Showing posts with label Pilgrimage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pilgrimage. Show all posts
Wednesday, 29 April 2020
SNU. Very simply a dusky hopping mouse. Because the event was cancelled before i made my shield i did not make my shield but i did draw a dusky hopping mouse. The dusky hopping mouse notomys fuscus lives in the australian desert in burrows in groups of up to five. It does better where the dingos are let be because the dingos stop the introduced predators catching the mice.
SNU. ASU2. Now i am going to pick up some loose ends. Blogging the terms progress has been, along with making the work, a learning process. I know that i will have to write it over again but having started this way of retelling the story i need to make myself get to the end. I am counting down days now to hand in which means i may pass through this sketchily so i have time to document in another way that meets my tutors asks more succinctly. Each way is a retelling. I guess that i came to my MA wanting to learn how to tell stories and this is one way of learning what works and what doesn't.
A part of this terms learning outcome demands was to engage in new and unusual ways with an audience. The brief is as wide as the takers imagination. Most of my previous work exhibited work might be said to have been in unusual contexts and stretching the notion of textiles and sculpture, from temporary site specific pieces (2015, 2016, 2017 & 2019) to dialogical happenings (2017) to my human rights act project (2015). I wanted in many ways to make work that i could sell because selling my ideas is costs, it is great to be exhibited and to have opportunity to offer ideas to an audience but in a world driven by God-money it means that i am always subsidising my work and i need it to pay for itself. I wanted to know how to make smaller pieces that held their integrity but were work i could sell. I have not yet learned how to do this. Even the way i have blogged my whole process this term is giving away free my life story. Isolation ironically is forcing me more into the open.
Before isolation I had already applied to be in exhibition at the Raveningham Sculpture Trail (still happening) and the Bishops Art Prize (postponed) the Self-Love exhibition (accepted then rejected) and to be part of the local XR group's Pilgrimage of the Animals (cancelled).
As part of the Pilgrimage of the Animals i acted as helper to local artist Maria Paveledis when she led a printmaking workshop. It was good to learn from an experienced workshop facilitator and because it was held at St Peter Mancroft Church i also had opportunity to speak after the workshop to the ministers of the church about art, politics and Christianity. The pilgrimage was to have run from the cathedral to the church with stopping points for contemplation and each participant was to make a shield bearing the name and image of an endangered animal. Mine was a dusky hopping mouse. To get to know our creature we were advised to look up our creature in order to know it. This is how to engage, knowing gives insight, and insight understanding.
One of my tutors recommended i go in the direction of dialogical art and i have been researching people who practice this from Yoko Ono to Miranda July. I need to give more time to research it is always hard to strike a balance when studying between thinking and doing. I think i engage in this practise all the time but i have also been a dialogical happening in exhibition before (see above & 2017). It is interesting work but it is a physically and emotionally demanding practice i found. Maybe i need to find a way to practice opening dialogue in which i am less important. To create the space rather than be the focal point. Maybe that is what i hope to learn in the course of this MA. How to open a door or a window that lets people through, in or out but which doesn't demand that i always take that journey with them or if i do it is as a subtler presence.
I ought to know how to do this. It is part of my shiatsu practice. To meet. To witness. To engage and connect, to see, hear, feel, a clients patterns whilst maintaining a border that protects both my client and myself. To touch with weight that is weightless. To make contact without making contact. Maybe my next step of learning in my creative practice is to find a way to make art that is like that. Art that has boundaries that act let the wind though a hedge or a wire between posts rather than a wall. I need to learn what kind of boundary is appropriate for what and for when. Boundary or space. I guess there is an element of this in the learning outcome ask.
I must ask: where does my work belong ? How does it fit ? Can i make it fit ? or is it better to find a place where it fits ? Is it better to be seen in the right place by fewer people or the wrong place by a larger audience ? Who is my audience ? What is it that i am trying to communicate to those who see my work. Do i need an audience ? If i need an audience why do i need an audience ? Its that old chestnut if nobody sees a tree fall does it still fall ?
