car, and another insisted on a tent. It meant sharing, but everyone had a safe bed to sleep, we had a makeshift kitchen and covered dining space, a meeting room and washing and toilet facilities: we had a summer camp that produced some wonderful plays using the landscape of the quarry as stages, creating an unforgettably beautiful experience.
That camp was the initiation of this second stage of the quarry story. What followed was a wonderful generous donation to enable the studio to be built, a labour of love by Ray heaving cob (a mixture of soil, straw and fine stones) to over two metres high to create the basic wall structure, adding stone walls and a timber roof structure, (as the money ran out before the roof was complete, an improvised solution was made). Then came the east and south walls made of large glass windows to follow the suns trajectory, enabling passive heating in the winter. A dance floor reclaimed from a Bristol health and sports centre completed the studio we all know and love.
A kitchen was installed in Betty Blue and electricity wired into the caravans.
For 14 years, we have enjoyed inexpensive studio space and accommodation in amongst natures beauty, which has been a perfect location for creatives to explore their passion in true Joseph Campbell fashion.
It has been a hero’s journey, but as the arc of time swings again, the improvised roof, that worked well but was not as lasting as something more substantial and expensive would have been, has now failed, and all the “temporary” fixes - the old caravan accommodation, the improvised roofs, the electrics... - are all disintegrating and up for renewal.
Ray’s health will not allow him to pull out all the stops and overcome any more mountainous obstacles beyond the ability of most this time. Which makes sense, because the future of the quarry and our planet, lies not in the work of individual “hero’s”, but in the coming together of the collective to build a new world out of the remains of the old, to find ways of working and decision making together, honouring each one of the groups individual skills and talents, where everyone has a place and is honoured and valued, where human beings take responsibility as guardians of this beautiful planet that we are part of and work with nature to create a place to thrive in relative safety and exciting energising challenges, where we can learn how to let go of the old limiting structures that are based on the hierarchical power of the few over the masses, to discover the true potential of the human spirit when allowed to be free.
This then is the guiding force of the next incarnation of the Gwari, a place to dream, experiment and play our multi-selves into the world we want to live in.
Link to Stonewalled a short video by Ray https://youtu.be/kSIEEct9Ke8
As I tend to Ray’s health and his next operation, which we hope will be in the next month, I cannot commit to any travel or projects away from our home base, we are in the hands of the NHS. But meanwhile a community is growing around the Gwari and in helping Ray and the role he used to play in building and maintaining the spaces he has created. We are learning loads and wish to continue providing a resource to play and explore.
Consequently, this year we are open to players who want to be part of the renewal and next phase of this project to participate with their knowledge and skills, with the playing space at the heart of the work. If the idea of participation excites you, then please apply with a list of the skills and or money you can offer, your availability, and what you would like to get out of / find out / explore using a Fool’s work and play model. When I know how much interest there is, I will set up a series of Q&A meetings on zoom to allow progress to evolve naturally.
“We need the vision of interbeing – we belong to each other; we cannot cut reality into pieces. The well-being of “this” is the well-being of “that,” so we have to do things together. Every side is “our side”; there is no evil side.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh