Artist Works the Local Rock at the Bancroft Gemboree - it is reminiscent of Rajistan’s Pushkar Fair

gemboree2 026, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

The utilitarian, concrete shell of the curling rink is our first view of the show. It is one of the two buildings in which the gemboree is taking place; the other location is 100 yards beyond at the North Hastings Community Centre. Several canvas shelters are pitched outside. The heat, the dust and tented pavilions have a strangely exotic air. It reminds me of something out of Kipling, a wind-blown wasteland in the remote deserts of Rajistan, maybe the Pushkar Fair or the famous meeting of Berbers in the Atlas Mountains - to wed their daughters. Other far-flung gatherings are greeted with no less promise than this.

The high-pitched whine of power tools suggests the focus of activity, the heart to which the travelling hounds are drawn. From beneath a blue plastic awning in the baking heat a cloud of dust billows. This is Paul Shier, the premier artist attending the show. He has been commissioned to produce a work for the town of Bancroft, a great mineral spike protruding from a block of stone. The work proceeds with the aid of an industrial size grinder. He is I am told, “freeing the gem within.” I watch him labour, the lower half of his body exposed in a scorching wedge of afternoon sun. “How’s it going?” I shout during a lull in the noise. He peers at me trying to decipher my words. I expect he is half stupefied by the heat and noise; his face powdered by the product of his labour. “Exhausted” was the obvious reply.