A part of this terms learning outcome demands was to engage in new and unusual ways with an audience. The brief is as wide as the takers imagination. Most of my previous work exhibited work might be said to have been in unusual contexts and stretching the notion of textiles and sculpture, from temporary site specific pieces (2015, 2016, 2017 & 2019) to dialogical happenings (2017) to my human rights act project (2015). I wanted in many ways to make work that i could sell because selling my ideas is costs, it is great to be exhibited and to have opportunity to offer ideas to an audience but in a world driven by God-money it means that i am always subsidising my work and i need it to pay for itself. I wanted to know how to make smaller pieces that held their integrity but were work i could sell. I have not yet learned how to do this. Even the way i have blogged my whole process this term is giving away free my life story. Isolation ironically is forcing me more into the open.
Before isolation I had already applied to be in exhibition at the Raveningham Sculpture Trail (still happening) and the Bishops Art Prize (postponed) the Self-Love exhibition (accepted then rejected) and to be part of the local XR group's Pilgrimage of the Animals (cancelled).
As part of the Pilgrimage of the Animals i acted as helper to local artist Maria Paveledis when she led a printmaking workshop. It was good to learn from an experienced workshop facilitator and because it was held at St Peter Mancroft Church i also had opportunity to speak after the workshop to the ministers of the church about art, politics and Christianity. The pilgrimage was to have run from the cathedral to the church with stopping points for contemplation and each participant was to make a shield bearing the name and image of an endangered animal. Mine was a dusky hopping mouse. To get to know our creature we were advised to look up our creature in order to know it. This is how to engage, knowing gives insight, and insight understanding.
One of my tutors recommended i go in the direction of dialogical art and i have been researching people who practice this from Yoko Ono to Miranda July. I need to give more time to research it is always hard to strike a balance when studying between thinking and doing. I think i engage in this practise all the time but i have also been a dialogical happening in exhibition before (see above & 2017). It is interesting work but it is a physically and emotionally demanding practice i found. Maybe i need to find a way to practice opening dialogue in which i am less important. To create the space rather than be the focal point. Maybe that is what i hope to learn in the course of this MA. How to open a door or a window that lets people through, in or out but which doesn't demand that i always take that journey with them or if i do it is as a subtler presence.
I ought to know how to do this. It is part of my shiatsu practice. To meet. To witness. To engage and connect, to see, hear, feel, a clients patterns whilst maintaining a border that protects both my client and myself. To touch with weight that is weightless. To make contact without making contact. Maybe my next step of learning in my creative practice is to find a way to make art that is like that. Art that has boundaries that act let the wind though a hedge or a wire between posts rather than a wall. I need to learn what kind of boundary is appropriate for what and for when. Boundary or space. I guess there is an element of this in the learning outcome ask.
I must ask: where does my work belong ? How does it fit ? Can i make it fit ? or is it better to find a place where it fits ? Is it better to be seen in the right place by fewer people or the wrong place by a larger audience ? Who is my audience ? What is it that i am trying to communicate to those who see my work. Do i need an audience ? If i need an audience why do i need an audience ? Its that old chestnut if nobody sees a tree fall does it still fall ?
Saturday, 20 April 2019
I promised myself that I would write a blog in which I spilled a little less of my blood onto the "page" but I don't really know how to do that. I think I write in blood because I don't have any ink. Call ink style and blood passion. My blogs tend to come out of me when my heart is bursting with need to express myself, when my mind is on fire with thought and I can't hold it all in.
But what I want to get started on is blogging a quiet pilgrimage I am taking. Using the word pilgrimage I hope gives a sense of the form of the journey I have embarked upon. I do not know if I will reach my destination but I have started the path and that is enough.
Lots of people walk the coast of Britain. I've been following a few blogs over the past few years and most recently a man on twitter who is doing it the adventurer's way with a tent. But I am not an adventurer. I have however wanted to walk the coast of Britain for years now, maybe as long as twenty, thinking about it and not knowing how to start, where to start, making it all more complicated than it needed to be.
