Century

This is my one hundreth post!
To bring us up to date, here's what's been happening.
This girl got made redundant.
Another agency got me a decent amount of work in this PRU teaching art.
I can't tell you how it feels to walk into a classroom as a kid walks out saying, "I don't fucking want you to teach me. Fuck off. Where's our proper teacher?", and for that same kid, to have written a poem by the end of the hour.
I can't tell you how it feels to get the boy who stands with his head to one side, looking into the middle distance of the floor, to join in your lesson by answering a few questions on a worksheet if you write them down for him.
Neither can i tell you how it feels to be offered a job and to hear that you were (by far) the best candidate, and would you like to start working with kids 'who cannot access mainstream education' in two weeks time?
I just can't tell you.
There are some things that i just can't tell you.

There are 592 search results from Google when i try to make up for the fact that i did not know that Dimitri died on the 19th July 2007.

I cannot report the details of his heart attack on the Moscow underground, nor can i report the wake attended by 50 people including some of the Volna performers group.

I discover that Monday would have been his 67th birthday and i try to think of a story to tell that is not news: a detail from the time i knew him that will record something more than the facts.

I think about the cherry blossom- we both noticed it at the same time- walking down a London street in February. It was truly a joy to see the pink petals above a row of scruffy shops.

I thought it was incredible that i met a Russian artist and his family on a tiny north african island last year.

There are some times when you know that, although you cannot say how, something is going to be an important part of your future.

Can't sleep

My mum hugged me and said, "You're an immensely talented person. This is last minute nerves."

I installed SOUNDTRACK, my current story-telling project, in the bar seven days ago. The festival runs for another week but so far the project has exceeded my expectations (can't remember what my expectations were now). People have been coming out of the woodwork with all sorts of gems. I've been taking them away and editing them, and adding them in the next day. I can't leave the thing alone. I've been sitting there nearly every day to see how people are reacting to it, i've called everyone i know (who couldn't make it to the private view) and insisted that they come down for a listen. I couldn't go today or yesterday, and i've really missed it! Like a friend who might be having fun while i'm not there.
As boxes go, this one is good.

Truth is....

I want to run around a huge empty field screaming. I don't want anyone to be around to ask me what's wrong, or to look at me like i'm a mad woman.
When i've finished screaming i want to lay down in the sun and go to sleep.
When i wake up, i want my life to be different. I want to be a person who makes a living from something that she is good at and she loves. I want to come home to someone who loves me and looks after me and i want to have more time for other people because my life is running pretty smoothly.
I don't want to be sitting here obsessing about my storytelling project and wishing i'd never started it. I don't want to be a person who doubts everything thing they do to the point where nothing ever gets finished. I shouldn't be doing this.
I should be looking for a job- since i left the one that was making me miserable and now only have two weeks savings left.
I don't want to work for that woman i met yesterday who, when i bounced in all friendly and enthusiastic about teaching photography again, gave me a limp handshake and talked to me in that way that only bitter post-menopausal women can talk to younger women ( i could tell she thought i was younger than i am). "You haven't got much experience, have you?"
But am i going to do any of this? Or am i just going to send her my cv and show her some prints (as if she'd know fine art printing from a picture in the local fucking newspaper) and will i try and make her like me so she'll give me the job, and then make myself miserable all over again.
Or maybe i shouldn't do any of the above and try and start up a garden design business. Forget about being a fucking artist, take that risk of self-employment -maybe it'll be easier second time around......
I kind of thought i could do all of the above, but maybe that's where i'm going wrong.

Boxes

I've scraped a MASSIVE dent in the side of my car.
I keep eating a whole packet of fig rolls in one go
and my storytelling project is due to be installed in eleven days time.
It's going to be an archive in progress, that is, it will be all the stories so far on a listening post (possibly with music). I'm expecting that more people will want to tell stories once they've heard the one's i've got so far. I want people to know that any story they want to tell is a good one. I'm interested in all of it, every seemingly trivial little bit, that for some reason lodges in your head. It's really frustrating sometimes when i ask people if they will contribute and they start telling me their story but they think it has to be something else or more, and i want to just whip out a mic and say, "thanks, that was it!"
It's a delicate process of negotiation you know: but it's a great feeling once you get it down on tape. It makes me feel high, like i've managed to slow down time or change it's pace. I'm an archivist. I need to put things in boxes. It's like blogging: it's the new photography.

Andy Goldsworthy

Went to see his latest installations at YSP.
Wow.
I'm already a big fan, so predisposed, but check this out it's really good.
Four rooms, each with a different sculpture, not so much in the room, but making the room. The first space is dominated by this ceiling high cairn made of logs, left in their natural shape but differing in length and width to make that classic Goldsworthy egg shape- and you can touch this one! I touched it carefully, not because it looks unstable (it looks incredibly solid), but with respect for the system and care that holds this shape together. We all know the thing about an egg being 'uncrushable' from top to bottom, well this piece takes that apprehensive application of imaginary force to another level.
The second space has walls of dried, cracked clay in this beautiful pattern that looks contrived almost in it's repetition of the fissures (although at the same time you know it can't be contrived). This is echoed nicely in the final space where hangs another motif of his: a curtain of leaf stalks that are held together by blackthorns. The curtain is suspended horizontally across the room from the ceiling to the floor and features the hole motif that appears so often in his work. He has put a hole in something that is hardly there already; a delicate curtain of something and nothing like a spiders web.
But finally, my favourite piece. It was almost too amazing to be around. I wanted everyone else to go away, it felt like a private moment as soon as i went in there. Goldsworthy has constructed a dome inside the room from inter-laced chestnut branches. The result is this incredible 'home' that is so warm and living (i'm resisting the description 'womb-like' here because it wasn't like that). The heat generated was totally unexpected for me; you can feel and smell the combination of sap and heat in a way that is almost like sex - or maybe that's just me. We all said, "I could live here." It was an odd sensation, and i like the way you can't see when you first enter, there is no light so you have to wait till your eyes get used to the dark before you can appreciate the intricacies of the top of the dome for instance.
Hats of Mr. Goldsworthy, hats off.

you know those cliches about 30-something women? They're all true (in my case)

Okay, I got really mad.
I stopped taking my anti-depressants on Friday (against my doctors advice). I figure if i start feeling like shite then i can always start taking them again. They work on a very slow-release basis, so nothing dramatic is going to happen. I've still got the twitching, the numerical dyslexia and the inability to concentrate/ believe that anything is of much consequence really. However i can feel my sex-drive creeping back. I didn't even notice it had gone to be honest (or didn't much care) until the last couple of days. It's really been making me laugh, i've been revelling in it. It's really funny.
Other shifts have taken place -mostly yesterday actually- both inside and outside my body. The mucus blockage in my head started to move on down (a little too much information perhaps?). I could hardly breath in the morning but then it all started to come out (gross!) and by the evening my voice had almost returned to normal. My eyeballs are no longer squeaking and if i take paracetamol i feel almost human. Fuck Prozac, paracetamol's where it's at. It's been relaxing me to a frightening degree. I have slept through the day for hours on end- i was too scared to do this before because i thought i was depressed.
Yoga helped too.
The other thing is that my old yoga teacher is coming back! It's ridiculous, but when she left i cried a river. I cried when someone told me she was leaving; i cried when she announced it in class; i cried all through her last class and when i read her goodbye letter. I'm crying now just thinking about it. At the time i thought that was perhaps an unhealthy attachment to someone who is not after all a friend. But her voice was encrypted in my mind, it gave instructions when she was not there and was one of the few constants in the previous seven years of my life.
Anyway.
Today i had a massive gorgeous sleep and when i woke up i did two things that have been eluding me - both technical and related to my story-telling project.
I feel like i'm unfolding and i know i am not depressed.

