Mellow Birds and more wood...
Another day, another shift – in mood, perhaps, though not in tempo. The Muscles are beavering away with the numerous tasks unanimously assigned. But you get the feeling that with or without the flipchart list in the main gallery space they would instinctively know what to do – such is the level of new clan kinship.
The hyperactivity of two days ago has been stretched over the time lapse tapering into a steady release of productive energy – like swapping an isotonic drink for a protein shake. The ambitious list of fab-four dinner engagements has been curtailed and the hopefully submitted menu plans of a creative few consigned to the read-only tray in their swiftly emerging site office. They are very much in the middle of making and bloggers that bother feature a long way down their list of priorities. Certainly lower than biscuits, night-lights and the jam sessions I am guessing will take place from the guitars and electronic piano dotted about the material clutter.
In the hungry fight of kunst versus calories, art is winning, by some margin, although gastronomic plans are in place for tonight. It seems the ghost of another Muscle is lurking in the space waiting to cook. A woman called Jackie. Who is Jackie? Not, it seems, a woman or a spectral apparition but Swiss Muscle Hunziker (this is his childhood pet name, though for the record he bears little resemblance to namesake and motor-racing Scot, Stewart). At a suitable point this evening Jackie H will lay down the hardware and don a pinny to produce some high-fat mountain food that will sustain the Muscle massive through a potentially long night.
Now cleared of constructional chaos, the new Café Gallery room feels strangely part of the architectural furniture. Though access is currently easy come, easy go as the doors have yet to be hung and the desks installed (two: one for each Muscle pairing). Inside it’s a rather beautiful structure. An unclad window breathes mid-afternoon light onto surprisingly seductive green panels of board forming the slope of the ‘roof’, though nothing has been painted – all materials used as found. On an external ledge another black piece of paper features a new white text message: ‘Solaris’ with the ‘S’ ‘o’ and ‘s’ highlighted in a heavier hand. I leaf cheekily through some drawings left trustingly on a Black and Decker workbench. A Muscle mantra appears to be emerging, along with a repetitive rabbit motif. These filmic ‘clues’ fit oddly with the presently very practical cult of Muscle. Psychological hints, perhaps, at a very different conceptual territory begging to be explored?
