Ice Patrol
I’ve wanted to make some work about HMS Protector for a while now and signing up for an online course in artist’s bookbinding with Domestika recently, gave me the perfect excuse to begin thinking about how I might approach the subject. I’d been so preoccupied with where HMS Protector took me back in 2016, that I think I forgot or perhaps neglected to consider the impact the ship itself had had on me. I was onboard for five weeks, seperated from my husband and my kids, who were quite young at the time, by 12,000 miles of ocean and immersed in an entirely alien, naval environment, so it shouldn’t really have been a surprise to discover that being onboard was a life-changing experience in itself.
HMS Protector is a phenomenal ship. A solid, heavy metal safety cage, laced with old school analog wiring and complex, endless pipework, but with a high tech edge that feels almost incongruous against the industrial, mechanical framework. I remember the smell of salt and grease, the gyroscopic movement - heave, pitch, roll and yaw. The sheer and flex of sea ice, clumps scraping and breaking at the bow. And the noise! My god, the hammering of pistons in the engine room.
This little book is a start, an entry point into thinking more deeply about this aspect of the residency. I’ve found the whole process of making it so enjoyable, meditative too. It required an accuracy of forethought, measurement and placement and an evenness of fold that forced you to be slow, to really take your time.
I could get quite addicted to bookbinding I think…
