MAKING ART

Right now I am sitting in the van at the Black Sea listening to waves on the beach below.

How does an artist make a journey into art?

In some ways it is too easy – there are too many possibilities and some of them are very obvious and pleasing.

I looked at intersections, the nomadic life, life as a journey, the way, mapping, charts and generally got myself confused.

I read Bruce Chatwin's 'Songlines' again.

I looked at feet.

It is extremely difficult to manage this post from the campervan as internet access cannot be counted on. I have spent the last two days managing the blog of our journey and trying to edit photos and make a connection with this blog. This blog is important to me as I am having a problem affording regular contact with my partner in art, Krys, as well as with family.

The trip is providing me with huge numbers of ideas and varied inspiration – too much in fact. Here for example are some images of things I found interesting.

MORE STUFF MORE IDEAS FROM THE ‘JOURNEY’ It is hard work for John and I to discuss the meaning of the ‘journey’ as our brains work so differently – they are not surprisingly gendered but gender difference is always a surprise. John looks for ‘facts’ and I look for ‘significances’ though that ‘difference’ is perhaps crude as explanation. We were trying to find similarities in our various physical experiences of our journey. John says there are more differences between campsites within a country than between campsites in all the countries we have visited. I suggested that humans have been making journeys and choosing campsites for millennia and the conjunction of road, river and plain is desirable and explains what campsites, cities and settlements provide for us.Campsites=settlements=cities – we commented on the fact that the conjunction of roads rivers and flat places seem to be chosen for all kinds of human habitation. We disagreed about the significance of the river to the settlement nowadays. I think that humans are attracted to rivers even today though the link between the river and drinking water and washing facilities is not apparent. I think that our universal preference for peeing into water systems that empty into the sea is hard-wired into the human brain from primeval times. We are water creatures first of all and love rivers, lakes, and the sea. Rivers cleanse us, carry away our waste, but also give us an eternal home in the encompassing oceans. What has struck me as well as the importance of rivers, is the fact that many roads we use now are very old – that perhaps animals made them before humans begun to evolve civilisations. It was animals that showed us the way through mountains and along river banks to safe places to camp. African roads through the mountains are supposed to follow the migratory routes of elephants who also unerringly found the best fords across the great rivers. We are animals first. What shocks me is the blood spilt again and again at the same significant places on the globe. Those are the places that sit strategically at crossroads, in passes, on rivers, on trade routes, where watchtowers can be set, or bastions made. You would think that with all the space in the world that there would be enough places to live without fighting for them but no, somehow the significant places are the ones we need as well as want. Again and again people ascribe to places qualities of goodness or evil as if the place created the events – perhaps it is true that we are subject to geography and the mix of dirt and water that is a human dictates our behaviour more than we would like to acknowledge.

BEATING ABOUT THE BUSH I thought to try another track and ‘stop beating about the bush’ but then John and I digressed onto the meanings of ‘beating about the bush’John says it is either ‘beating a bush’ to see if a bird or an idea fly up, or it means ‘come to the point and stop ‘beating about’ or wasting time’. I see it as ‘beating about in the bundu’ (bush) when you are lost and trying to find a track to follow home. Perhaps also the birds that fly out of the scrub will be unique and lovely. ANOTHER TRACK I need to find the elements that I can use to make my art. This means returning to the elements that I have previously used.So I search my ‘track’ record. This might be a tendentious and tedious pun but I start to wander about the daily metaphors that we use that have connections with journeys. However I don’t want to explore that path now though I will mark it for later perhaps. ELEMENTS What are the elements that I use in my art? Colour and mixed media used as a process.Some element of women’s domestic arts like embroidery or weaving.Drawing – both abstract and storytelling.Installation and conceptual ideas coming out of feminism and politics.My personal experiences in life. So process is important and a journey is a process.So also is connecting – ideas – concepts – processes and media.Is a journey about connecting? Is a journey about joining the end to the beginning? CONNECTING THE END TO THE BEGINNING. Is this how we hope to make sense of our individual lives? ANOTHER TRACK I need to return down the paths I have followed extracting the significances, the connections, the elements that attract. I am playing but not just playing with words to be clever. I have to keep throwing the ‘bones’, the elements up into the air like a witchdoctor, nganga, until they, bones or elements, start to make patterns and therefore sense of a kind. CONNECTING THE END TO THE BEGINNING. Is this what art tries to do?

BUNDU BASHING BLOGThis Blog is to float ideas for my next exhibition which will depend heavily on this year’s journey. It is primarily for K so she can input critically for me but anyone else who is interested may contribute. ‘Bundu Bashing’ is what you do when you set off to explore the bush without a defined destination in mind. MAKING TRACKS AND MAKING ART I never know how to start making art.Finding the form to express ideas is always the same struggle. Words may spark ideas but they are not enough on their own. I play a bit with paper and coloured inks and make childish smudges but I find that I can’t draw the things I want to draw.The journey, this journey, my year in a campervan with my partner, is the resource for this art that I am trying to make. What aspect or part of the journey do I want to depict? Can it be done? How? Why? A journey appears to go direct from one point to another down a prescribed route. Any creative journey especially mine, wanders about and becomes mired down, sets off on tangential paths, follows ‘will-o’-the-wisps’ and then goes backwards for a time exactly as this piece of writing will do. We all talk about the ‘Journey of Life’ dah dah! Sort of Shakespeare, sort of Zen, sort of Christ stuff, but for J and I in our ‘moving’ Mobilhome, the concept and the reality have merged. It is exciting, challenging, egotistical and humbling.We aren’t the only people to do this kind of thing – for some it is an ethnic life style though fewer of those people are able to continue being nomads. For some no doubt it is a permanent and private choice to live differently. Nomads and the nomadic life that is another ‘way’ I must follow up.