Had a wonderful day in Margate yesterday with Joanna. Started with a Stefani making workshop at Limbo Arts (in the old Substation) with Carole Day: http://margatestefaniproject.blogspot.co.uk
“The Stefani is a woven flower garland from Greek folklore and tradition. Every Maytime Greek women gather white daisies from the hedgerows and weave them into a garland with other vegetation such as ivy, grasses and cypress leaves; they hang them from their front doors to welcome the coming of Spring and to invite love into their homes and into their lives.” (Carole Day)
I find I lose some of my awkwardness with people when I am making things and conversation flows much more easily.
After successfully completing a Stefani using ivy and flowers, we went on to Party of One at Crate next door to see Lisa Milroy’s performance painting http://www.lisamilroy.net/c/1000007/performance-paintings.
There were two performances – the first with her usual performer and the second with Joanna. After the performances, the small group of us there had a wide-ranging discussion about the idea of the self/selves in a painting, the instructions a painter might give herself when working and how the ‘real’ is incorporated into a work, the act of ‘making’, which tied in nicely with the Stefani project, time, labour and cooking. When Joanna performed, interestingly, her hesitations and vulnerability added something that had not been there in the first performance – creating a kind of disruption as well as bringing a real body into the work and possibly making the work less about the self.
No images of the performance: Lisa was very clear about not wanting photos taken during the actual performance.
