From all of us to all of you!

Nicholas Serota: So what is the purpose of art?
Gerhard Richter: For surviving this world. One of many, many (purposes)… like bread, like love.

Art and bread and love for all of us!
Happy holidays!

Every day we tried to be good

Sometimes, when I finish a piece of work, put it aside for a bit and suddenly come across it again - I see it as if for the first time. If I'm lucky, and then I know I've got something right, I fill up with pleasure at what I've made. An idea which used to live in my head and in a tiny drawing on a scrap of paper - has become real! It's almost like feeling a kind of tenderness, what a weird idea, and there's a sense of recognition, by which I mean, I find some of what I wanted to express. I can see its faults too, but that's o.k. Christian Boltanski, whose work fascinates and moves me, said somewhere that he wants his audience not to discover but to reconnect. Less modest than you think at first. Good enough for me.

Materials: crocheted from Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk
Dimensions: 35 cm x 35 cm and 34 cm x 35 cm

Read a review!

by Chris Osburn in whitehot magazine of contemporary art.

The show is over

but still resonates in many ways, illuminating these rather tired days. As per usual I didn't sell but I learned a lot from all the processes leading up to the exhibition. And from trying to answer fairly challenging interview questions, which made me think deeper and harder about my work and its temporary encounter of and entanglement with Tom Butler's and Aly Helyer's. The sensitively considered curation by Rosalind Davis and Jane Boyer came as a revelation too - in the clever groupings of pieces and the ensuing conversations between them the show positively pulsed with life. Connections were made across media between painted things and real ones (we all have an obsession with hair), textures, patterns and colours, openings and orifices… With our shared interest in the unconscious, in the refutation of the borders between the imaginary and the real, it sometimes seemed like the work came from one brain and three pairs of hands. I saw my work in a new light - it sat very well with paintings and drawings, and its materiality, its thingness shone. The audience seemed to engage strongly. Feedback was very good. One day I'll sell. At a good price. In the meantime I'm crocheting away, plotting new pieces and wishing for an abundance of hands or at least a pair that is never tired.

PS. Eye-rhyme, a video I shot 1998, and which I hadn't watched for years, was selected for the exhibition too, which was rather wonderful as it allowed me to reconnect with work made before I fell ill. A good piece, even if I say so myself. It made complete sense to have it there - I could discern the continuity in terms of subjectivity and sensibility pervading all my work. What a delight.

My Changelings rock!

I have had some great news this week. My Changelings will go to Kaunas, Lithuania, in September, as part of Kaunas Biennial
TEXTILE 11: REWIND-PLAY-FORWARD. The brief was to link one's work with a text, a narrative, to do with memory, where the personal, the social, the historical interweave. Under the title 'Pedestal for a legless girl' I wrote about my cousin Edith and how the childhood memory of her shoe with the high-raised sole slowly but inexorably led me towards the concept of the changeling and finally the crocheted work. Both text and work will be displayed in the exhibition. You can see how this pleases yours truly. I can't stop grinning.
The artists selected come from all over the world: China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Russia, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, USA, Canada, Israel, Lithuania, Estonia, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, France, and the UK. Look at that gorgeous list of international artists's names:
Ainsley Hillard, Alice Kettle, Amélie Brisson-Darveau, Beili Liu, F4 Artist Collective [Susan Jowsey/Marcus Williams], Fiona Kirkwood, Gao Yuan, Katie Waugh, Katya Oicherman, Kristina Čyžiūtė, Kyung –ae Wang, Laisvydė Šalčiūtė, Lia Altman, Lina Jonikė, María León, Marion Coleman, Andrea Milde, Marion Michell, Michaela Melián, Monika Kreivė, Monika Žaltauskaitė-Grašienė, Nina Bondeson, Rasma Noreikytė, Rūta Naujalytė, Signe Kivi, Sonja Andrew, Tilleke Schwarz, Virginie Rochetti, Wang Haiyuan 王海元, Watanabe Misao, Tonje Høydahl Sørli

Oh, I'm giddy. More in good time. :)

Changeling 5

This one could roll down the road like a wheel of cheese or hang in the night sky when the moon is tired. She is so cute she'd have to wear a sign saying "Do NOT tickle!" Her chuckle-belly is hers alone.
I crocheted her from the inside out, as if she were spinning into existence from her bellybutton, using two different crochet hooks, one following the other.
Two more to come.

