Stone Clearing With Richard Herring - Intro

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

Intro - Herring's Mound. On 7th November 2018 in light drizzle Richard Herring takes his dog round the field in order to introduce you to the concept of stone-clearing and his motivations for doing so. In a recording that is sure to infuriate audiophiles he takes us through some of the basic stone-clearing techniques, narrowly avoids standing in some dog faeces and attempts to hide what he is doing from a mysterious, coughing dog-walker. He also encounters somebody's passive-aggressive attempt to reveal the secret of what he is doing and dob him into the farmer who may or may not be pleased that his field is being very slowly syphoned of its stones. Listen in so you can say that you were here from the start of a podcast that will redefine the genre and hopefully one day win the Turner Prize. Check out richardherring.com/warmingup for more info and pictures.

Hello and welcome to a brand new podcast. This is an introductory episode. It's how to stone player. Basically, I'm sharing I'll be your host in this podcast, which will should be running weekly. Well, it's all my death. I'm hoping 50 years of podcasting for this particular podcast. Stone clearing. If you don't know what it is, I'm sure many of you have tuned in because you are a stone clearer. And so this is an introductory episode for people who are new to the art is taking stones from a field and putting them around the edge of the field hoping to create a wall. Some thinkers make a path. Basically, there's a big field. I walk my

dog around every morning. It takes about half an hour to walk all the way around if you're just walking at a regular pace. It's a big field. And I noticed there's a lot of stones on it. And yeah, I thought, well, it probably will help the farmer if I get those stones off. And also, if I build a wall with them, then I will become immortal. That wall will last here longer than my lifespan can be expected. People will come from generations to look at it, try and understand it, work out who was the mysterious person. I mean, I think it will be people. It will be such an impressive wall, but it will be just one man. And of course, human beings have been doing this,

just sweeping down and picking up a couple of stones I spotted there. These are just little ones. The thing is, I want to clear all the stones from this field. Down to what size I don't know. I mean, it's difficult to estimate because I've got quite a good little collection over there by a little bench. You can hear it click, click, click. And yeah, I'm hoping to get rid of all the stones. I mean, the stones litter this field. But there's a sort of philosophical and artistic thing behind this. AO will be creating something out of nothing. Also, it's a little bit about whether such a thing would be possible. How much of a dent can one man make in the stones on a

field this size? I mean, so far, I've been doing this couple of months. I'm largely concentrated on the edge of the field. I'm walking around here. I mean, I just picked up four quite medium sized stones there, just from the edge, which I've walked past every single day. And I look at this, and it seems no different. And that is the thing. This is a task that demands commitment and staying power. And only after a long, long time will we really be able to see any difference. I mean, that's a beauty. I can't believe this little baby has been lying within a foot of where I walk every day and I haven't seen it. Of course, whether the rain reveals new stones or whether overnight

some kind of stone guard comes and places new stones to replace the ones I've removed. I mean, it is raining today, maybe over here. And there do seem to be a lot more stones than usual. So anyway, we're not going to get too deeply into the art and the craft of this introductory episode. This is just a couple of nice stones going on. Again, a nice little can. So there's various terminology that will come up during this podcast. I'll take you through it as a newbie. I'm going to assume a lot of you are newbies. I know many. I apologize for people who do this. For living, no one knows when stone clearing began. But I think it's probably as old as man kind of self. Man has always wanted to attempt tasks that seem impossible to leave

some mark of themselves behind. I mean, look, that one's an inch from the shore, which is what I call the edge between the path and the field. And yeah, so I'll be walking my dog. We'll be probably bumping into people along the way. I try to keep my stone clearing secret. I didn't notice yesterday there's a quite impressive can and I have been blogging about this and some unknown local has put up a sign to indicate that I am the creator of the can giving links to where that is. Please, if you are listening to this, this is a secret. I'm trying to keep the secret from everyone. And Wolfie, come here. Do not have to include the dog walkers. There's one coming here. So I'm just

putting Wolfie on the lead. Might have to be a little bit quiet for a second. I think I'm talking to the dog. I don't think he's maybe heading off in another direction. We may have dodged a bullet, but try and keep the secret. I don't want anyone knowing it's me that is doing this. I don't want anyone, you know, that's part of the joy of it. It's a secret that can never be told as an anonymous thing that's going on. Let's take a little walk and see how this goes. This is a sort of a tester. I've got a wave from the dog walker there, but he's heading off into another cops, which means we can carry on talking. We're actually just passing a little place where I had quite an impressive little camp growing up just outside someone's back gate.