Lost, 1886

This weekend i went to the opening of Akselli Gallen-Kallela at the Groningen Museum in the Netherlands.
He paints women beautifully. If i was going to be painted that is how i would like to be portrayed- with the love, respect and tenderness that Gallen-Kallela obviously had for his subjects. I would go so far as to say that although he painted other subjects, his paintings are a celebration of womanhood.
The publicity image shows a beautiful pubescent girl, hair streaming into the moon behind her, looking heavenward with arms outstretched. Her eyes could be filled with tears but she doesn't look sad. She stands open and accepting, up to her thighs in a red sea.
The painting which affected me most was the one with the title above. It shows a female figure slumped at the base of a tree in a forest. When i looked at it, i couldn't decide wether i was looking at a woman or a young girl. I searched her figure for signs of maturity but still found myself stuck between a plump child and an androgynous young woman.
The figure is predominantly blue with the saddest most dejected look i have ever seen painted. She has sat down because she doesn't know what to do. It would be easy to assume that this is because she cannot find her way home.
Her hand lays palm upwards on the forest floor. She is holding a red checked piece of cloth which seems to bleed into her hand.
When i read the catologue i find that an earlier version of the painting contained a dead baby.
Incredible.

Text Sculpture

On Sunday 3rd December i texted to ask him, "When are you coming to see me?"
He didn't reply.

So on Monday i asked him "When".
On Tuesday "are you".
On Wednesday "coming".
On Thursday "to see me?"

Roughly at the same time every night, but a little later or earlier each day, to take him by surprise or to make him wait.

I thought it was like a text sculpture.

Still waiting.

Writing on the Wall

Thank you for your birthday wishes.
One of the presents i got for my birthday was a book by David Shrigley called 'KILL YOUR PETS'. I really like David Shrigley. This book is full of slogans that kind of make sense but you have to read them a couple of times to get the joke. The book is in a small square format exactly the size of a CD case. This adds to the difficulty in reading the slogans as they are all written in large black capital scrawl. I find this funny also.
When i was a kid there was some graffiti on a wall opposite the shops near where we lived. It said:

IPSWICH FOR UNDERPANTRY AND BEWTY

i always thought that when i grew up, i would understand what that meant. [I also thought that girls grew up they had to wear tan tights]
More recently, i went to an exhibition where you could scribble on wallpapered walls (i copied the line above).
How cool would it be if someone somewhere reading this post knew what that meant???!!!***
Even better: what if you were the person who scrawled that on a wall near my old house.....or any wall, anywhere for that matter!
That would be great if that happened.

Prozac Nation

Why am I awake at 4am?
I think it's the drugs (this effect rings a bell from last time).
However, i am not lying in bed riddled with irrational fears about everything from my life insurance to the apocolypse, so this is an improvement. The last couple of nights, i've found myself thinking creatively in my 'awake period', so tonight i thought i'd get up and make the most of it.
I watched a programme years ago (when Prozac was bigger news) where Bernard Sumner-who admitted to being slightly depressive- took a Prozac trial to see if it affected his creativity. The result was that it did! When he took Prozac and felt better he found that he wasn't so bothered about writing great songs....Personally i think depression can be crippling and destructive as well as a way to convert pain into art.
Yesterday i saw a tabloid newspaper headline with the catch-phrase above. I didn't bother going over to read it because it was inevitably going to be a load of bollocks.
I sound like some kind of advocate for pharmaceuticals, but i assure you i'm not. The next phase is to find an alternative to taking them - cue rebirth as nutritional/environmental/plant-based/religious transformation takes place. [Joking about the religious thing.]
I've just eaten a banana.
This may seem uninteresting, but i ate it because i was hungry. During my recent episode, i was convinced that i was waking up because of a blood sugar drop. My rationale for this was that i eat so much chocolate during the day. So when i was waking up with "the fear" i was caning bananas to try and get some mental and physical balance back. I also made myself a compilation CD with songs on it that i can only now describe as comfort songs. I played it over and over again to try and distract myself from the thoughts that were on constant replay.
I called it Bananas at Bedtime.
Anyway i'm going back to bed now. It's my birthday tomorrow and i've invited about thirty people over so i need some sleep. I don't need my CD, i feel better now. This is good.