Materials: crocheted from Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk
Dimensions: 39 cm x 39 cm

PS. The last few months I've had internet problems and haven't been able to look at your blogs, alas. Hope to do just that when energy allows, reconnect.

Mien was here!

My cup runneth over! Not only that I've got work in an exhibition, that I can look forward to another show at Core Gallery in the new year, that so many friends came to the private view and shared my joy in seeing my work out in the world: on Monday Mien and John came to my house. That would have been glorious enough, but my bbf came bearing gifts... The paper-covered egg-shells feel warm in the palm of my hand, as if inhabited once more, with a tiny slumbering being magicked inside by Mien, when she painstakingly put the egg back together. Looking at the seams I'm thinking of a baby's fontanelles...
It was kind of weird to meet in the flesh, but also felt like the natural continuation of the long, ongoing conversation we have had through the net. My work hangs, lies, hovers everywhere in my flat - I showed it off like a mother her little children. Yes, Mien was here!

Lalala lala lala...

I have just accidentally discovered (I admit it: googled my name!) that I am one of the artists chosen for an exhibition at the Core Gallery as part of Deptford X 2010. My little Gym turtle is pictured on the website. More details as I get them.

Between a smile and a grin

It has happened - my show at the Arthouse is up and running! The exhibition is tiny but finy and the Arthouse is something else: I've never seen a building where every last detail has been considered carefully to make access and inhabitation as easy as possible. I was given a room for the days leading up to the exhibition and after so I could rest, see my show and present my work in person - exhilarating for this artist who normally sends her work by parcel post.
I can't tell you how much help I had along the way: the art and texts are all mine but without my friend Agnes hiring a car and driving me to Wakefield and back I wouldn't have been able to go, and other friends, Anna, Lindy, Linda, Nicola, helped in all kinds of practical ways. Never mind the belief of so many people in my art and in me...
I loved presenting my work to an interested audience (about 35). It made me feel part of the world again! I wore a sumptuous red velvet jacket which I'd designed and Tessa B. made for me in exchange for one of my pieces. Actually, my 'design' was a two square inch pencil drawing and Tessa enhanced on it - just gorgeous! Of course you'll know what it was inspired by… I certainly did not have the impulse or courage for extravagance before I fell ill, but I really wanted to mark this occasion with my very own visibility cloak.

Go see if you can, the exhibition will run until 21 July 2010
________
I have recorded a presentation "Lying low and reaching high:
On practising art and living with M.E.", which will be available for viewing during the exhibition.

Coming up: My first solo-show!

Between a whisper and a hiss -
Hairy things and steps and stitches

at The Arthouse in Wakefield
from 26 May - 21 July 2010
Launch Wednesday 26 May 5-9 pm
Artist talk 7 pm

________
I have recorded a presentation "Lying low and reaching high:
On practising art and living with M.E.", which will be available for viewing during the exhibition.

Dandelion dream

smile burn, tickle turn
pleasure peal, hormone steal
yolk yawn, lemon dawn
golden chill, compass spill
free fall, summer call
spinster's song, crochet pun
eye rhyme, flying blind
hopscotch halo, cross crawl, yellow
double dose of underpants
envelope for the sun

