‘My Line drawn – end of an era’
Portsmouth – London – Portsmouth
April 26th 2013
Wake 5:28 am and read emails before returning to snooze
the usual tea toast bath dress pack remember routine and another unwritten list
‘things to take in case they are useful’
Today = dual day
SK project meeting at The Arts Catalyst
Cultural Olympiad reflections at the Barbican – Last official event
Train times to London considered – we leave at 9:24 on a remarkably empty train with unusually correct timings – all noted and written for the Look About documented end game.
Bus on arrival – number 243 fast at first then a crawl through Hatton Garden – eventually familiar pink encourages us to ring the bell and alight – ‘Bus stopping’ from a slowness with a jolt
Project meeting and introductions with photographes taken of pattern unseen on last visit
Meeting – time slips past and list recedes into workability – the day – the advertising – the number – the people invitations – order of performance – amalgamations of 3 into 2 – movements – all planned and squared away before a startling leaving.
Narrow manoeuvres in the lightened tunnel lead to the silken registration and book turned fossil treasure
Its over 30 years since I worked as a temp in the Gallery filling in time after University – It was the Asger Jorn exhibition i moved within that informed me to leave the sharks behind and go home to draw. This is the 4th time I have been back.
Meet people seen and new met over the last 5 years of running a Cultural Olympiad project – I have my sociability mask tied with look them in the eyes string firmly in place – I cant slip here – Greetings followed by a series of presentations from Sir Tony Hall, Maria Miller MP, Ruth Mackenzie and lastly Seb Coe
then
a wonderful non-sectarian plea for the fight to be taken to the treasury to make the ‘case for the value of the arts’ by Tessa Jowell from the floor
seats fold back upright as we stand
metaphoric
A shared comment with aspie joke on the stairs finally fills my limit of ‘the social’ and a need to escape overwhelms me but . . . . . .
I am rememberd
A ‘late escape’ – break again – running round the streets on an imposed errand leads us back for the next set of talks – slightly late
unconformity noted
we find an ‘Impassioned plea for no more silence’ after the opening and closing
then ‘The Cultural Olympiad is over’
and recordedin the note book as a single black line – unremarkable in its drawing
Not for me as the Look About geological map of the CO will be worked on over Summer and launched end September
My sociability mask retrieved from bag firmly placed – we take to the conservatory for beer freed talking and networking
new people
new projects
and a coup
are won
before we run
tinged with resigned sadness
BUS
TRAIN
usual seat
repeat
HOME
to
lay awake
and consider
the invitation
as the moon
unseen through cloud
darkens with shadows of us