Napoleonic Goth

There was a Goth hanging around outside my window at w*** today.
He was standing half way down the path for at least forty-five minutes not moving a muscle.
That's an exaggeration, every so often he did move. His hand travelled up to move his hair away from his face; at one point he lifted his foot subtly and circled it round (pins and needles). Apart from that, he stood stock still in the same position, his left hand tucked neatly across his chest to the inside of his leather trenchcoat. Every time i looked out of the window he was still there.
I heard that Goth is back. As far as i'm concerned it never went away. They're a good seasonal barometer: you know it's summer when they get down to the purple layer.
We speculated that maybe there was another Goth somewhere else, standing in exactly the same position, waiting.
He was there one minute, and the next time i looked he had disappeared (in a puff of smoke?)

Is this a gift that you possess?

The weekend already seems like a lifetime ago.
On Friday night i went to see some crap plays that were like radio plays, but with two 'actors' reading from scripts in front of us. This was being filmed (god knows why as there was nothing to look at). It was so fucking provincial it made me embarrassed.
Then went to see some 'experimental' short films. There was a really cool one where someone had filmed a xylophone. The film and soundtrack were both speeded up and it created this crazy but catchy soundtrack that also managed to be quite funny at the same time. It got spontaneous applause at the end- as opposed to the kind of applause people feel obliged to provide in some contexts: there's no need to clap for a film, so this seems to me the ultimate accolade.
Then we went to see a performance of Long Term Happiness. This guy read out from a list of things that make him happy. It was kind of like stand-up comedy except it really just brought a smile to your face:partly because it was humorous, but partly because it made you think of similar things that you felt yourself. Hmm very interesting.
He was doing it for twenty-four hours with a ten minute break every hour. I almost resented him, i was jealous of his ability to think so positively about absolutely everything, but this is the point that he was making, that happiness can be self-generating and that godammit you can pass it on to other people!
His next performance is a dating agency. He's so happy that he's going to set other people up so they can be happy too...and in love!
I am emailing him my details as soon as i have finished this post. Watch this space.

Enchanted Evening

On Saturday night, we visited a festival of fire.
There is something primal and bewitching about looking at fire, and it was a fitting end to the time of year when one can do things outside in England without being uncomfortably cold. There were no barriers or public safety enforcers telling you to stand back. It was possible for one to judge one's own safety in relation to the fires.
The fire sculptures were impressive in themselves. The guardians of those which required human intervention looked like Edwardian show-people; they wore hats and waist-coats and a look that was suitably removed from the surroundings.
When it started to rain, the hundreds of pots of fire made the most amazing sizzling and spitting symphony. Carabosse played intruments that were hanging from a tree in the centre of the gardens. The guitars and the keyboard were suspended in mid air. At one point, one of the guitarists was making sounds by dropping his bottleneck onto the strings of the suspended electric guitar. There was a skiffle-like vocal and the same kind of other-worldliness to the music as to the installation itself.

Who's that lady?

I have finally found an image for my profile!

Girls: some of you may recognise this woman.
Guys: you may have to ask your girlfriend or girl friend.

She's the woman who hides those things which should not be seen to come out.
Inevitably though, all things which are held inside for a time, must come out. Even those things which are most often thought of as unpleasant, even nasty; that are not that socially acceptable or desired to be seen in public, should have a place to go.
She's the woman who gives those things a place to hide.

Crinoline skirts- perfect for concealing all manner of secrets!

God, i love my own jokes.

Where were you?