Dimensions: 28 cm x 29 cm

Leaps and bounds and belly laughs

My tired hands are refusing service with delicate thread and thin needles, with the result that a couple of minute fairytale dresses are lying around unfinished. Energy still comes by the thimble-full, but hooray, I found that my hands work with a crocheting hook thick as my little finger.
To keep costs down and to stop the overflow of wools from boxes and baskets I've introduced an embargo on buying new materials until I've worked my way through them. No thick yarns around, so I strung several colours together, first for the mittens, and now for this piece. It is fast work and gratification is almost instant: each stitch is as big as my small toe. I'm craving fun, laughter, lightness, and got some making this piece. Nothing gets your friends hooting like telling them on the phone that you're crocheting a mass of curls for armpits and other places. So here we are. Hope you enjoy them too. Oh, and writing this a German proverb came into my mind, "Langes Fädchen, faules Mädchen", which translates literally as "long thread, lazy girl". I'm sure there is an English version, but can't think of it. Any ideas?

Happy holidays!

I'm sorry I haven't been able to visit and read your blogs these last few months - I was acutely aware of missing out but had other matters to attend to and am glad I did. Steps in the dark, steps in the light, with burdens shared and friendships deepened. In-between some very good news flew my way (I will have my first solo-show in 2010!). I also crocheted a few slow rows with the most vibrant of red threads, for a new fairy tale dress.

I leave you for now with these lines by Fernando Pessoa, translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith:

To be great, be whole: don't exaggerate
Or leave out any part of you.
Be complete in each thing. Put all you are
Into the least of your acts.
So too in each lake, with it's lofty life,
The whole moon shines.

Summer walk

A slow walk on a hot summer’s day, excursion beyond the realm marked by silver birch. My steps almost in tune with the heat, stately speed, syncopated by stick’s rhythm: one crisp beat to two measured steps. In time they become halting, energy trickling out of me fast, traceless. More rest-points on way back, sit on fences, walls, parapets; savour stillness in air that comes with heat. Turn face towards pale blue sky dabbed with thin washes of cloud. Breath in, breath out, steady now. Up again and onwards, slower and slower, teetering, every so often scuttling sidewards like crab - waste of precious steps, but also little involuntary dance, celebrating the spot I tread around. A memory alights, of school-outings, where some of us would link arms and temporarily walk in step, chanting: ‘Ein Hut, ein Stock, ein Regenschirm,/und vorwärts, rückwärts, seitwärts, steh’n.’ And again. (In the interest of maintaining innate iambic rhythm I translate as follows: ‘A hat, a stick, umbrella too,/and forwards, backwards, sidewards, still.’ Shout out and let right leg swing and stop, like a 3D-pendulum.)
Home seems to recede. I trail a straight line, thrown just for me. Time to sink nose into cup-sized purple bell-blossoms on high stalks, nameless to me, and clusters of tiny blue flowers whose sweet-scented loveliness I share with a bee. Finally I see my door, touch my keys, let home reel me in.

London mapped in words

I've got a piece of writing in City of Shared Stories, a project run by Spread the Word who invited people to write stories directly linked to a London street. All stories now map out our beautiful lively city in words, a map in flux as stories can be added anytime.
You can find my story here.

