Tuesday 10th
Catch train at 9 am and thank goodness its quiet. Spend the whole journey finishing the ‘rail' application. Am so taken with the writing I fail to notice Worthing's ‘17' stations! (Well It can seem like it) and have to save and shut the computer down hurriedly as we approach Brighton.
Spend some time ‘looking' at the station trying to not look like I am ‘checking it out' even though I am. Very aware of the current climate in the country.
Have encouraging and productive meetings at ACE, deliver the ‘sharks teeth' as promised and manage to subversively ‘leave' a row of books in a corridor and the word ‘reflection' (Some 2nd year architecture students diaries of a ‘Disability arts' project we did for ‘squaring the Circle' a few months before) .
Over lunch I have a long conversation with the Disability Arts Officer, I first rang in July 05. She ‘enabled' me to change my practice direction and encouraged me to ‘work with my impairments' and to contact others such as Dada South. We talk about the current renaissance and mainstreaming of ‘quality' Disability Arts in the South East. Encouraged I explain about ‘dadar', pronounced day-dar, a word I coined the previous day. It's the instant bond you ‘feel' upon meeting a fellow ‘Hidden disabled' artist/ person even if they do not immediately ‘explain'. I guess it stems from shared experience, universality and empathy, ‘synesthesic gift' or maybe more, you just seem to ‘know' and feel hence feel ‘safe' to disclose.
Spend the next few hours in the ‘lanes' attempting to find books from my childhood to ‘treat'. Able to find ‘far from the madding crowd' but unable to get ‘Midwich cuckoos' the one I really wanted. Intrigued to also find a recent copy of, ‘The curious tale of the dog in the nigh time' A must read for partners or prospective partners of ‘artists with aspergers' Thus engaged I end up having to run for a train.
Spend the evening with ‘Aspex' at their staff barbeque on the beach in Old Portsmouth. All quiet until 9 when ‘someone' rudely interrupts by deciding to fall, jump or be pushed off the nearby ‘Round tower'. We notice a person struggling to get to shore and collapsing in the surf at the towers base and some head over. They haul him from the sea and call the emergency services, as he is obviously hurt. We then get 2 Fire engines, 2 inshore rescue craft, police, defence launches from the harbour and finally an ambulance, 43 people in all. After they all go we then get the press, who interrupt the ongoing ‘stone skimming' contest. Take a few stones home with me for inclusion in a piece I am currently working on.
