The Lost Library and Word Collecting

Preparations for The Lost Library at The Wrexham Open.

Questions I’m considering:

Dwindling libraries – what is being done around the UK and to what effect?

How do and how can libraries can best support communities?

What is now essential in a library?

Does free access to text enhance social cohesion?

Do very well read individuals benefit communities (and which communities?)

Collecting and collections, in particular words, lexicons, dictionaries.

Communicating and connecting in a multi-lingual society.

The landscape of a place affecting communication – on writing.
Over the past week I’ve had two rehearsals of The Lost Library where I performed a joining ritual with people, whilst mute, participants completed a registration form, asked me a question on the form which I responded through a gesture or bodily movement, received a library card and one word.

The Librarian character – so far I’ve played a stock broker, myself and pushed that through being mute throughout rehearsals (and previously at Deptford X Fringe – being mute for 6 hours) , but I now find the lost librarians character is that of a warrior, who is fighting to connect with people and place through a living archive (the lost library word collection of that place).

The word collecting activity I originally came up with – asking people for stories about Wrexham – has proved too arbitrary – so last week I asked new members to put their favourite word on the form – but it is still not right.

I am pondering instead using one of the words from my word collection (currently has 14* words) as the starting point of the Wrexham collection.  Where participants join the library, receive a card and a word, fill in the form and we talk whilst harvesting honesty seeds.

There’s actually not too much pondering to do, I’ve worked with honesty now twice before in performance, most recently at a car boot sale and before that at a business networking breakfast.

Collecting words while also collecting seeds would have a less formal feel to it – and the words collected would have been thought about for a little longer, in a relaxed setting and so more meaningful to the individual.    Allowing a stepping back.  When I am mute and awaiting people to fill in a form I find it’s all a bit formal and far too much like an exam, with a strange pressure, which is not my intention. I don’t need to put others on the spot like that – it’s not helpful in gathering words that actually mean something to them.

This word collecting session/s would be a workshop, I have two appearances in each of Ty Pawb (was Oriel Wrexham) and UnDegUn – the first appearances being harvesting and word gathering and the next sessions being The Lost Library appearances using the words generated in those sessions.

Join here and grow the Lost Library Wrexham word collection with me.

*tribal, celticity, honesty, atmosphere, equinox, pentre, voice, land, myth, vital, botanical, posting, clarity.

Honesty harvesting video:   https://vimeo.com/wynnepaton/review/295257256/c84e39427f

I am currently transforming my studio – I’ve moved and  painted the exterior blue, the interior has now been insulated, I’ve painted it white and building shelves and worktops.

It is an equally big transformation for me psychologically as I create the place and space I want to make things happen and I am clearing out headspace and centring  myself before a thoughtful and concise period of work.

I have always loved the colour blue.  Now it feels an appropriate time to allow myself to feel it as last year my half-brother Stuart died and the loss of my step-father in a car accident when I was 23 and an unfortunately high number of deaths of other people key in my life has left me with ongoing feelings of loss.

Something which has struck me as incredibly hopeful and beautiful is Stuart’s mother and step-father planting rhododendrons in their rainbow wood behind their house (named after DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow.)  This got me thinking about the hope and associations of colours.

Having just painted my studio blue I am embracing both the colour and its associations and life as it happens.  It is also my long-time favourite colour. The blue of my shed reminds me it is ok (even if it doesn’t feel that way) to feel loss, to grieve and to understand that this loss is always going to be there with me.   Loss of someone who’s been a part of my life, in the end reminds me to go forth in what I do more boldly and bravely than I have before so that something very positive goes into the future with me from those who are gone.  Then they are not entirely lost. It is the way I function after the shock of loss, it also means I can think and talk about them as if they are simply in a parallel universe; not exactly gone forever.

When things are going and flowing well the colour blue grounds me, as success is much harder to handle than failure (rejections – or at least not yets – are as common for artists as for actors!)