Grins and tears and more grins

Just in case I’ve been giving the impression that I’m always struggling here’s my entirely positive post-birthday post, as ever written way after the fact.
On the day a group of eight friends took me to my new favourite
South-Indian restaurant for a delectable early evening birthday dinner. Everything was organised, I had no hand in it at all (it clearly wouldn’t have happened if I had) apart from crying yes yes yes. At said restaurant I sat propped against the wall with the widest of grins on my face, really, my smile muscles got a full and steady workout. Just when
I was about to flag beyond repair the most beautiful birthday cake was brought in, a gooey chocolate one topped with red candles, and when everybody burst into ‘Happy birthday to you’ I duly burst into tears.
Blew out the candles (won’t say how many), made a wish, ate a
sliver of delicious cake, then back home and straight to bed,
still grinning.
A real cornucopia of presents too, from everywhere: a red camelia, whose first opening blossom I greeted in the garden this morning, a luscious red-golden throw (which graces my sofa now), a soft crimson-flowered winter-scarf, a spring-coloured stola, bunches of pink and red tulips, a pink-red-golden tin for everyday treasures… You’ll have detected the colour-theme by now, but here we’re going beyond: books of poetry, fun and serious, a beautiful book about the artist Sophie Calle that holds surprises, the Cranach-poster that strangely caused controversy on the tube, two gorgeous drawings by my favourite little boys, a wee silvery two-in-one salt-pepper-mill, chocolates, music, snowdrops for next year, a tiny plastic greenhousy thing for sowing seeds inside, lots of seeds too, oh, and of course the aforementioned heavy tomes of dictionaries, destined to sow seeds in the fallow furrows of my cloudy brain. Quite a bit of dosh too which will purchase red (yes!) blinds some day soon, and a pair of long overdue reading glasses. A lovely brotherly and sister-in-lawly visit concluded the festivities the following weekend.
Since I fell ill I haven’t celebrated my birthday in a larger group, often too tired even to take note, definitely too tired to organise anything much. So thank you, dear dear M., for making it happen, thanks to all who came and grinned back at me and thanks to all who sent me those beautiful presents, cards and thoughtful good wishes.
I’m especially touched too by the (pink, ahem) envelope to R.’s birthday card, on which she has drawn a few choice samples of my artwork, and very beautifully too.

About speaking

There are periods when I am too tired to speak. It’s made me aware that speaking is a twofold effort – mental and physical. Real fatigue not only muddles and slows down one’s thought processes or at worst all but extinguishes them, but transforms every tiny action into an arduous mission. When I’m at my most poorly, and thank goodness these severe periods have become rarer and shorter, forging clear chains of thought and transforming them into comprehensible and meaningful sounds is on the far side of possible. In the extended enforced silence my own voice becomes strange to me. I have become unsure and self-conscious about speaking (up) and often think I’m speaking too loud, even though friends assure me that I’m not.
To get used to hearing myself speaking again, to make it normal to myself, I have started to read poetry aloud. Had a lovely experience with my current favourite, Louise Glück’s Snowdrops, which I tried to learn by heart. Initially my voice sounded feeble and monotonous and seemed to diminuish the power of the poem but I read the words again and again and again. In time making friends with the poem’s rhythms helped unfold layers of meaning that had escaped me before. I could feel my throat unclenching and my voice becoming full and resonant, until I finally seemed to embody what I read and cried ‘yes risk joy’ with such a burst of emotion, of pleasure, exhilaration and real bliss, as if it/the poem/the words had come out of me naturally.

Ecstasy and memory

Went for a miniscule walk yesterday, drawn out by the rays of the autumn sun as if by golden reins. Stood under the silver birch (oh, isn’t the name already beautiful!) at the end of my block, sniffed its cracked white bark and looked up to the long trailing branches floating like strands of hair in the soft wind that was more like a gentle breath out. The rustling of the wind in the leaves sounds different now, it’s more of a crackling sound, you can hear the dryness of the leaves. Stepped away from my lovely tree when my time was up and walking towards home I kept turning back and saw that there was a lovely gradation of colours in the foliage: around the crown’s tip oranges and ochres prevailed, below yellowish tints spread and furthest down just-still-green hovered.
Today I haven’t got enough steps in me to take me out of the house, so it’s just as well that I can get some of yesterday’s ecstasy back by writing about it here. For a moment I lamented that I hadn’t taken my camera then but actually the process of writing engraves these images in my brain more clearly and more permanently. I have to work to conjure them up again and find just the right words - through that small and delicious effort I relive the experience whereas with a photo I’d lazily stay on its surface, I think. So with every word I write here I imprint myself with the look of that tree, the feel of that gentle breeze, the scent of that bark.

