Ruffled feathers smoothed - Salted duckies okay

The combination of Carlisle and Bitts Park playground in the sun and retrieval of dead game birds from salt barrels for a Seditious exhibition is an unusual family day trip, and I did realise yesterday that I am possibly the only person in the world currently blogging about doing this to game birds!

The process of retrieving the birds is typically archeological, involving scrapping layer after layer of salt from around the presumed site of the bird, using the intensity of coloration as a guide.

It is also a highly olfactory process, but not in as negative sense as one would presume, the boxes when opened have a distinctive smell more akin to a newly cleaned hospital than a butchers ( that is presuming the process has gone to plan, in contrast failed preservation has quite a different stench!).

Again, counter to assumptions it is the salt that harbours the smell, not the carcass, as through the process of osmosis the salt has drawn out all liquids and bacteria's(?) from the birds. Salt is incredibly affective at this, and throughout the process I have to be very careful to keep hydrated and even resort to hand cream- quite counter to my usual neglect.

Once the bird is accurately sited, a slow process of excavation begins, being careful to remove

as much salt as possible that is unnecessarily weighing the bird down, but not going within 5mm of the bird itself. Its worth pointing out that at this point the bird is still fairly soft, and as such vulnerable, think about the texture of parma ham (a highly similar process), and as such could easily rip or come out of its desired pose. This point of the process is about the balance between keeping enough salt on to continue the process, maintain the attractive salt structures and formations, maintain the poise and structural integrity of the bird - while also removing enough to safely lift the bird and throughly check them over.

The Wigeon and the Teal (or was it a partridge?!) were particularly challenging as due to their size they shared a box. The other birds were alone lying in state, and largely centred, the main challenge being the temptation to just risk it and stick my hands down the side and lift them up. The size increments of them together seems appropriate and having checked the backs I am confident the hanging method will work, I must use a selection of nails that are fairly long though, to allow for the skin stretching around the backs buckling unevenly while drying.

Aesthetically they have maintained the poise hoped for, with the dehydration tightening the birds around the armatures so formally they almost appear elegant, I am reminded of the extreme curvature of a prize gray hounds constantly 'breathed in' stomach, the dark game meat will be starkly beautiful against the white gallery walls, with salt mediating between the two.

Good Breeding - final countdown

Today, (perhaps tomorrow, feral children dependent) I am going to my studio to check on my barrel salted duckies, one of the three pieces exhibited in Sedition. Its a tense and crucial exhibitionready check up.

I say duckies colloquially, in fact the birds used are a Grouse, Wigeon, Wood Pigeon and a Partridge all raised and hunted within 50 miles of the exhibition. The piece Good Breeding (domestic ornament) is a revisitation of a previously exhibited and sold piece, recontextualising it in what could be considered a 'local' situation; taking into consideration concerns locally such as sustainable land management, local food, indigenous industries and artificial presentation of the landscape for public consumption. In some ways the previous version of the work, (made in 2008 and exhibited in the SCOPE london art fair) wasn't unaware of these concerns, but I had underestimated there potency and resonance with the viewer.

In its initial exposure in a critique context, Robert Williams

my then tutor and still highly respected fellow artist referred to the 3 dead ducks flying up the wall as a 'one line joke' - and there is no denying the continuing humour of the work. However, I think the humour belies a quiet intensity, the piece is esthetically rigorous and not repulsive to view, however it is constructed by completely reconfiguring the game bird carcass's to mirror the facimily of flying ducks so iconic to english'ness. This is a very intensive and immersive process, even for a carnivorous chef familiar with culinary manipulation.

The salt so essential to the preservation process then clings to the wings and any incidental feathers that escaped plucking, taking on the appearance of a heavy frost, the uniformity of colour again sanitizing the fleshy reality of the piece. One irony of the piece is the expectation of repulsion by the viewer, who in a different context - a restaurant or high end supermarket advert would be encouraged to 'desire' the birds, who would be laid out as a dish for consumption becoming both sustenance and a mark of status (an interesting parallel to the consumption of Art).

Each duckie is currently in its own separate salt filled box, stretched around an armature slowly dehydrating and preserving, collection by the gallery is on the 13th ready for install in the show and by virtue of the methods requirements (and associated sanitary sensibility) I have yet to check its is all going to plan. Frankly I am not sure what could go wrong, all the birds were fresh so they do not have the embodied risk of using road kill and the tendency to infestation, from the outside of the box they are behaving as expected - liquids transitioning to the slowly colouring salt, the armatures are well made and backs pre-prepared for wall mounting, but until I am completely sure then I'll be in doubt and still be preparing for plan B...