spill writing (a fish in water).

spillfestival programme 'on surrender'

Several months ago I applied to be a writer for the Spill Festival of Performance Art in Ipswich http://spillfestival.com/

To my astonishment I was selected. The event took place last week over a period of four and a half days. To say that most of the time I was a fish out of water would be an understatement but nevertheless I had a truly amazing time; a real education!

Some of my thoughts are published on the Spill website but I am still in the process of mulling over the impact that the experience had on me. There was so much that was essentially elusive and intangible that I am beset by random and disconnected ideas that hopefully will at some point coalesce.

A ‘surrender’ to the endurance of the artists and a ‘surrender’ to the strength of words will help me to find my way.

 

 

Well meaning!

Two very contrasting exhibitions this week on my short trip to London. Anselm Kiefer at the RA https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/20, paintings and sculptures of massive scale, thick with symbolism and meaning, heavy laden and …dare I say it... leaden! I felt suffocated by all that ashen darkness. With no less sincerity, no less dexterity Disobedient Objects at the V and A http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/disobedient-objects/ with its ‘things’ of political activism, some full of poignant tragedy, others funny but all with a powerful accessibility. It all felt so much lighter with still plenty of food for thought.

Odalisque The Guerrilla Girls at Disobedient Objects V and A.

Performing with Marina Abramovic.

June 29^th

It was with much anticipation that I walked up Exhibition Road at 6.30 am on Tuesday this week to join ‘the queue’ to see Marina Abramovic at The Serpentine. Much to my amusement I was ‘the queue’ for the first two hours. The time passed pleasantly watching the park come slowly alive in the morning sun.

First in to the Gallery that morning, I was greeted by Marina at the door. I entered the quiet space and hesitantly joined in the performance, a tacit choreography of silence, deep breathing, slow walking, meditation led by Marina Abramovic and her small cohort of young assistants.

It felt good to be part of something, a small historic happening …included…and yet it also left me feeling profoundly insignificant and lonely…excluded…

Ahh well the experience was however, extraordinary and despite leaving me with this confusing mixture of emotions. And as I made my way back through the park I felt naughty and rebellious after the constraints if conformity and stuffed myself with the remains of my breakfast and kicked at the grass!

http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/

 

 

 

 

Flapping above the void.

It is a tricky thing when your happy little plans are suddenly upset and questioned and turned upside down. My trusted and insightful friend and mentor came to the Studio this week to have a little update on Stumps. She is always very thoughtful and considered in the advice that she offers but often it is the space between her words that leave the most profound impression.

Setting the cat amongst the pigeons, however, has left me feeling unsettled and uncertain (yet again)!  I feel sure that in the flapping new thoughts and another way forward will emerge but until then I must hold myself still and not look in to the void.

marked

'Soft Art' in 1988.

What treasures we are privileged to in tap into with charity shops and second hand bookshops. A serendipitous find of a catalogue from a Barbican exhibition in 1988 led me on a nice little research trip on the internet. A couple of the artists featured in the exhibition have left few traces of their work made in the intervening years. Several however seem to have continued a lively practice, quietly developing thoughtful and challenging work apparently unconcerned that their names have faded into obscurity and their art largely unsung.
...except perhaps for the few who like myself have drawn heart from a glance back to their heyday in 1988!

Barbican Catalogue 1988

The incredible lightness of pencil

The first day of Summer and after such a wet week the promise of the longer evenings and some sunnier days have opened a lighter space in my mind. And in to this space creeps the longing again for drawing, the soft call of pencil on paper. Its seductive appeal, something that I have written about before, is not to be ignored. This week my easel will be gently dusted, my pencils sharpened and lovely paper bought.

pencils

The eyes have it!

 

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/chris-marker-a-grin-without-a-cat

 

Eyes follow you everywhere, looking out from the photographs, unblinking and intense from the projected films, some blindfolded, many questioning and others full of love. I did not spend enough time at Chris Marker’s A Grin without a Cat exhibition at The Whitechapel Gallery. Markers imagery however settled itself deep within my memory and has surfaced floating and powerful on a number of occasions since visiting this week.

One of his works was based on T.S. Eliots The Hollow Men, a disquieting visual reflection of Eliots poem.

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats’ feet over broken glass….