“The Shadow that trots behind us is definitely four footed…”
I went away for a couple of weeks recently (hence the quiet time on my blog). As I was leaving my apartment at 4am to catch the S Bahn to the airport, I realised I had forgotten to empty my rubbish. Making a quick journey + flight departure time assessment, I realised that I could not pause to find a torch and take it down and out into the backyard so – I shut the door and left.
Upon my return, a noon-twilight in my very hot and well sealed flat was cast by a dark net curtain of flies humming expectantly beneath drawn blinds (many lay gasping on the floor, whether through heatstroke or simply a natural closure to their life cycle I do not know) – a trail of small droppings laced around bloated belly rubbish bags.
One hour and much pine green liquid making improbable claims to shininess later, order was restored; though for the next two mornings, a hopeful trail of pooh has stretched across not as sparkly as promised expanses to the place where the rubbish bags used to squat.
The whole episode made me think of the theme of my work, how the wild(erness) is so close beneath our feet: in concrete gullies and utility channels behind white walls, waiting for the ripe aroma that says order has collapsed and is decaying.
I have brought a ‘capture not kill’ trap in the hope of becoming acquainted with my little visitor; it sits primed in my kitchen with a cartoon like lump of yellow cheese complete with holes. I imagine my visitor to be a mouse: it will be my friend and I may even build a special sculpture to keep it entertained. It brings to mind my favourite literary mouse in Froth on the Daydream (Boris Vian): gamely scrubbing paws down to fragile lace like knuckles in a noble but ultimately futile attempt to polish dimming tiles in a sick and decaying household.
I hope that my mouse, if I ever get to meet him, will be a much happier one. But then again I have wondered whilst looking at the evidence of my night time visitors, does anyone know, do cockroaches pooh…?
More Gathering:
My language course finished last week.
I am now gathering momentum in my studio, beginning with buying and setting up necessary equipment (printer, scanner etc) – punctuated by trips around pound shops purchasing the 'stuff' that always seems to accompany my investigations as an artist.
I have brought home postcards, plastic flowers, cushions and several metres of lino with horses on – ostensibly to be used as a floor covering for a 'messy space', but really because the horses seemed to say something about my enquiry, though I am not sure what yet.
I notice how residencies commence this way, with an instinctive gathering together of a great mass of images, information, snippets of conversation, text, sensations, hunches and imaginings. All act as way markers to the work yet to be made, to the destination as yet unseen.
The sun has come out again too, last weekend I went out to Gruneweld, a very large woodland and lakes in the west of Berlin. There was some really interesting signage showing what animals are in the forest – majestic owls swooping across indigo skies, poised pensively against half moon backdrop, tenderly feeding their young – all adding to the strange wilderness/theme park feel of the place.
Whilst sunbathing there I saw a young girl walking her pet rabbit, and a panicked duck crashed into my knees attempting take off.
The woodlands and lakes within Berlin are astonishing for their scale and proximity to the centre – they warrant further exploration.
Dream Diary 2, Blue Heron:
I am overwhelmed by the arrival of a Blue Heron; its presence is majestic, awesome. This is one of those rare moments in dreams where I become suddenly sentient, aware that I am dreaming and of what I am dreaming.
I leave this conscious space and dream next that I am the keeper of a Jail. I have granted a pardon to two men and am releasing them from their cells. One is old, the other much younger – they both have the appearance of having lived life on the street.
As they are walking away, I have the sudden realisation that a potentially fatal theft has taken place. Instinctively I run to the older man and tear at his trouser leg. Attached to his calf (and bound in a most cruel and distressing way) is the blue heron.
At first I fear it is dead, but then it opens it's eye to look at me – I easily release it with a sense of relief that I spotted and averted this 'death' in the making.
Dream Diary 1, The Cobra:
I am faced by a cobra. It is exquisitely beautiful.
It attacks my face, biting me again and again, aiming in particular for my cheeks. I raise my hands and squint my eyes to defend myself. Yet somewhere deep in my consciousness I am aware that the bites whilst 'poisonous' – are actually healing and not hurting me.
Even at the ripe young age of 35 I am still prone to blush. Whilst this tendency does not visit me so often as it did in my youth, it still does. I am more able now though to welcome a blush with curiosity and the knowledge that this quality can also be rather attractive.
I awoke with the feeling that the apparently violent content of this dream was in fact deeply healing, rather like a combination of acupuncture and small doses of poison used to stimulate immunity.
Dream Diary, Introduction.
It has to be said that I have a most extraordinarily vivid dream life. I have always kept track of this in handwritten journals and began recently to type some of these up. In doing so I noticed a 'conversation' emerging between my artwork and my dreams.
At the risk of exposing myself (and it does feel risky, they speak of my interior life, their content is often sexual, they bring to the surface things that I have not yet understood about myself) I am going to track some of them here in my blog.
I admit to feeling conscious of, and vulnerable to – YOU – the reader, and how YOU (yes you) may interpret them. However, I am rapidly learning in my life that it is those things that remain in the shadows of our consciousness that exert the greatest (and sometimes the most destructive) influence over us.
Art and writing offers the opportunity to bring these things to light and to create something of value along the way.
In that one sentence I have of course opened a whole can of worms about art as 'therapy', the 'value' of art and where this resides (if it can be said to reside anywhere at all). These questions deserve some attention, but for now, all I wanted to say is "here are a few things I have been dreaming about recently".
(I will update these posts with images as and when they come to me).