This day five years ago, i was coming back from a job interview and was calling my friend to update her. It had sounded like a teaching job with some technicians duties, but it turned out to be a technicians job, with some teaching duties. She said, "Just switch on the television a minute. There's a plane flying into a building."
We watched the plane gliding towards the towers and felt the resulting mayhem and confusion. Like everyone else, i then couldn't turn the TV off. I had been thinking of quitting my masters degree, and the programme director rang me (a minute after i put the phone down) to tell me not to leave, to take as long as i needed to finish. It was good advice, ten months later i wrote a brilliant dissertation on Sophie Calle.

I'm aware that there are tragedies and massive loss of life all over the world - and far too often; but there is something about this image that has retained it's shock value. Despite it's endless replaying, it never suffers from compassion fatigue. As well as this, this event was one which revealed one of the primary functions of blogging.

If you'd like to put the whole thing back together again, you should look at this film clip by artist Runa Islam.

The story so far

One of my objectives for last weekend was to put up some posters advertising my new storytelling project. I'm looking for people to tell me stories about a particular bar, with which i have had a long and meaningful relationship.
So, off i go, posters at the ready, camera in hand; to the big city.
I completely bottled it. I went home, not having visited any of the carefully picked destinations on my itinerary. When it came down to it, i was really scared that once i start this, i'm going to have to do it. And although i think this is a great idea, i was immobilised with fear. The gremlin of self -doubt was muttering in my ear.
I tried not to berate myself further and went to see SOAP, going for a drink afterwards. Looking down the pub to my left, i saw two guys who had been practically permanent fixtures in the bar in question. It was like something from a film. A perfect segue in the plot. I didn't even know their names, but i remembered their faces. One of them was bursting to tell me his story, but i managed to persuade him to save it.
I love it when an idea has a life of it's own, then you know you're on to something.

Photos of me

A friend of mine recently sent me a really nice photo of me.
I don't have many photo's of me, as I'm usually on the other side of the camera. I (half jokingly) asked him to send me every photo he had ever taken of me.
It was really weird. The other half of me (that wasn't joking) was absolutely loving the fact that i could have access to the, previously unattainable, 'how other people see you'.
It's the Big Brother effect. It's the lure of that other perspective- that is not unlocked in everyday life. This is why i admit that i think Big Brother is genius. If i had come up with that idea; i would consider myself the keeper of the zeitgeist.
Anyone who looks down on that aspect of reality television is suffering from reverse snobbery. I don't see what's wrong with admitting that you want to be loved. That's what you hear time and time over in BB, "i just want to be accepted for who i am."
We all do that: at work; when blogging; in our social lives. I'm not above that.
Perhaps it's a particularly British thing - not showing emotion in public, not admitting that you have desire (whether that be for money,love or sex). They're just doing it more openly. You could look at it as sharing.
I've been getting a guilty sort of pleasure from looking at those photo's. It allows me to love myself a little bit more. I don't think there's anything wrong about that.

Single White Female

* is really starting to scare me. She has recently purchased two items of clothing that are EXACTLY like items that I own. The first is a pair of black linen trousers, and the second is a green combat dress that I bought to go to Glasgow at New Year. In February she told me she was going to buy a hat, "I know what I want, I want a black skull cap like that one you've got" - also worn to Glasgow at New Year- but as she didn't turn up wearing one, I forgot all about it.
Anyway, on Friday she asked me if i thought she should buy some ceramic curlers. (I have recently purchased some curlers after long discussing the staightness of my hair and my desire to experience ringletty tresses).
This is the wierd thing- you can't say anything about people stealing your look for two reasons: one- she probably doesn't even know she's doing it, and two (as if you need any more excuses to seethe in silence) it would make you look ridiculously vain.
My problem is that I can't fucking bear being copied. This was the single most common cause of bad feeling between me and my sister when we were teenagers. Being two years older i was copied mercilessly. Every band I was into, every hair-style I discovered: none of it was to be my own.
I have long since renounced the idea of artistic originality. In fact, the more everyday the better as far as I'm concerned. The stuff that everybody does that's the same is where it's at if you ask me.
Just dont come in wearing the same clothes as me because it doesn't fucking suit you.