Because in October last year I just began. I walked from Southwold to Lowestoft. Just because I could. I started in October because October was the anniversary of Jon's death. He gets the whole month because his actual death date is different from the day I found out by nearly two weeks so in my body he has two deaths, his actual death and the death of him that happened later when I picked up his sister-in-law's email informing me of his death
Southwold was the beach Jon took me to on our first proper date. And we walked the length between Dunwich and Kessingland over and over again in different parts during the six years we were lovers. Starting at Southwold meant that my coast walk began with Jon as my journeyman, a ghost journeyman. I suppose that I hope that walking and walking will help me to lay his ghost to rest. He is not, for me, an easy ghost to lay to rest. I meet him everywhere. And sometimes I like that and sometimes I don't.
I took the first step of this pilgrimage on a date that was before the actual anniversary of Jon's death but was the anniversary of a friend and I going to Southwold the week before he died. It was a strange day. I was tearful and thought I saw him on the bus and we found ourselves in places that he had taken me to on our first and last dates, places that connected me to him where memories had been made, and places he'd shown me that belonged to his childhood. I couldn't get him out of my head. I wanted to be there alone, or with him. My friend kept saying I had to give up on him. I had. I couldn't have given up more. But it hurt. I guess my head had given up, but my heart hadn't. Hope still defying reason.
I digress. I took the first step on my pilgrim path because all the time we have choices. October 2018 was the anniversary of Jon's death and I needed to force myself back to life, to seize the day, carpe diem. I took two walks in October and have taken four since then. Southwold-Lowestoft, Lowestoft to Gorleston, Great Yarmouth to Caister-on-sea, Caister-on-sea to Winterton, Winterton to Happisburgh, Happisburgh to Mundesley.
Mostly I go by public transport and mostly I go alone. So far the exception has been Winterton to Happisburgh when my son, at my ask, helped me out by driving me to Winterton and then parking up at Happisburgh and walking back to meet me at Sea Palling. Mostly I like going by public transport and walking alone. Walking alone gives me time to think and public transport especially buses allows meetings to happen that wouldn't normally.
This walk, this long walk, began with a trick. I was just walking from Southwold to Lowestoft, no big deal. The second walk was more conscious, on my birthday, the anniversary of the day after I found out he was dead. Lowestoft to Gorleston. One walk and then another and another, beginning. I needed to begin and then I needed to keep going and then when Amis joined me I needed to ask for help because I could feel myself stalling, and I wanted to share what I was doing with someone I loved, someone living, a tangible, physical presence. Ghosts and spirits are all very well but not the same as flesh and blood, body and living soul. Amis' help briefly made my path warmer and sweeter, less lonely. Time and space are gifts. I was glad that Amis accepted the gift of my time and space and gifted me his in return. Time and space are gifts worth treasuring.
Following my day with Amis I walked Happisburgh to Mundesley, passing the shameful nets at Bacton a week or so before the sand martins return, the cliffs looked mean and grim and bleak. I am so thankful to the people who got those nets removed. They stand as heroes in my eyes, everyday people who rose to a challenge and beat a system that says birds lives are worth less than money and man. I wonder if that is the mark of civilised society, the ability to understand that that which is not us, is not "I", is as of much value as us, we, ourselves, "I".
Food for thought maybe for my next stretch Mundesley to Cromer. My walks are not too long at the moment and it might seem like I'm dawdling, taking this walk at such a leisurely pace and with no certainty of reaching it's end but it's a choice I have made to allow myself to be slow, to let myself go gently. Going gently, taking things softly, means I will do what I set out to do, I don't respond well to a whip but I give all that I have if my heart is resolved. I want this journey to be a healing path. I am walking it widdershins, tempting the devil I suppose but my hope is that the pull of my road will give me time to work out where I am going and will find me moving forward even if my forward is met by sometimes going back in time.
But what I want to get started on is blogging a quiet pilgrimage I am taking. Using the word pilgrimage I hope gives a sense of the form of the journey I have embarked upon. I do not know if I will reach my destination but I have started the path and that is enough.
