The chill in the air together with the mistyness and running unknown roads put me in mind of Riga. I am in Köping, Västmanland where I will be running a workshop today in conjunction with the official opening of the installation at the train station – Departure and Arrival, part three.
Yesterday was the opening and workshop in Kungsör. Only a few people joined the drop in workshop but several were keen to chat and there were interesting conversations about making, artistry, and materiality. It was great to meet Sarah Vegna, a local artist, author, and all round creative person, who was there to assist with the workshop. Her passion for recycling and her ways of engaging people in thinking about it were/are truly inspiring – she has written and illustrated childrens’ books where the children recycle materials into new things that they need. I can easily imagine her running great workshops based on this idea. And it reminded me that workshops can be really good ways of getting people thinking about a whole range of things at the same time as developing and exploring their creativity.
It strikes me now that I too have been running workshops from a sustainable perspective. For the past two years the main material for the summer schools I ran was waste cardboard from the deliveries of new books to the library. I have also frequently used old books which were on their way to the recycling centre. My vision for the creative workshop in the proposed culture house (in Enköping) was that it should have sustainability at its heart – a proposal which seemed to fall on deaf ears.
One person who certainly picked up on what I was saying was Simon – who worked with me on the Creative Saturday programme in Enköping. I think that was why he invited me to a meeting for people working with and interested in art/creativity and sustainability. The day (last Sunday) turned out to be far better than I had expected … experience has led me to be sceptical of network meetings where everyone save the artists are in paid positions and the network building is a part of their employment … research … funded project … academic role. This was quite the opposite – a group of mostly freelance or part-time people with broad interests and experience looking to develop new ways of working recognising that pay and/or financial compensation for time and expertise are vital. I was pleased that my point about the increasing demands for the instrumentalisation of art in the service of political agendas actually does very little for either the artist or art other than provide short term income/employment was taken on, and that there is an arguement for looking at how we use existing art space and institutions as well as for taking art out of these traditional venues. There was also discussion around how little rather than how much we can do … participate … contribute … for a network to function and be meaningful – which is a very attractive way to approach things!
Working in Enköping already feels as though it was the distant past, it is actually only two and half weeks ago that my sabbatical began. I enjoyed the three day week that I worked there in late July though it wasn’t as I thought it would be. The colleague who is taking over my role and I had spoken about … agreed(!) … that we would spend time together going through things – both practical and administrative during those days, however when I arrived to work Wednesday through to Friday I learned that she was on holiday. So no real ’hand over’, I had already written a hand over document and we had spoken briefly but that was when she asked for more time together as she was overloaded with other things. Two other colleagues were working that week but I hardly saw them – nothing unusual about that as both keep themselves very much to themselves. After a nice quiet week of sorting, tidying, and cleaning I left.
It feels absolutely right to be taking a break … a long break. I have become aware of how I had come to have a constant … persistent … nagging … low level frustration … irritation … stress(?) – I can probably only allow myself this recognition now that I am no longer in the situation causing it.
Being at the studio is an absolute pleasure and I am truly enjoying the company of other artists … as I have said before it feels like I am at home there.
Day 0
Monday and my first day as a full-time artist … and the day before my sabbatical officially begins. I am very excited about the coming year. There are number of concrete … definite …things that I want to do, there are also a number of more abstract things that I want to explore … work out … play with. I want to strike a balance between these predetermined activities – both the concrete and the abstract – and projects and giving space for the spontaneous, the unexpected, the opportunistic, the haphazard, the random.
I am looking forward to working out a routine. I need a routine … a framework … something simple and straight forward that gives the week some structure. I know that this is something that will develop and evolve, it is something that will be pushed, tested, and deviated from but knowing that it is there … even if it is in the background … offers a necessary security and sense of comfort. I find myself returning to the familiar phrase ’structures for freedom’. Simply saying that I will be at the studio every (week)day is a good start … and it is already something that will be deviated from – it is Stockholm Pride this week and I have been invited to share a friend’s hotel room from Thursday to Saturday, so I won’t be here two days this week. And next week it is more than likely that I will work at least one day for Tim – which will be great, it’s been too long since I worked with Tim. The following week I am in Västmanland (the next county) installing over two, possibly three, days and the week after that I am back there for the openings and workshops. With all this activity it is good to know that when not busy elsewhere that I will be here.