Someone's back gate leads on to one side and a few people's. That camp was kicked over by a disgruntled local, possibly the owner of the house. So I'm actually just transferring some of those kick zones to another location as I go past each day, four or five, to somewhere where my art is appreciated. And that's the thing. This is an art. I hope to enter this in the Turner Prize. I hope that's not too soon to say that, but it will be appreciated. And I'm sure many artists in their day were not appreciated with the work they were doing by local people. But yeah, that particular camp that I'm moving them to is now looking quite impressive as a

result of being two cans worth of stones. And there's another dog alongside us. Don't know if you can hear the coughing spluttering of another dog walker there. So it's going to go back the other way for a sec just to begin carrying on talking, because again, the sequence in this podcast is very important. I wanted to get to know some of my other dog walkers in the area. And yeah, so it's a pretty rainy day today. So the ground is wet, which some people might find off putting if they're collecting stones. But of course, it does mean you can deep down deep into the earth. I am wearing gloves today, which I've started to do. I'm excited to wear my DIY gloves, but I never do any DIY. But there are various

pros and cons to that, of course, because if you're bare-handed, threshing in the winter, as you reach down the earth to collect the stone, you feel the cold of the earth. It's the life and death meeting. And I think that is quite an important part of this is understanding your place in the universe, how long these stones have been here, how long they will be here after we've gone how short a time we are here alive and warm. So to wear gloves, of course, you lose that visceral reaction to the stone clearing. Because in the summer, you don't have that as well. But for the sake of your nails getting dirt on your hand, spreading that to the mouths of your children, it's quite a good idea to wear gloves. You get quite a lot of injuries, cracked skin,

cracked nails, if you're doing this properly. So the stone clearers of old would have been appalled at me wearing some, I mean, their mechanics gloves. I mean, I think mechanics would be quite appalled at me wearing these as well. I think it makes sense health and safety in the modern world to look after yourself a little bit if you're planning to do this on a long-term basis. So look here's quite a big stone further away into the field. Actually, because it's muddy, it's much easier to extract it. I'm approaching one of my more impressive kens, which I suppose is on the west side of the field, I'm guessing I haven't got my compass out. And we maybe are going to cross the field now. Come here, Wolfie. So

come on this way. Good girl. Sometimes what I'll do, and we'll cross in the field, though, this is quite interesting because obviously around the edge of the field, it's pretty easy to take off the stones and toss them into either into the bushes randomly, which I quite like doing, or indeed to make kens specific places where the stones go. But as we approach the middles we're doing now, it's harder, but I sometimes try and see now I'm doing to throw a stone back towards the kens. If I can hit that one here in the bank, didn't get onto the kens. There's lots of different techniques basically. There's the throw, there's the random throw into the bushes, and that will create a stone over many, many years. And then there is the more

formulated creation of a wall we are approaching as we cross this field. I'm now too far from the grounds to Wolfie's digging a hole there, so he's trying to help me, but she's never come from no stones. As we do this cross then I can gather some of the bigger stones and carry them across. It's a very good exercise, being a stone clear, of course. Not only are there a lot of bending, stooping, walking, but in the Middle Ages of course stone clearers would die quite young due to this rigorous work. But also if you do find yourself trying to transport the big stones from the center of the field to the edges you are carrying. I did go through a period where I would bring a bag of a life with me so I could take, oh that's quite a nice discovery there,

like a little tiny stone on the top, but that is a stone bigger than my fist, and I know my fist isn't big, but that's always a lovely discovery. Just saw like, I'm going to call them icebergs, you see the little, that was like a shark fin coming through the stone ocean, the stotion, and picked it out and discovered there was a lot more underneath than I was expecting, and that is a chunky stone that will do nicely on the main can that this anonymous person who's trying to dob me in is called Herring's Mound. It is the most impressive of the creation so far. In a sense it's the show, war, and revealing what will be possible. I mean there are quite a lot of juicy stones as we cross the field. It's difficult to know which ones to take

and which ones to leave, but the thing is these stones will, they've been here for millennia, and most of them as long as the plow doesn't go over will be in the same place tomorrow. The play what plow won't be going over because I'm gathering quite a few here, oh and there's another nice one. I've got seven or eight in the crook of my arm, but there's just an embassment of gold here. I think these stones are worth more than gold because they're not going to create jewelry, they're not about wealth, they're about creating art, and they're about creating something that we'll live on after I'm dead unless some kids come and chuck it into back into the field. But you know, oh and another, I mean there's a couple of lovely

ones here that I'm going to get another really big one just on the path that I'm treading most days, but revealed by the rain and my arms are full now, it will be embarrassing if anyone does approach me, I can't see any of the dog hawkers, I'll have to try and explain what I'm doing. So I'm approaching the Cairn Herringsman, which somebody has put this sign up which I'll read to you, I'm going to take the sign down, I'm afraid, because anonymity is everything, and I think I've got a way with this, I mean I'll tell you how many stones that I've been carrying, just drop one, oh no try and pick it up, I've got two more, this is one of the disasters that can fall this over there, as well as having quite a dirty coat, okay I've got them all.

