Nine Women

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I’m sat here with the ubiquitous cup of Lady Grey tea, and a slice of toast, made for me by Mike. I dumped the bags and coat in the hall and flumped into the chair with a groan.

“So was it a useful exercise then?” He asked.

“Yes!” I replied.

Was it? How?

Open Studios can be a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes it just means a sale of work, sometimes it means peep through the door that is slightly ajar but don’t dare step over the threshold or attempt to speak to the artist!

I know I’ve said before I’m anti-social and territorial about my studio space, but I actually quite enjoy this! I’ve had two open studio events since moving in here about a year ago. Once I’ve decided, I do dive in. I have a bit of a cake reputation, so I bake, and invite… I think I’m a bit scared people will be embarrassed by having to talk about my work, so I give them something else to talk about, or write in my comments book about instead.

The opportunity to talk about the work to different audiences is good for me. Helps me figure things out. I quite enjoy gauging where people are in relation to the work. Are they happy to look, find their own way in, or are they completely confused by the sight of these bras suspended from the ceiling?

My first question is to ask how they knew about the event… This gives me clues… Social media, art groups, word of mouth, my personal Internet stalker, that sort of thing, or just fresh in off the street. Then we launch in from there… All of the women see the words “Invisibility is not a super power, it’s the curse of the middle aged woman” and pretty much get where I’m coming from… We might talk about bras and songs for a while, but they relate. From approximately 60 visitors over three days, there were only a couple of people who didn’t eventually find some point of access.

Tricky though isn’t it?
I want people to find a way in, to relate, but don’t want it to be so obvious that others shrug and walk on by.

So is the open studio event a useful exercise? Yes. It gives me the opportunity to gauge this response, and to formulate the words to reach the widest prospective audience.

It also gives me a chance to celebrate a little with those who have supported me. I don’t need much in order to celebrate… Put the kettle on and supply a choice of home baked goodies!

Tomorrow I plan to do a lot of sleeping.

Monday, I shall go through my Arts Council form and remind myself what the next thing is I said I would do…. Then in the evening, sing a song about domestic violence to the songwriters’ circle.

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It’s not lost on me that I bemoan the lot of the Middle Aged Woman, and her state of invisibility, whilst I feel more visible than I ever have!

I am a walking paradox. It’s like I’m saying, oh no not me, I am not saying this is ME! And yet it is.

So I grapple then with why?

I have woken up shouting, protesting my invisibility! In a peculiar way, that’s all it took. It appears invisibility is a state of mind.

Everything about this event screams my middle aged femininity! What I find revolutionary is my rejoicing in it.

For a while there, a few years back, I thought I had to change myself in order to be an artist. I did, but not in the way I thought.

I thought I might have to be a painter. Nope.

I thought I might have to understand all that French philosophy. Nope.

Turns out its both easier and harder than that….

I just have to be who I am, and talk about and work about the things that matter to me. Easy right? Nope.

That’s the hard bit.

This open studio event exposes me for exactly who and what I am.

A Middle Aged Woman.

I have new underwear, naturally.

I have bought some new clothes to make sure I feel nice.

I make sure I put my lippy on.

I’ve made cake. Lots of it.

This is what I am.

My work is shouting it.

It’s about love and loss. Light and dark. Overt and covert resentment.

It’s about sex and death. About conformity. About saying “sod it!” About acceptance. It’s about being and having a child and a parent.

I am proud that a few interesting people are interested, wanting them to look closely….

Whilst hoping they don’t, just in case they see something that’s too much of me that I hope will go unnoticed. Or, God forbid, see something of me that I have inadvertently exposed for all to see: that my new posh frock is tucked into the back of my knickers and I’m the only one not to see it.

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*Sigh*
I can be a bit of a liability if truth be known…

This afternoon I had an interview about nine women on a local radio station.
I was witty and erudite I’m sure… I was told I had a great radio voice…. Better than being told I’ve got a great radio face that’s for sure!
All was going well, I’d introduced myself, said where I was from and a little bit about the music…

“So, Elena, I hear your project involves ladies’ underwear?”

The correct answer to this question is, “yes, Trev!”

The answer to this question, at 3:30 on a Tuesday afternoon, when all the kiddies are listening on their way home from school is definitely NOT

“All the best things do, Trev!”
(as I listen back, I swear I hear a cheeky wink and Sid James laughing)

Oh gawwwwddddd…….
I slapped my hand over my mouth and glared in horror at Trev, too late. It was out there.
No hole opened up below me, however fervently I wished for it. I apologised. I don’t know if that just made it worse. Trev said not to worry about it.