A part of my ’being here’ will be spent organising … ordering … sorting out … the studio. I want, and need, to make it an efficient and effective place to work. There is plenty of space … I just need to use it well. That means organising the materials and tools that I use, and recycling – repurposing – or re-homing things that I do not. There are plenty of things that have been in the studio for a while … things brought here from the Enköping studio … from the Stockholm studio!… unused things … that still have appeal but no definite role … perhaps these are the things to be played with … writing now I have the idea to give these things time (three weeks?) in November – set myself the task of turning them in to a live work and/or installation … and present a work-in-progress here at the studio.
I want to explore new ways of working … and to re-engage with ways of working that I have enjoyed previously. To find that place where there is both serious intention and playful improvisation. In my mind I am recalling not only the Black Hole residency but also Frozen Progress (2000), the Goat Island Summer School (Glasgow 1996), and even Tim Miller’s Queer Glow project (Glasgow 1994). It has been in (and on) my mind to make a new chapter in the Following Eugène series – a live work/event seems an appropriate and attractive starting point.
First though to throw myself in to the two train station installations and my going to Juxtapose Art Fair.
Things that I have done:
Watched the clouds
Helped carry the lamp through the city
Forgotten my wallet
Stood close to art four exhibitions
Laughed out loud
Spoken with strangers
Chatted with friends
Been to the sauna
Walked on squeaking sand
Picked up plastic
Listened to the wind
Waded across the lagoon
Found shelter in the reeds
Became nostalgic about going out
Recognised myself in another man’s voice
Stood in yesterday’s footprints
Felt the wind on my skin
Made a pencil sketch
Politely declined the invitation to the party
Riden along cyclepaths in the woods
Met friends of friends
Solved cryptic clues
Heard the rain fall on the tent
Studied my right foot
Seen others come and go
Bought second-hands books
Peered in the paper conservator’s window
Risen early
Fallen asleep quickly
Had nothing to do in the morning
Rested
Rest. I have been in constant motion for the last year – barely a day has passed where I have not had something to do, somewhere to be. Now I am at rest … resting … it feels essential. Returning to a place that I am familiar with grants me peace, no need to dash about to get my bearings, to make sense of somewhere new, to work out how to be … instead a welcome ease and rest.
A two hour walk along the coast yesterday was pleasantly mindless. The passing thought of turning it into an exercise, paying it attention, making it in to something, slipped free and was blown away. It wasn’t something that I actively released, it was just what happened, something that I could not, did not, resist.
A long stretch of the coast is a nature reserve – The Swans’ Reef. Between the reef and the mainland is a shallow lagoon of clear water. The lagoon confounds me … the breadth of it evokes an anxiety that it cannot be transversable yet I know it to be so … I have waded through it previously and encountered water reaching no higher than my knees. The water is warm, the sandbed firm and soft. I walk with a gliding action lifting each foot in turn no more than necessary before pushing my leg smoothly forward. This reduces the disruptive splashing caused by a more common gait, it lowers my centre of gravity and invites me to tense my abdomen. It feels determined and adventurous. I notice first one white speck in the distance … then a couple more … six … eight … nine … eventually eleven by which time I see that they are swans. It is the first time that I have seen swans here. The abundance of large white feathers on the reef evidences their presence … or their passing … even when the creatures themselves are unseen. The last time that I saw swans was in the Latvian countryside, and there were swans printed on the duvet cover that I was given to use on the residency.
Eleven rhymes with seven but does not share its sibilant alliteration with swans … besides seven swans a swimming would be very unseasonal … along with eleven lords a leaping. Swans and lords, sevens and elevens … seven eleven … Lord Swan. A racing detour.
A return to rest, but if my mind races again I shall let it. It is no doubt a good way to use the last of that hectic adrenaline fuelled energy, a stage en route to stillness.
Skanör, Skåne
