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UNITED
KINGDOM
Dirt in Art and Guernsey
By Jheri
“I have dirt that I make oil paint with,” says
Scott Methvin, a Laguna Beach, California, painter and Festival
of Arts Exhibitor. “Special dirt, special minerals. This
is dirt,” he said, handing me a small jar of yellow dust. “Somebody
just washed it, special ochre dirt. This is made of sulfur and
mercury out of the ground,” he continues, showing me another
of the many jars of colored soil in his studio.” Here is
a man with feelings for “dirt” and understanding
of its constituents, who has studied the properties of dirt as
they relate to paint and painting.
His trip to the United Kingdom in 2001, shortly after the 9/11
incident, coincided with the birth of the Common Ground 191 project,
and his passion for soil as a paint medium made him an enthusiastic
contributor. “I picked a very obscure island off the coast
of England, called Guernsey, in the English Channel—the
second biggest island. Offshore banking and Guernsey dairy cattle
are their biggest industries. It was the only part of England
that was occupied by the Nazi’s during most of World War
II. Most people have never heard that.” He went on to describe
the island—about the size of Santa Catalina Island off
the coast of California, but with bigger ports—and the
collections process in a foreign country. What it’s like
to leave a cruise ship, be part of a very organized tour group,
somehow try to find bare soil in ancient cities that are mostly
paved, and then face the suspicions of locals when they see you
digging up their soil to collect in a jar. “Let me tell
you something, foreigners don’t appreciate you touching
their dirt. I would have liked to have collected white dirt from
the White Cliffs of Dover, but it’s like ‘what are
you doing, touching my dirt?’” So it was no mean
feat gathering up ten pounds of sandy crushed shells from the
beach in Guernsey to UPS back to Gary Simpson’s studio. “And
trying to explain to the concierge of the cruise ship, after
you’ve given him a ten dollar tip, that you want UPS to
come and get it, even that takes some explaining.” Gary
attempted to get soil twice in Portugal and found there was none
to be seen in the cities he visited. It was all paved; every
inch was developed.
He explained how the documentation process evolved after somebody
brought back dirt from Auschwitz. “Common Ground 191’s
goal at first was just any old dirt, but after Auschwitz, the
goal became to find significant dirt and register the shipment.
It seems significant that beach sand which was the floor of a
Nazi militarized zone would be a part of Common Ground 191, restoring
the DNA of that soil from warfare to the peaceful origins of
Mother Nature’s plan, a colorful palette of the art of
organic life on earth.
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