Day 2 of my Trip to Northern Ireland
I’d forgotten how fond I am of Belfast. Due to visiting relatives etc, I realized I have probably never walked around Belfast city alone since I left 25 years ago.I can’t put into words just how it feels to do so after all this time – living with the Troubles was a natural existence for my generation, entering the city checkpoints, standing in line to be frisked, shaking out our umbrellas on front of armed policemen, laughing with the soldiers who boarded our bus to check under our seats for bombs, as a child this was my home, and to me, in my young view, it was a happy one. In the January sales people were so blasé with bomb scares, they had to be virtually dragged away from the cash desk when there was a bargain at stake, regardless of the soldiers ordering them out. Once peace came, it took us a year at least for people to stop automatically opening their handbags to be searched in every shop door they entered. Belfast is transformed now, shopping centres, entertainment, resturants, fast on it’s way to being European City of Culture and voted best weekend destination world wide last year. A few reminders of it’s history remain such as the DIY store with it’s gaffa tape advertised as ‘hostage tape.’ Belfast never had lost it’s sense of humour.
My two gallery visits today were really positive and now it’s just a case of going home to give the situation some more thought and prepare proposals etc. All in all, like everytime I return home, it has been an intensely emotional experience for me. As a young artist I held my largest solo show in the Arts Council gallery there, two vast car showrooms, ( the Arts Council gallery relocated more than once through bomb damage), – to go back would be in a sense to complete the circle, and somehow would satisfy something inside.
These posts were written during my trip to Northern Ireland so are published in retrospect.
Day 1 in Northern Ireland. Up bright and early I boarded the plane at Southampton airport to find that Belfast airport was shut due to snow. In a really ironic way, after watching Planes,Trains & Automobiles with Samuel two days ago, and actively wondering whether I would meet a John Candy character on the plane, I bizarrely did just that. After an hour waiting on the runway, by which my new pal in the next seat had familiarized me with the goings on of all his family members, friends, their successive children, his history from childhood and his entire schedule for the trip, we were sent back into the airport to wait for another hour where my friend sought me out again and joined me for coffee. I was beginning to suspect I would never get to Belfast. Ruminating on the films outcome I made an active choice to embrace this man’s chatty company only to discover when we got back on the plane he said ‘Actually there’s a free seat over there, I’d rather be on my own if you don’t mind and get some rest’. I felt cheated.
Anyway, on arrival I met my sister and we set off for the city you daren’t mention, or as the N.Irish now call it ‘Stroke City’. The awareness the N.Irish carry of the significance of language etc, may be undetectable by the rest of the UK but is very real and something I am dangerously out of practise in using. The name Londonderry/Derry has become so charged that people are careful not to be associated with one or the other – hence the ‘stroke’ city (the two names are dropped and only the stroke separating them remains). Even on the phone arranging meetings I made a conscious effort to avoid all mention of it.
Stroke city, a good distance from Belfast, feels wildly remote, and the journey there cuts through some distinctly barren and raw countryside. The city itself carries the marks of it’s history, devisions and attempts at reconciliation everywhere. Unlike Belfast where the centre reveals little of it’s troubled history, Stroke city is embellished throughout with murals, slogans, colours, monuments and artworks, simultaneously calling people to maintain their historic devisions and unite in peace. A fascinating place and one which pulled me in all directions emotionally, as I mentally left behind the quiet Wiltshire existence and reinvoked my feelings of belonging to this raw and troubled country.
The afternoon meant two meetings with gallery directors there with fairly positive results, which now require me to put together a proposal. Back later to my sisters in Belfast, on to my fathers and a treasured evening with our now small family back together again.
The day before I leave (mega early) for Ireland and things are not quite as planned. My fathers brother has died suddenly in England so I may have to do an about turn early and come back with my father for the funeral. They were identical twins so the loss is even more poignant in a way. Billy and Bobby. Although seas apart they aged identically with the same familiar tone of voice and the same little movements and turn of their head. How odd life will be for my father without him.
On a more frivolous note, after two days of half term and the inevitable squabbling I have almost lost my voice from shouting at the children (day 1 is always the worst and then they settle down). Let’s hope it holds up enough to speak in the four meetings I have lined up as that could render it a complete waste of time. I have also an extra child to look after today due to a crisis over a horrendously sad access battle between friends and will later have to offload them all to get to Laurence Rushbys PV event tonight (Laurence has stretched red ribbon around the Salisbury Arts Centre for her Lifelines show and my youngest who is going through a rebellious stage is bound to drag them down if I let her within a mile of it).
What started off this week as a carefully laid out plan for the journey has been superseeded by the much bigger and more chaotic issues of life itself. How things can change in a matter of hours.
I’m feeling a bit like a boat that’s been cut loose from the dock and just let float around at the moment. I keep reviewing my list of ideas to explore, bits of film I want to make etc and not actually getting to grips with things. I’m off to N.Ireland after tomorrow to see four galleries so perhaps my thoughts will crystalise a bit more. The show in Geneva has not been nailed down to a venue yet, I have a few galleries supposedly watching me, one supporting and helping me get some critical writing done, and many projects I could set up myself, but no actual concrete deadlines.
There are so many opportunities listed now I never have time to get past reading the third page or so on websites so I am probably missing all the best ones. Sometimes I feel the amount of info available is just as much a curse as a benefit. I guess I need to have a structured approach otherwise I could just flail around and drown in it. If some smart person out there could offer a service which would sift out opportunites/ articles etc appropriate to my practice and email me no more than say four at a time a day I could cope with that. Otherwise I just run around like the headless chicken of the web, lost in a sea of inappropriate opportunities, giving up and wandering off to make dinner.
PS Artsmatrix has been scooped up and rescued at the last minute so will live to see another day – yeh!
It really saddened me yesterday to read that Artsmatrix has had to close down. I can’t emphasise enough how pivotal the organisation has been in enabling me to return to exibiting and working on a professional level. Over two years ago I signed myself up for a creative development session and, for a very small payment, one of their officers travelled some distance to spend two hours or so at a location convenient to my situation and effectively worked with me to focus what I wanted out of a future in art.
Emerging from the oblivion of 10 years raising four young children, the support, focus and encouragment that day gave me the boost I needed and I went ahead to apply for arts council support. Arts matrix kept in touch and guided me through my form, responding to my many questions (even from her bed when the officer was off ill with flu) and connecting me with other sources of support. During my last contact with my officer, at a recent conference, I was bemoaning my rather disorganised effort at combining family with the aims of my reasearch, wondering whether I merited the support at all but she quickly reasured me that I was making more than satisfactory progress and once again gave me the boost I needed. I have been recomending Artsmatrix to all and sundery ever since and feel their closure as a huge loss (among others) to the area.
Many key people have contributed to my development in the last few years but had that initial meeting been more expensive I doubt whether I could have gone, – had I had to travel long distances I may not have fitted it in with the children, – had Artsmatrix not existed, I wonder would anyone be reading this at all.
