RAGWORT WEEK: 2015
Ragwort Week 2015 is celebrated between 18 – 24 May

The site for this year’s celebration is to be on the shores of the Dead Sea.

Please read the short story below to find out why:

YESTERDAY – TODAY – TOMORROW
Live From The Dead Sea
The Holy Land – 28 April 2015
A short story by Bill Drummond – Photographs by Tracey Moberly

It’s still dark outside.
Just checked my phone.
It’s gone 04:30.
There will be no more sleep.
I’m to be giving a talk at an all women Jewish Orthodox college in four hours time and I still have no idea what I should be talking about.

They are fine art students studying at a branch of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. I have been invited by their lecturer Sagit Mezamer, who is also a curator who I have been working with in a different capacity.

Now that I am here in The Holy City, in this occupied land, all my plans of what I was going to be talking about are out of the window. I try to suppress any concerns I may have about this and just listen to the sounds of what is left of the night. There is the distant hum of traffic, there is the movement of the pillow under my right ear, and, as if he is sitting on the bed post right next to me, there is the full chirrup of a sparrow, the first to welcome in the new day as his predecessors will have done for hundreds of thousands of millions of years, long before there was a man like me to listen to him.

I’m performing one of the scores I wrote for The17 back in 2011. It’s Score 389: LISTEN HARD

I will probably perform this score for the rest of my life.

Now things are falling into place, if listening, and listening hard, is the prerequisite for music making, then looking and looking hard is the prerequisite of visual art making. Before you make a sound or make a mark you have to learn to listen or look hard.

A few years back I had a photo of myself taken up a tree, right now I can’t remember where or why or who took the photo – but it was a good one. Over these past few weeks the urge to repeat this has been growing. To almost quote Ben Moor, there are still more trees to climb.

I arrived here in The Holy City late the night before last and fly back to the UK tonight. The official reason why I’m here is to meet and talk with the above mentioned curator Sagit Mezamer and some of the Israeli artists she has chosen to take part in the artist residency I’m involved with in the north of Ireland. But yesterday and today are more to do with reconnoitering The Holy City for when my world tour arrives here in 2024. It will be the penultimate stopping point of the tour before I take the road to Damascus in 2025. My guide and translator into Arabic and Hebrew for these three days is Rafram Chaddad, who did the residency in Ireland earlier in the year.

Yesterday morning, after going for a shave at a local barbers and making some stop offs to pick up supplies, we drove down to the lowest place on the surface of the earth – the shores of the Dead Sea. My colleague Tracey Moberly is with me. It is her that is insisting that we do one of the Life & Death of an Artist series of portraits down in the Dead Sea. It was also her suggestion that I should be holding a trowel in one hand. In the past I’ve always held a dead animal or symbolic (for me) tool in one hand and a locally grabbed small branch or bunch of wild flowers in the other.

Certain dead birds, fish and mammals hold meaning for me, nothing surprising: salmon, pike, hare, crow, bird of prey etc. As for the tools it has usually been limited to a paintbrush, a crowbar or a wooden mallet. The trowel was Tracey’s idea, maybe a bit Masonic for my tastes, but I guess the trowel symbolises man’s urge to build cities and civilisation in general, more than any other hand held tool.

So it was to be a trowel. The trouble is I am shit at bricklaying, so I feel a bit of a fraud, posing with one.

For the other hand the obvious candidate was a small branch pulled from an olive tree, but in our rush to get down to the Dead Sea, we had forgotten to stop off and get an olive branch and as you might expect nothing much grows on the shores of the Dead Sea. But then I saw these small yellow flowers, sort of daisy-ish. They were the only vaguely living and definitely the only flowering plant in the surrounding desert. So I pulled up a plant of them, roots and all and did the photos, which involved me lying fully clothed in the shallow waters of the Dead Sea. As yet I have no idea if any of this was worth it. All I knew was that my feet got grazed on the rocks and the extreme saline water stung like hell in the cuts, and as I did not have a change of clothes, I had to spend much of the rest of the day soaked through.

But none of this was going to quell my urge to climb a gnarled old olive tree and maybe start this new tree-climbing era in my life.

On the drive back up to Jerusalem…

… hang on a minute, I wanted to get through this whole text without using that name and only referring to the place as The Holy City, but I have let my guard slip…

…we passed some date palm plantations. The thought ‘maybe I should try climbing one of them’ could not be resisted. I tried, but I didn’t get that far up one before what I thought looked like the sturdy stumps of previous years branches started to split and crumble under my weight.

Tracey took some photos and I have to admit I spent most of the rest of the day wondering if it’s a bit foolish of a man who is going to be turning 62 the next day to be re-engaging with his boyhood passion for climbing trees. Was this to be my version of buying a Harley?

Back in The Holy City, I was able to get a bath, but seeing as I had not brought a change of clothes other than underpants and socks, I had to borrow trousers and shirt from a friend.

As the light began to fade from the day, we were out again, this time to do a graffiti that I should have got done when I was last here four years ago. It was the Imagine Waking Tomorrow… graffiti that I have done on bridges in various languages around the world. There was supposed to be forty of them and they were all supposed to have been done before the 29 April 2013 – thus two years ago.

Although, back in my 40s, I ended up in court and fined reasonably heavily, for doing graffiti, the urge to do it has never quelled. The fear of being arrested seems to hold little… We all need a little fear in our life. But last night was the first time I ever felt fear for my life while doing graffiti. I was out doing it on a gantry on the outside of a bridge, about fifty feet above a busy highway. That did not seem like a problem before I started. Just the usual adrenalin stuff, but once I got up there with my five litre can of white exterior paint and a roller I realised that the wooden flooring to the gantry was rotten in places. And as there was nothing steady to hold with my left hand as my right hand got on with the graffiti I just had to embrace the idea, that if this was to be my end, I could not ask for a much better place to die – I mean it would look pretty good on the Wikipedia page.

I didn’t die, but sadly I’m not that pleased with the clarity of my letters, not that I have ever tried to write in Hebrew before, let alone while up on a rotten wooden gantry. And as you may know, Hebrew like Arabic is a backward language, which didn’t make things any easier. I hasten to add not backward in learning but backward in right to left as opposed to our left to right.

The remains of the evening were spent trying to empty my head with the help of half bottle of Israeli wine and some olives and humus in a hidden bar that Rafram Chaddad took us to. It was between the second and third glass of wine that the subject of what these wild flowers I had found flowering in the desert by the Dead Sea were. Fellow colleague and comrade Rafram, knew exactly what they were: סביון אביבי. But the name in Hebrew was no good to me. I put it into Google and soon found they were in the family of Senecio, closely related to my beloved Ragwort. Now this was very good as I had been wondering when and where Ragwort Week should be celebrated this year – and where better a place than the shores of the Dead Sea. The bottle of wine was emptied and I was soon back in my room at the YMCA.

Sleep came fast.

* * *

Its maybe gone 5am. The first signs of dawn are making their way through the curtains in my room at the historic YMCA. And the lone sparrow has been joined by a thousand of his mates. Their dawn chorus is in full force.

But I still have not worked out what my talk to the students is to be about. Or what I am doing attempting to climb trees at the age of 61. Then I get it. As in right now I get it.

When I was a kid and nothing could stop me from climbing trees, I would never stop to question what it was about. Back then I would just head off by myself, find a tree to climb and once I was up there pretty much hidden amongst the leaves, I would just sit and watch the world. There was nothing like climbing a tree to watch the world. So much better in every way than watching the world from the top a man made tower. Seeing as how our corner of rural Scotland had no tenement blocks, that was never an option anyway. Maybe I’m on a mission to see the world as it can only be seen after one has climbed a tree.

There was a row of trees at the bottom of our manse garden up which I would spend hours watching the comings and goings of our little town.

And now I have just remembered the first tree I ever climbed, also in our garden, it was a copper maple. It was certainly climbed before I reached school age. So I guess I was three or four. From there I progressed to our apple tree then the yew tree then it was the large pine trees that we had at the bottom of the garden.

As an adult there has not been much tree climbing until now. I need to see the world again as can only be seen from the branches of a tree you’ve climbed yourself.

Later today, I plan to climb an olive tree somewhere in or around The Holy City.

I question whether I should be asking young Jewish Orthodox women to climb trees in their long skirts and modest but feminine tops. At least their shoes are sensible – as in no heels – climbing trees in high heels maybe somewhat tricky. But if high heels are your thing, don’t let it get in the way of trying to climb trees.

I wondered if maybe I should offer them a choice. They can obey the Score LISTEN HARD or this new half-formed one LOOK HARD.

Then I remember that there was a character in The Bible who climbed a tree to get a better look at Jesus.

Two minutes after writing the previous sentence and with the aid of my father’s army Bible, I learn that he was called Zaccheus and it was a fig tree, and that this fig tree was in Jericho not Jerusalem. There is no time to get up to Jericho today before getting the flight home and anyway I want an olive tree not a fig tree. Another minor downside is that this Zaccheus is New Testament, thus of little interest to those whose faith is Judaism, as in these young women, I’m going to be working with in a very few hours.

A different tack is called for. I consider flipping my interview process, where I only allow the journalist to ask me four questions, four questions I’ve not been asked before and I answer in writing using as many words as I want to answer the questions.

Yes; today I will ask the young women four questions. These questions will be obvious ones. Ones they may have been asked numerous times before. I will write the questions down this morning. Then in the performance lecture I will give them a bit of background to each of the questions. Their answers will have to be written in less than four words.

Here goes. These are the questions.

Question One – What is your name?

After the talk I will draw one of these names from a hat. Whoever’s name is drawn, I will then interview them for forty minutes – this being already part of something I do called Forty Minutes.

Question Two – What morally or aesthetically offensive object or institution in the public arena would you use a tin of Drummond’s International Grey to paint over?

I would explain how I was inspired by the artist Yves Klein, who happens to be Jewish and his birthday is today as in 28 April, but he died at the age of 34 in 1962. Yves Klein had his own brand of paint called International Klein Blue and it was his favourite colour.

My favourite colour as a child when climbing trees were the 1,000 shades of grey I seemed to be surrounded by in the dark days of the late 1950s in South West Scotland.

Each of my 1,000 tins of Drummond’s International Grey had a different shade in it. One of the tins reached a certain amount of infamy when I used it to paint over a UKIP billboard last year (2014).

Question Three – What would you twin?

I would first ask them if towns in Israel were twinned with other towns somewhere else in the world. Then tell them how my town was twinned with a similar town in Germany and we did all sorts of twinning activities at school. And how about 15 years ago I discovered, while working in the city, that Belfast was not twinned with anywhere, so I took it upon myself to get a notice made by a street sign manufacturer and then took this sign to Belfast and attached it underneath the massive Welcome To Belfast sign at the side of the highway one passes while driving into Belfast from their International Airport.

My sign read ‘Twinned With Your Wildest Dream.’

I can’t deny I was very proud of this and how it seemed to capture the imagination of the thousands of motorists driving into Belfast each working day, who would read: WELCOME TO BELFAST – TWINNED WITH YOUR WILDEST DREAM*.

*Note the use of the singular. I wanted to push people into deciding what their one wildest dream would be.

Since then my rather pompously named Intercontinental Twinning Association has been hard at work twinning all sort of major and minor places, objects and ideas with all sorts of other places, objects and ideas. The things include 100 kettles in Kensington, Liverpool with 100 kettles in Kensington, London. This was something to do with the obvious contrast in poverty and wealth in these two vastly different Kensingtons, but we all have kettles, or at least in the UK we do. They are the one thing we all own in common, whatever our status, sexuality, religion or calling.

My last question would be:

Question Four: What would be your super power be?

Note: not what would you do with your super power if you had one, but what would it be?

I would then explain how I have an alter ego called The Lone Sweeper, who is a retired road sweeper. And although retired and no one pays him to do it, he continues to sweep the streets, but not just in his own town, but all over the world. The Lone Sweeper does not have any real super powers, but he believes that all that prevents the scales from tipping the world into all out anarchy is contained in the power of his arms to sweep the litter and dirt that he confronts every day.

I’ve enjoyed taking The Lone Sweeper out to sweep streets from Paris to Berlin via Birmingham. And various chips shops in between.

And maybe after I have asked these four questions and elicited their succinct four word answers, I will then ask them to chose between performing the score LISTEN when they wake up tomorrow morning or climbing a tree looking at the world a new.

It is now gone 7am. My jeans and shirt are dry. Time to go downstairs and indulge in the breakfast on offer at the Jerusalem YMCA and face the day with renewed vigour, my last at the age of 61.

* * *

Twelve hours later. I’m now on the EasyJet from Tel Aviv back to Luton.

The young women were fantastic, but sadly as my Hebrew does not stretch much further than Shalom, there was a bit of a language barrier with some of them.

Afterwards we did a group photo outside and two of the woman took it upon themselves to climb the giant wrought iron and somewhat expressive Menorah. I guess they did this as there were no trees at immediate hand to climb.

It was only after this photograph was taken, that I thought of another question to ask:

‘Do any of you have a birthday in the next month?