We're nearly there, you can see, you can hear from my breathing, how difficult it is to carry these across this far, I mean this wall is looking quite impressive, I don't know how other people are adding to it, I think it's made, just made, it did start with some of the dog walkers who I'm doing for had created a fairly pitiful little Cairn, now it's it's very much a corner of a wall, incorporating what I quite like a bit of plough or something that's wonderful, I haven't counted them but maybe you managed to count them from the number of clicks you're hearing, so here it says herrings mound, I'm going to take it down if I can, yes I can, and it says a temporal collection of hardened sediment gathered and

displayed as a comment on spacetime and the futility of actions in this modern age, this is a work in progress or more information, please see the artist's website which says.com that's warming up, I don't want people knowing about it, so as much as I appreciate the support from the mysterious possibly stalkerish member of my local village who has worked out what's going on they must not know, they must not find out, so I've taken that down, maybe they will return with another, who knows, I hope not, I think we'll go back the other way, we'll think, so no we'll go this way, okay, so I mean that is quite a good description of the podcast though, so thank you to

everyone for that, that is what it's about, but they obviously got that from reading what I've been doing, and yeah I think for the moment I, no let's carry on, we'll carry on, we can always edit down, so this podcast will just be me maybe once a week walking around the field, telling you what's going on with the stones, talking about the philosophy why I'm doing this, giving you tips on how to make your kens or how to make your random walls, whether picking up is better than kicking, picking or kicking, whether the farmer would be annoyed if he knew what was going on or happy, whether it's allowable for me to walk across crops in order to find stones, when I started this the field had been freshly plowed which throws up loads of stones

of course, and I have to I suppose make clear that there, I'm taking 200 stones a day off this field at least, it's making no discernible difference, there are stones as far as the eye can see, there are stones deep into the ground as well, that's the thing, so that even if I did successfully clear the top layer the next time the plow came over there'll be another load of them, and I'm not doing very much stone clearing in this particular podcast, I hope the podcast won't distract me from the important work, if you do know where this field is please don't reveal it, you are welcome I guess if you want to add your own stones to my wall, I'd prefer if you didn't because you know I don't think you'd do it as well as I can, but I would encourage you to do this

in your own local field or recreation ground or wherever there is a lot of stones that you know are in the way of other business, now it's very possible of course that the farmer likes these stones and they somehow help aerate the soil, that's not my business, my business is not to help him, if he doesn't want to be helped, my business is the clearest stones from the field, so I think we'll leave it there, I'm about to cut across the field again, in the middle of, I'm passing one of my mini cans which is, I tend to put them around the national trust signs which is what a lot of people do anyway, so to have some dog poo down there right on the path that really annoys me, sometimes I bury that as well, that's just

partly where this began, but there's no time to bury that today and not on the podcast, but we're heading across the field again, the diagonal, the long diagonal and this is where you start to see the impossibility of the task because this path is littered with stones, it's very hard for me obviously to pick up very many as I go and even sometimes just throwing them back towards the direction of the edge, you think well at least that's closer to being off the field, but there is a lamp poster, sorry a telegraph pole in the middle of the field in which I am depositing, I'm trying to make a circular can in the centre of the field which should be quite impressive because there's a

lot of stones out here, it's not going to be part of the wall but I'm hoping the wall will be visible from space, I'm also hoping once I've got the wall underway I might start sketching some of the smaller stones on the path, I've been taking a few big ones from the path so that the path becomes, in a day like this, a more solid affair, the danger of that of course is that unless the ground is quite wet the stones will just get kicked around back onto the field, so I've been resisting that, but a day like today would be a good time to put some small scratches on small stones, make the path which I also hope will be visible from space, I mean I don't know how likely that is, the Great Wall of China I suppose it was visible

from the moon, I don't know if that's true, but a wall obviously has a better shot at that kind of alien style appreciation, but I would also like the human appreciation again, I'm doing this anonymously, no one knows what I'm doing, apart from that one person who's put that sign up and everyone who's listening to this or reading my blog, but apart from that it's essentially a secret, and again as I go along here I'm picking up just a few of the chunky stones, it can be a glory, I think like Stonehenge, I can see how that came about, someone started doing rock clearing, enjoyed finding the big ones and I have said I found a big one yesterday which I'll use as a picture for this and yeah, it's a rare pleasure and

natural delight to find something that big and there's a quite big one I just picked up and nothing, but the one I picked up, yes it was very four or five times the size of this, and then obviously some people start bringing the stones from other places, they want a big one, and with Stonehenge you've got to the point where people are bringing them in from Wales to take them to Salisbury and that for me is very wrong, and yes they're big stones, they can be proud of that, but they weren't even from the field, so all they've done is brought new stones to the field very much against the ethos of the stone clearing, so here I am at the lamppost, there's a dog in the distance, I mean at the moment it's actually moving quite good here, and there are stones

just like so close to the camera, let me put them there and throw that one, all right we'll see, we should go away from that dog, maybe we'll go back the way we came, so I tried to do a podcast yesterday of this and the recording didn't work, so this is very much just an introduction, the real ones will be very different to this, so thanks for listening so far, I'm going to try and save this now and I hope you'll be back for more stone clearing with Richard Herring and to learn more about this valuable and ancient craft, thanks for listening, goodbye.