Thursday 6 December 2007

A small gleaming eye


On Sunday a re-union with a friend who I hadn’t seen since spring, brilliant to catch up and chat. Over last few days so tired and feeling dim and trying to push through that, but it’s as if I’m locked in anaemic fleshy prison. No door, no window, no hands, no mouth, only diminished capacity eyes and ears. This mind of mine slowed too but not stopped. Internally I’m hurling myself against hard surface again and again, in rage, in exasperation, but actually too tired to lift arms. Body bruising anyway. Almost want to be puppet on strings, my ego the master to my resisting body. Or willing sun (when it’s out) to fashion yellow strings out of its rays and attach them to strategic points on my body and pull me up and out.
A small gleaming eye remains open towards larger picture. Imagine experimental artwork I’d like to make. Can almost see them take shape, feel the movements of arms and hands, the touch of the materials. Watch objects become or not, as I discard as many ideas as I hold on to. Meanwhile the hairy-girl-mountain remains a mole-hill sized shape, the giantess’s breasts still hang hang hang unsupported, only the Suppenkasper-dress growing incrementally in tiny even stitches. I jot down half-sentences which may or may not end up here, make notes for new text, wondering if any of this will take me somewhere solid. Thinking too of your posts that I long to keep up with, stay in touch.
Today slightly better, writing this in weary fits and starts. Sky grey, no sun, no yellow strings, without artificial light my room a grey-lined box. Back to bed.

6 comments:

Amanda said...

So sorry to hear you are struggling at present. Thinking of you...

redredday said...

hey Marjojo...so glad to hear from you yesterday...did you know i really needed it after reading this post?
your drawing so beautiful and your words...it hurts to see and understand so vividly what you are going through...amazed at how difficult it is for you already yet you are still so there for others. i am so in love with your strength and the intensity of your will to do what you do despite it all. have no doubt that you will make it great. you are already a famous artist in my mind.

Cally said...

i echo mien's words, she puts them so well. i empathise totally, have had leaden arms and similar thoughts and feelings through a fairly horrible week. i try to post daily but sometimes it's just too much effort so my creativity and my thoughts get stodged up in my mind, unexpressed and frustrated. so many ideas, plans, urges... but no ability to act on them in the moment. this is why i am so grateful you have sent me back to my old work, the crochet grows a little most days, sometimes only a very very little, but that is still good.

i hope we both get some of those golden rays soon, they make the biggest difference. x

here is my reply to your blog comment, to save you revisiting...

marjojo
you are spot on, the background image was the tundra episode of the mighty boosh, so it really was arctic.

i have some books i think you'd like more, cream with red & black ink and red thread. they open out to a long pieces so that they can be mounted as a series in one frame, but with the cuts in them they are nicest half folded with light behind. i will mark one with your name for the day i do my big giveaway (once everything has been properly photographed - long term goal).

Nathan Walker said...

sorry i haven't been in touch, think of you often and your work, still checking blog regularly.

Your drawings are great would love to see more of them and of process. looking back to you early blog posts there were a series of great photographs and writings on process, desks, influence, which i find really useful.

thankyou

N x

Susan Kruse said...

Even in your struggle you manage to share meaning and humanity and wonderful words. The Gods don't want you well, 'cos you'd burn like the Sun! :-)
We have just passed the dark moon phase during the last few days before the Solstice. Wind's a howling, rain's a running and the dark is coming to get us! What is a body to do? Hunker down, keep warm, eat oranges, watch only funny films and suck up all the admiration and love we's a sending.

Ursula Achten said...

Marjojo I read and reread what you wrote and your wonderful writing gives me the possibility to share your emotions and feelings, but I'm lacking an answer. So now I read, what Kruse wrote about the gods and the burning sun and it nearly made me cry...it's exactly, what it is: you are so present, so active and this activity must not always be visible for the eyes.
The sun, even covered in clouds, lights the day!