I have … get … a sense of wholeness and belonging here. I had a great conversation with Hans and willy – two artists who run ruimte Caesuur. In the flow of exchange I spoke of my dilemma about… reactions to… thinking through of… having been asked to apply for a half-time job. Speaking about it felt a completely natural thing to do … just as it has done at the studio … it makes me realise that I am among … in the spheres of … genuine colleagues and peers, and that when in the right place the length of knowing each other is less significant than the sensitivities that one has for each other … home.
And of course I want to be home, I want spend time with my art family.
I have spent many years as a tourist … as various tourists. There is a Swedish saying that to be away is nice but to be home is best (borta bra men hemma bäste). I think that I have been away too long … that perhaps I went a bit native. Last week while sorting things in the studio an old postcard fell out of a box … or a book or something … it’s one that I probably bought while on my foundation course or at Dartington – it’s a kitch 50s(?) cartoon of girl with a suitcase, the slogan … motto … again something about how pleasant it is to return home after being away.
On Thursday evening four of us – Alice, Bengt, Filip, and I walked home from the last stop on our tour of off-site spaces. Turning on to a long straight road that took us through the woods Filip started telling Swedish jokes … simple kids’ joke that were rather lost on Alice and me but he persisted with good humour. An image came to my mind … the four of us setting off on this long road … Alice leading us – she was the only one with any battery left in her phone for following the map… and our distinct individual physicalities … Filip with his blond beard was the Lion, Alice the petit and youthful Dorothy, Bengt with his silver grey hair and metal rim glasses was Tin man, and I in my second-hand suit jacket was Straw man. But in my case did the comparison go further than the merely visual? Scarecrow – the lovable one … the one without a brain … or rather the one who doesn’t know to use the brain that he’s got. It might be stretching the metaphor a little too much but isn’t Scarecrow’s resolution – or homecoming – at the end of the film to recognise that he has intelligence, that he has agency?
It’s early morning, I’ve been for a nice run along the canal, where I passed by revellers not quite yet on their way home, and through the habour and waterfront area. I thought that I would this blog would be about my day of Think Tanks – the themes and discussions, the ideas that I will take back to Supermarket, the ways that Pam and I might develop and expand the connections between our programmes … but no I find myself thinking and writing around what home might be for me … and how might be setting off on my way there.