Lots of people walk the coast of Britain. I've been following a few blogs over the past few years and most recently a man on twitter who is doing it the adventurer's way with a tent. But I am not an adventurer. I have however wanted to walk the coast of Britain for years now, maybe as long as twenty, thinking about it and not knowing how to start, where to start, making it all more complicated than it needed to be.
Because in October last year I just began. I walked from Southwold to Lowestoft. Just because I could. I started in October because October was the anniversary of Jon's death. He gets the whole month because his actual death date is different from the day I found out by nearly two weeks so in my body he has two deaths, his actual death and the death of him that happened later when I picked up his sister-in-law's email informing me of his death
Southwold was the beach Jon took me to on our first proper date. And we walked the length between Dunwich and Kessingland over and over again in different parts during the six years we were lovers. Starting at Southwold meant that my coast walk began with Jon as my journeyman, a ghost journeyman. I suppose that I hope that walking and walking will help me to lay his ghost to rest. He is not, for me, an easy ghost to lay to rest. I meet him everywhere. And sometimes I like that and sometimes I don't.
I took the first step of this pilgrimage on a date that was before the actual anniversary of Jon's death but was the anniversary of a friend and I going to Southwold the week before he died. It was a strange day. I was tearful and thought I saw him on the bus and we found ourselves in places that he had taken me to on our first and last dates, places that connected me to him where memories had been made, and places he'd shown me that belonged to his childhood. I couldn't get him out of my head. I wanted to be there alone, or with him. My friend kept saying I had to give up on him. I had. I couldn't have given up more. But it hurt. I guess my head had given up, but my heart hadn't. Hope still defying reason.
I digress. I took the first step on my pilgrim path because all the time we have choices. October 2018 was the anniversary of Jon's death and I needed to force myself back to life, to seize the day, carpe diem. I took two walks in October and have taken four since then. Southwold-Lowestoft, Lowestoft to Gorleston, Great Yarmouth to Caister-on-sea, Caister-on-sea to Winterton, Winterton to Happisburgh, Happisburgh to Mundesley.
Mostly I go by public transport and mostly I go alone. So far the exception has been Winterton to Happisburgh when my son, at my ask, helped me out by driving me to Winterton and then parking up at Happisburgh and walking back to meet me at Sea Palling. Mostly I like going by public transport and walking alone. Walking alone gives me time to think and public transport especially buses allows meetings to happen that wouldn't normally.
This walk, this long walk, began with a trick. I was just walking from Southwold to Lowestoft, no big deal. The second walk was more conscious, on my birthday, the anniversary of the day after I found out he was dead. Lowestoft to Gorleston. One walk and then another and another, beginning. I needed to begin and then I needed to keep going and then when Amis joined me I needed to ask for help because I could feel myself stalling, and I wanted to share what I was doing with someone I loved, someone living, a tangible, physical presence. Ghosts and spirits are all very well but not the same as flesh and blood, body and living soul. Amis' help briefly made my path warmer and sweeter, less lonely. Time and space are gifts. I was glad that Amis accepted the gift of my time and space and gifted me his in return. Time and space are gifts worth treasuring.
Following my day with Amis I walked Happisburgh to Mundesley, passing the shameful nets at Bacton a week or so before the sand martins return, the cliffs looked mean and grim and bleak. I am so thankful to the people who got those nets removed. They stand as heroes in my eyes, everyday people who rose to a challenge and beat a system that says birds lives are worth less than money and man. I wonder if that is the mark of civilised society, the ability to understand that that which is not us, is not "I", is as of much value as us, we, ourselves, "I".
Food for thought maybe for my next stretch Mundesley to Cromer. My walks are not too long at the moment and it might seem like I'm dawdling, taking this walk at such a leisurely pace and with no certainty of reaching it's end but it's a choice I have made to allow myself to be slow, to let myself go gently. Going gently, taking things softly, means I will do what I set out to do, I don't respond well to a whip but I give all that I have if my heart is resolved. I want this journey to be a healing path. I am walking it widdershins, tempting the devil I suppose but my hope is that the pull of my road will give me time to work out where I am going and will find me moving forward even if my forward is met by sometimes going back in time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)