I don’t know what came over me.
Actually I do… It’s just me isn’t it? I say stuff I think will be funny, I say stuff just for the giggle. However inappropriate. Before my brain has got into gear. Most of the time in my life, especially these days when I’m no longer spending hours with young children, I just blurt.

Oh well… I also mentioned the cake… Maybe a few people will turn up for the rude jokes, and some will turn up for the cake. What is it they say about no such thing as bad publicity?

Despite all of that, as I listen to myself, I think it’s ok… It’s not bollocksy, I think it is accessible to people. I think there’s plenty in it for people to relate to, and enough to make people curious about how the hell it will all sit together perhaps.

Deep breath, onto the next thing!
I would just love it to bits if some of my blog readers turned up… Did I happen to mention there will be cake?

The interview is now online… But not sure how long for…
http://www.trevfrench.com/elena-thomas—9-women-art-installation-dudley.html

Thank you for listening!

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In my last post, I wrote of the state of flow… The ultimate creative state.

In this post I write of the least creative, the most frustrating and yet the other end of the duties the artist must do, in order to get the work seen and heard (at least the artist as low down the pecking order as me… Higher up the ladder there are agents, curators and technicians I hear!)
I am getting the room ready. The seemingly granite walls these shops were constructed with in the 1970s are impossible to hang from, so I have enlisted the help of volunteers to construct the false wall art schools are so enamoured of… Plywood, gum strip and litres and litres of white emulsion.

It’s not great, but given the gallery is of the pop-up shop variety, it will do the job. The opposite internal, plasterboard wall is also painted white. By July, for the great big posh exhibition, I intend all the walls will be fresh and white, but for this launch, and showing of the germs of ideas and works in progress, two walls of white are fine for now. The windows are filthy. I have cleaned the inside, and hopefully the window cleaner will be round before the end of the week to do the upstairs ones in addition to the downstairs ones he always does. The carpet has paint on it from a previous exhibition…tut… It won’t come off, so I am actually considering painting it again, to match the surrounding fibres. Or I might come to my senses and let it go. This space is not going to be a pristine white cube. It was never such, and never will be. It is not realistic to invest that sort of money in this space. It is therefore a constant balancing act of what I am prepared to put up with, and what I’m not, what I can afford to put right, and what I cannot. My work will go up for the open studio, and stay up for a couple of weeks after I suppose (so if you miss the event, get in touch and you can call in anyway, there might not be cake though). But after that, and before July, I would like it to be used for other artists. I have a few in mind. So I am also conscious of them and their needs. Whatever I do in this space should be adaptable for others, as they will be using it after my event.

My focus then, seems to have fallen into the categories of clean and practical. The boards are functional. The place is clean. Total eyesores will be disguised and minimised. Little things will have to be let go. I can’t do it all. My theory is, that once the work is in the space, that is what people will look at, not the wall finish, or the carpet stains. If people look as if they are bothered by the state of the place I will loudly shout “Cake!” And point in the other direction.

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We decided to slot in an extra session as we were both suddenly free.

We have a certain amount of sessions booked, with a couple of extras as a contingency. I am fairly flexible, this project being pretty much the thing I am doing at the moment. Dan of course is much busier, so it seems sensible to grab opportunities when we can, just in case later on he has other opportunities and commitments.

So… in addition to the songs which require other musicians, there are two or three in my head that require just me and Dan, so on this occasion, that’s what we did. I have in my head that these songs will be varied in production, some very produced – manipulated, overlaid, filtered… many instruments and many players. Others will be less so, and one, that we recorded the other evening, is basically just me, unaccompanied. We got together at about 5pm, and worked through till after 11, pausing for a sandwich, coffee, and a packet of hobnobs, while we listened to what we had done.

Right at the beginning, Dan said he had an alternative idea for one of the songs… the one that I see almost as the theme for the project: “Invisibility is not a Super-Power” so he took it and ran… there was talk of Yoko, we had train sounds, my washing machine spin cycle. He played his guitar with a spoon… as one does…

He had that look in his eyes as I watched… you know, the one where you are totally engrossed, have stopped having any awareness of your surroundings, other than the thing you are doing. Flow… The spoon was drawn up and down the strings as his guitar lay in his lap. Some of the noises were sweet, some were not… it went from sweet to ugly in a breath. I had no idea where he was headed, and I don’t know that he did either. This was true play… imaginative, absorbed… wonderful to see in someone else, and great when you do it yourself. I think it is the first time I have seen it before my very eyes though since leaving my school job. I very very rarely see it in an adult. I wanted a photo of him, the guitar and the spoon, but didn’t want to break the spell.

I love that this work is free enough to allow for this to happen.

The joy of life is not in the STUFF, but in the way you live it.