Nine Women

I had my first meeting with Dan on Monday night, to discuss how we go about these songs, and what we expect from each other, set some dates for studio time, talk about deadlines, equipment, money, words and music… it was a busy hour and a half!

In many ways, although in years I am much older than Dan, he is the world-weary self-employed musician and singer-songwriter, with many experiences chalked up, with a healthy dose of cynicism thrown in. I am naive, and have no idea! So it was his idea that we formalise the arrangement. We set out what each of us expect, ground rules, schedule. We discuss the nitty gritty now, before we start. I like the way this works. When we first worked together, we didn’t know each other at all, so we decided that pussy-footing about being polite wasted precious time, and had the potential to breed resentment. So right from the start, our working relationship tells it how it is. Refreshing. Sharp. Exciting… and my goodness you get a lot more done!

So we will have The Agreement. It is needed more for this than anything else we have done. This is a big project, more time, more money, more emotional and creative investment than ever.

Already I feel more secure. I trust Dan to deliver. Neither of us are promising anything that we can’t. Neither of us are agreeing to anything unrealistic. The parameters are set. So off we go!

I had sent some song sketches, some lyrics and notes to him, a statement of the status quo (without Status Quo) if you like. There’s lots to be done, but there’s also quite a lot more already done than I had originally thought. Much of what I have recorded can be used. I don’t have to start from scratch. When you use ambient sounds and so on like I do, the quality of the recording isn’t so much of an issue, crackles, drones, white noise are all part of the feel. It situates the piece I think.

We will start in earnest the first week in January slap bang after the new year. I have a song I would like to use to launch the project, that sets the scene I think “Invisibility is not a Super-Power”. I want to get this out into the world as soon as we can. I don’t think I will let the others out as we go along though. They can wait until the exhibition opens.

We started to discuss individual songs at the end of the time, and will do more next week. Already, we are both excited for different reasons. I can see these sketchy little ideas of mine becoming rounded, complete pieces. They will have musical integrity, alongside (I hope) my lyrical and visual integrity. THIS is what the money is for… to give me the means to learn how to make them real. Dan isn’t just going to do it for me, hopefully he is going to show me how to do it for myself. I’m highly motivated… I just hope my brain can cope with it!

From his side of the fence, Dan has explained what it is he gets out of it… this I haven’t really been able to totally understand until the other night. He gets creative freedom. These don’t need to be radio-worthy songs. Hell, they don’t even need to be songs. They don’t need to follow the usual rules. They don’t need to be perfect in the same way, They just need to feel right, and for that feeling to be expressed in the best way possible. He can experiment. There are no boundaries to this really, not in terms of the sounds we make, or the structure they follow anyway. And we will have nine songs to play with, nine different situations, emotional responses, nine different adventures. Yes…they will probably be songs… but they don’t have to be… I can see the attraction now… pure creative experimentation!

It’s going to be a blast!

I’m going to explain this project in terms of how it came to me, as a slow-burn, unfolding, enlightenment. It developed from the purchase of a vintage bra from a junk shop on Mill Rd Cambridge, to this mammoth year of work I see before me.

The purchase of the bra was probably about two years ago. It was a strange beast, made around the mid forties I guessed, and the shop owner thought it was a good guess, this carefully constructed, engineered garment was sturdily stitched. A garment of function, not flirtation.

It was in amongst a tea chest full of dressing up clothes that included a belly dancing outfit. It was stuffed with foam pieces crudely stitched in around the cup edges. If it had been in a different place, I might have assumed it to be a post-operative mastectomy bra, but because of the context in which it was found (I was assured it came as a job-lot with the belly dancing outfit and various other somewhat theatrical items) I assumed it was a man-dressing-up-as-a-woman bra… as had the shopkeeper. This bra sat in my work room at home for quite some time, with and without the stuffing. I did some embroidery on it, but it never quite worked really. The item itself is really fascinating to me though. It started a train of though that has stayed with me and picked away at my brain.

Sliding forward to another conversation about a year ago, the thoughts had started to coalesce into this narrative about a middle aged woman, and the state of her bra. I had been doing a body of work about respectability.