One young woman had: the 14 May. I still had my bunch of Dead Sea Ragworts with me. I asked her if she knew what they were. ‘סביון אביבי, but I don’t know what they are called in English.’ I told her about Ragworts and what Ragworts mean to me and how I have a Ragwort Week every year and each year have a place in the world that I like to be the focus, even if only conceptually, for my celebration of Ragwort Week. And as these Dead Sea Ragworts are in bloom now and her birthday was in the next couple of weeks, her birthday would mark the beginning of Ragwort Week 2015. I then asked her if I could have my photo taken with her holding the bunch of the Dead Sea Ragworts. She explained to me, that, for religious reasons, she would have to decline as the photo may then end up on the Internet. I had to respect this request as I always decline to have my performances filmed of recorded for the same reasons.  But she did agree to email me a photo of סביון אביבי – Ragworts on her birthday.

There was only one job left to do, draw a name from a hat and interview one of the students for forty minutes. The young woman whose name was first drawn from the hat also felt she had to turn down the request for religious reasons. A second name was drawn and the interview was done. I do not know if she recorded it or not.

After that we packed up and headed off. Raffram Chaddad found another Palestinian roadside café for our humus and salad.

And then I found an Olive Tree to climb.

I know none of the above makes even a start on sorting out the West Bank let alone the Gaza Strip, but there are still plenty more trees to climb and maybe from one of them we will be able to see a way forward. Start climbing today.

Update 21/5/2015:
Following the publication of this piece Bill received answers to the four questions he posed. They’re listed below. The reason why the student’s names aren’t included (Question One), is because it goes against their version of Orthodox Judaism to have their names on the internet.

Bezalel Academy of arts and design – Orthodox unit students
April 2015/ Jerusalem

2. What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
The past

3. What would you twin?
120,000bc +3000bc

4. What would be your super power?
making clouds solid
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
Painting I did and failed

3. What would you twin?
Eyes and Camera

4. What would be your super power?
Control people, animals and the weather.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
Cover a streetlight shining in the window every night

3. What would you twin?
A half built building that stands for years in the same situation. A kind of Haunted building. Falcons nested there, Its in the middle of the city. I would twin it to the surrealism.

4. What would be your super power?
Observation, Objective vision on essence of things.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
Paint with grey the way from home to the academy

3. What would you twin?
Music and Art

4. What would be your super power?
I would love to understand all languages, including animals language.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
I would put it on a bad mood: fear/ stress etc.

3. What would you twin?
Skydiving and a wish fullfilment

4. What would be your super power?
I would tie strings around the world and would shake it. so that people will wake up from their sleeping. From their selfishness and will start looking at the world and the people who are next to them.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
Paint an elephant.

3. What would you twin?
I would twin myself to the sunset.

4. What would be your super power?
100% awareness, knowledge.
To evolve.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
Disappointments.

3. What would you twin?
Creativity and imagination

4. What would be your super power?
Reading thoughts and minds, and being invisible.
* * *

2. What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
I would color my hand and walk next to street fences, passing my hand between them like I used to do as a child.

3. What would you twin?
The shadows I see when I close my eyes with my “Dell” laptop.

4. What would be your super power?
I would be “The purple woman” who flies secret balloons to the space, filled with prayers.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
Scribble on homework in English.

3. What would you twin?
Pencil and thoughts.

4. What would be your super power?
There is no superpower to effect the world.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
All my past – to start from scratch.

3. What would you twin?
Thoughts and shoes.

4. What would be your super power?
Love everyone and be nice to every one.
Smiles go miles..
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
A door I don’t like in my room.

3. What would you twin?
Man and Freedom

4. What would be your super power?
Heal the disabled.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
I would change it to the color green.
(I don’t like grey at all) and paint tiny sculptures each one in a different shade..

3. What would you twin?
I want to twin me to a camera.

4. What would be your super power?
Draw like a photorealistic artist..
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
I would paint the face of someone I don’t like.

3. What would you twin?
Between the animals ability to smell and people vision.

4. What would be your super power?
Control feeling.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
Paint all the bees in the world.

3. What would you twin?
My hair to a victorian house.

4. What would be your super power?
To go back in time.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
Convert all resentments, fears and concerns and hide them in gray and eliminate them.

3. What would you twin?
I’d like to know and meet my “double identical twin”

4. What would be your super power?
I would love to have: the ability to read others thoughts and to fly.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
Negative thoughts.

3. What would you twin?
Plates and chairs.

4. What would be your super power?
To run faster.
* * *

2.What would you use Drummond’s International Grey for?
The garden next to my home that full with thorns.

3. What would you twin?
My daughter and happiness.

4. What would be your super power?
Every time I will look at a mirror – all people around the world will smile.
* * *

For further information regarding Ragwort Week click here

More from Bill on Caught by the River here