I have  kept emotion out of my work until now to an extent, have kept a distance from emotion as it is too difficult and I am afraid of getting it all wrong (because I reckon my scale of appropriateness in emotion is uncalibrated.)

I look at the world as if they are systems within an overall Gaia-like system and I am using the discipline of a structured process system,  creating the prime conditions for me to make my best work. I am more like an orchid than a daisy in the type of environment I thrive in and need things to be in quite a particular way.  My rules.

My method of making work has echoes of Sol le Witt,  Art & Language’s a social base in shared conversation and the highly organised way social media  professionals schedule their posts for maximum impact.

Doing these things I must do, all the while keeping lost people etched into my neural connections and showing up in unexpected places within my work.

As artist and friend Fernando Holguin put it:

Stop thinking and feel your way through life…

 

 

Honesty

Early one February morning at Abergavenny Morning! Networking meeting, attendees have 45 seconds each to introduce themselves and their businesses to the 40+ people in the room.

When my turn came around I introduced myself and photographer Jane who I’d invited along and removed my scarf revealing a large cardboard badge with “The only language that matters?” painted on it.   Approaching the nearest table, I began handing out large round seeds from a black drawstring bag.

Jane began photographing the exchange as I made my way slowly around the room and with only a few seconds left I asked the room if they knew what type of seed it was and then revealed its name.

I was later asked Do you think honesty is the only language that matters?  To which I replied Yes.

Taking art into a business networking context.  I’m considering alternative ways of showing art, my art in particular as this is a context I’m experimenting with.  With my work being about people, communication and words the networking context is an intriguing situation in which to place it.

My way of reading is to have several on the go at any one time.  One recent read I’ve had for a while and read a few years back, though I read it the wrong way for me – front to back straight through.  Sometimes this way of reading satisfies, but more often than not the authors style gets repetitive.

My most recent read has made me feel more comfortable than ever in my reading style, which is naturally messy in reading a chapter that catches my eye for as long as its engaging.

This is a little in the way in Drawn Together  http://drawntogether.wales/index.php/about-the-project/– people are asked to draw something that catches their eye.  I read this way…How would you describe how you read?

The book I’ve just read (and keep dipping back into) is A Perfect Mess – The Hidden Benefits of Disorder by Eric Abrahamson & David H. Freedman.  It’s a great antidote to the very popular minimalist movement that sometimes gets less than pristinely ordered people feeling lacking some magical quality.

It nicely explained why towering piles of paper work better for me than folders, that stuck with me!

Which (unintentionally) brings me back to INSCRIBE – I’ve written  a proposal for it and would like  it to tour and shed sheets and accrue new transcriptions from a range of artist critiques – meetings – symposia perhaps.  I am on the look out for paper and photocopying sponsors to make this 1m high pile of paper entirely of paper next time, rather than plinth and paper.

INSCRIBE

Inscribe is a textual self-portrait of our emerging new art-world, through recording and transcribing conversations between artists.

These sessions are then re-played, typed using a manual typewriter onto cream paper and photocopied.  The piece exhibited shows human error in the process of transcription through mishearing’s, misunderstanding and typos and is a contemplation on the value of communication, the potential for growth through dialogue and the obstacles to comprehension in the misunderstandings arising from the production process and ultimately transposing a conversation from one location to another.

(Here’s Inscribe at T R A N S P A R E N C Y exhibition in December – New images coming soon!)

Inscribe is a living work of art gathering artists words, it is also messy in the interpretation of recordings.  The pages are offered to audiences via a prominent sign with the hope that the pile will wax and wane with each new showing.

Inscribe is a live document.

Ingredients:

Artists critiques and conversations.
Recording device.
Typewriter.
Cream paper.
Emboss / Watermark
Method:

Recording critique sessions attended.
Transcription of sessions using typewriter and cream paper, listening only once to each several second section.
Photocopying original transcriptions.
Watermark / embossing of each sheet.
Assembling sheets into 1m tall stack.
‘Please take one’ sign on floor.