I started to wonder about the poised and elegant Marks and Spencer “front” of the middle aged woman holding down a professional position, looking after offspring and parents in equal measure. I started to wonder about the state of her underwear, and the state of her self-esteem, and the state of her relationships. It stewed a while.

About 6 months ago, another conversation about these mythical women was happening. By now I had become somewhat fixated on bras and started asking my friends and yes, I have to be honest, the occasional stranger, about the state of their underwear. They wouldn’t dream of going out without wearing it, whatever state it was in, but it would be the first thing they whipped off when they got home after work! A friend works in a food and clothing bank and she was laughing at me and said something like “You should see the state of some of the bras that get donated… we chuck them into the rag bag!” …….. WHAT????

A week later, she brought me nine bras. Nine really bad bras.

So now I had nine women to think about.

I have another friend who is a bit of a history geek… I could hear her anorak rustling… “oh just like the nine muses…hahaha!”

In the deep recesses of my mind, I vaguely recalled the Greek mythology, but she refreshed my memory, happy to pass on the details. So now I had my framework: Nine Contemporary Muses. I would look at these nine women’s garments, re-invent their lives, tell their stories, make up their songs.

They hold, at some level, aspects of myself perhaps. But as I have said in another blog, a long time ago, the more personal the work, the more universal it is.

*******

I have in my head a large installation, the nine bras, taking on a very sculptural presence in the gallery. This holds no fears for me. But also in my head, these nine women have nine songs. Left to my own devices the discrepancy is vast… The textiles I know I can produce to a very high quality. I have skills! The songs are another matter. I can write a few words, and I can hold a tune on a good day. I have a bit of a way with recorded ambient and domestic sounds, using them as music, as I don’t play an instrument… but I have friends who do…

“Crewe” (there’s much wrong with this, and right I suppose, or I wouldn’t have put it out there… it may well end up being one of the nine songs, but not quite like this…)

For this to work really well, something has to happen. I have to learn so much… I have to get my act together, write, record and produce these songs so they sound really good, like proper songs, not bathroom operatics or karaoke down the pub. For this I need help. For this I need Dan Whitehouse and a bunch of other musicians, and a lot of studio time… Thanks again to the Arts Council, because now, I have what I need to make it happen.

24th October

I wanted to write this on the day it happened, hopefully to capture how I feel…

This morning, a big fat brown envelope landed on the mat.

I limped, bleary, in need of tea and paracetamol, to the kitchen, in search of my glasses.

It was stamped “Arts Council”, so a good job I had sat down!

They said “yes”.
I swore.
I chose a better word and swore again.

This feels bloody monumental.

My life has been in turmoil since January 6th this year.

On January 5th 2015, my new project officially starts, my research and development funded by the Arts Council.

I’ve been working towards this a while, my current work hinting at it around the edges. WITHOUT the funding, I would probably have taken about 5 years to do this, and not really to the standard I want, or that would do it justice. WITH the funding, I can apply myself to learning, developing skills and producing sound work of a professional standard to match my textile pieces. I can create this installation exactly how I want it, and can now approach people with confidence to exhibit my work.

I will explain the project in my next post. Any readers who follow my other blog “Threads” will know that how I feel about the work and my life and the people around me is a huge part of my practice. I am deeply emotionally invested in my work. So I make no apologies for doing this bit first.

I want this first post on this new blog to be about how it feels as a 53 year old woman, to receive a year’s worth of funding for my art…. the first funding I have ever applied for. I feel justified in resigning from my job earlier this year, taking that leap of faith. I feel vindicated in all of the decisions I have made over the last few months, concerning my work, and how and where it is shown. I feel appreciated and respected. I feel brave and proud. I feel enormously grateful for the support of my family and friends. Feeling all these things as that 53 year old woman IS A BIG THING. The subject matter of the project is entirely appropriate to this feeling. It feels important. I feel that I have a voice and someone is listening. I am suddenly feeling not so invisible.

Thanks, Arts Council!