About wanting

I have been thinking why I came to write a poem, and why this poem, now. How the feeling of abjection can change one’s perception of one’s body/physicality is something that I started exploring years back at college. It still informs a lot of my visual work and I guess that’s also what’s at the centre of that poem of mine. The images conceived of were not alien to me at all, but writing them down and trying to form something coherent in words, for its own sake, whether successfully or not, is new.
While I was lying on my bed this afternoon I came across a poem by Louise Glück who I hadn’t known about until I read a reference to her either on Mien’s or Erin’s blog and I realised I had been asking myself the wrong questions. There is a line in this poem (The Wild Iris) ‘…that which you fear, being a soul and unable to speak…’ which made it clearer to me. For several days after the Louise Bourgeois-exhibition I was physically too tired to make work, even something tiny, but, and that is relatively new and hooray hooray, part of my mind was working. You have to understand, deep fatigue does not only make the body tired, leaden, painful, but the mind is the same. You have times when all you can think is ‘I am soooo tired’ again and again and again, it’s all that exists, your whole being is overcome and consumed by this fatigue. Coherence is on holiday. You don’t want, you don’t wish, you don’t long for, you have nothing to say, you just are, and you are tired. And here is what is new, what is different: while my body didn’t function during these first days after the show parts of my brain did. I wanted. I wanted to express myself. I wanted to write. And I did, in small mouthfuls. Fatigue did not obliterate me completely. My health is improving. And that’s what I understood when I read Louise Glück’s poem today.

Outdoor pleasures

At the beginning of the year I moved from my 2nd floor flat to one on the ground-floor with a garden. Apart from the obvious and vital advantages of life without stairs to a person with limited mobility the greatest change and indeed joy has been the outdoor-space gained. In the old flat I had a pretty special view from my bedroom, of a green hill where foxes played and hundreds of gawking crows regularly gathered and swept up into the air as if at one command. I called it my Switzerland, and it felt almost as remote. Now I can get outside whenever I want.
Most of the garden-area has been laid out in pink and grey slabs of stone, which is just as well as I can’t manage a lot of gardening (yet), but along the fences grow bushes – forsythia, hazelnut, roses, ivy. For weeks I went through my small garden every day, stopping at every bush, and breathed with nose buried in the foliage, trying to sniff out each distinct scent.
I’ve got a chair right outside my kitchen-door, to which I can drag myself for a couple of minutes even on a bad day. The sun hits it in the morning and I often have breakfast out there, greeting the day with my bowl of fruit and yoghurt on my lap. I delight in the tiny white hairs on the stems of my one tomato-plant which grows in a pot right next to the chair. That same tomato-plant is host to several small spiders weaving magnificent webs between the stalks and a couple of days ago gave me its first ripe fruit – pure delicious tomatoness in every bite!
Most of my flowers grow in pots. The very first plant I bought was a small magnolia tree. I wanted that short burst of extravagant flowering right here in front of me. I’ve feasted on the spectacle of orange and red tulips whose pointed petals were like darting tongues of flames. There’s a steady lavish parade of bright-red velvety petunias, and the petals of the more short-lived delphiniums looked their most beautiful when fallen to the ground where they seemed like scattered drops of Klein-blue ink.
I tend to grab my pleasures in short bursts – but short-lived they are not, they have a kind of after-life in my mind. Some months ago, remember, when we had an almost summery time which August couldn’t replicate, I was extremely tired and still in my pyjamas late in the day, and when warm summer rain was falling down in heavy drops I got it into my head to dance in the rain and went outside and stood there getting drenched, not physically dancing but dancing inside, for about a minute or one-and-a-half, as long as I could stand, and then went back to bed happy.
I could mention further marvels: the rustling of winds in the huge old trees beyond my garden which I can hear even from within my bedroom, the passion flower climbing over the fence from next-door which has been blossoming for months, and on my side a morning glory (thanks, Helen B.!) which had one gorgeous gigantic sky-blue flower open for just one day this week.
For me it’s not so much about the joys of gardening but the joys of being outside, of experiencing the seasons directly after years of wistfully watching them either from my second-floor flat or through the windows of moving mini-cabs. The smell of green, the freshness of it, the literal breath of fresh air that I can take in almost daily now is truly wonderful. And I feel connected to nature again, finally.
(written beginning of September)

PS. Had breakfast outside this morning, after painful night, sucking in the moist green air.