FAB(ath) 2012
Being back in Bath after 6 months of living, seemed like a strange, surreal dream, the bustling city, the posh shops, the golden buildings. All seemed exactly as it was in the city of forgotten dreams. Everything seemed so easy, so great, so bright, in this lovely little city. A dream world, a reality that seems so far away from the reality I am living in now. Time seems to have turned on a different axis within this city. Everything outside of the valley is louder, bigger, bolder. Within the beauty and the fields of gold stone, there lies a complexity of hidden truths, embedded in every cobbled street, every shop and every church, in every face.
This isn’t real. You are not real.
Isn’t it marvelous? Isn’t it grand? Aren’t we all just so beautiful and thankful and great.
The artwork and the galleries were no different, even the people seemed of the same callibre. Milsom Place, with all its glory, glorified even more by the stench of purified prints, the grand paintings, the sculptures of fire and light, the ghosts of lost forgotten souls on the walls. Where and when have I seen all these before?
Oh, only in Bath darling.
The Officers Club, not so much a club, but more an empty shell filled with iridescent flickers of hope. Hope that in some corners spirals out of control, and in others, just flickers into oblivion. A lost phone, watch or camera tainting the loss of a mother, childhood and friendship. A dirty, muddy, planetary event, dried up and crumbling much like the rest of the building.
Signs of life and sounds of scurrying nowhere to be found anymore in the Pet Shop; instead, memories of a childhood dream packaged and sealed, spoiled by the reality of adulthood. Broken toys, Gucci tampons, heart of stone callous grinder, negative space, and Newport girl – a large concoction of mildly amusing and far-fetched kiosk of STUFF.
And now the long hilly ascent up to what seems like a death trap – beware unsafe building – a shed outside with a peephole – a piece of work? Or a Vernacular need for locality, that’s fragile and solid at the same time.
And the doors lock and I can’t walk on anymore. No more to see, Bath has closed it’s doors on me today. Perhaps, I shall return another day for some more dreaming.
