Time to regroup:
The six bras that went to Debra Eck at the 3rd on 3rd Gallery in Jamestown have arrived home safely, beautifully and lovingly packaged back up into the box I had sent them in. Thank you Debra! It shouldn’t be the case, but I hear of so many artists whose work has been damaged by careless handling that I am thrilled that someone has treated my work so carefully.
I await the remaining two from Sweden, then all “the girls” are back home. Eight. I have not started bra nine… I have several ideas of what I’d like to do, but want to see them all in one place again before I embark upon it, to establish balance, and avoid tautology. I say that, but I think I’m on a hiding to nothing with that one on this project, there is overlap and common threads throughout. Of course. But I think, in this case, a little visual repetition is ok. Think of it as a chorus.
The songs are nearly there. I feel a bubbling under excitement about this, tinged with sadness. Those few of you that have had the staying power to read all this twaddle, will know how much fun it is, how much I am learning from the process. I am as happy as the proverbial swine in the proverbial excrement! Oh I shall miss it! At the moment, it is still too soon to be thinking what the next project will be, how it will come about, what will spark it off… but I suspect that these last few months will live in the memory as a peak of my creative activity. I hope of course there will be others, but this one has marked a life-change, a mind-change, a sea-change… so will always be way up there I’m sure!
Enough of that!
Practicalities:
Drinks and nibbles: What? Where? How much? and who will pour it out?
Meeting and Greeting: because the event is held over two floors this means I shall need someone on the door, and someone with the drinks.
Toilet paper: Make sure there’s plenty, and check the loo half way through the evening… clean towels, soap…
Seating for performance: Downstairs not upstairs, upstairs is for the installation, recordings, and bras and mingling….
Performance: Rehearsals are booked, and I will definitely be using a mic… my voice isn’t strong enough, and I feel better about the whole thing on the mic. My voice isn’t accurate enough if I’m trying to make it louder… better to keep it accurate and amplified. Have we got enough seats?Emergency chairs!
MC: I think it would be a good idea to get someone else to keep an eye on timings and proceedings, so that I can just chat to people, have a good time, concentrate on my performance and so on….
I can’t tell you how much I am relying on Dan Whitehouse, as much for organisational and moral support as musical. He is reminding me of things (or just telling me) and being really encouraging and lovely! I couldn’t have done, nor could I continue to do, any of this on my own. I could have booked another producer maybe, and another musician, but his friendship and unerring enthusiasm and support for this daft project cannot be bought from anywhere.
Occasionally, in the middle of some activity, sensing perhaps, a building tension, he will suddenly just stop… lean back in his chair and say in that vaguely Wolverhampton way, something like “It’s gonna be bloody brilliant, e!” Now, whether this is true or not remains to be seen, but it always makes me feel better… then normal services are resumed, and he tells me to sing it again.
