One Night Only.
Hello campers, I had to come back. I missed the guilty pleasure. This time I won’t let the blog dictate to me, no I will write only when I feel like it, when something needs to be said-is bursting to come out. Only then.
So…at the finish of the last blog: Two Steps Backwards I went off to St. Ives with my paints and a plan. I imagined processing the strange painting experiments in a linear fashion towards greater clarity and understanding and then coming back and working on a disciplined rule-based blog with easily digested bite-size steps to…I am not sure what but some kind of resolution.
What actually happened I could never have predicted. The cottage was arctic which meant spending a lot of time in the one room with heat and in the company of the elderly dog with halitosis. And then quite unexpectedly I started writing and it was like uncorking something. But back at home I would sit down to write and fiddle about with bits of research, write emails, haunt the fridge and generally fall foul of my old friend procrastination. Things got so bad I actually found myself looking at a picture of a two headed cat on Facebook.
And then my fabulous acting friend suggested that I show some work at a one off charity performance of The Vagina Monologues at the Tom Thumb Theatre in Margate, in aid of Oasis the domestic abuse service and directed by Jan Dunn.
At first I felt strangely anxious, in my head The Vagina Monologues meant brash, sexually aggressive First Wave Feminism, but the Eve Ensler play written in 1996 has over the years had a theatrically royal cast list. The star in this case was Rita Tushingham, I mean RITA TUSHINGHAM my childhood heroine, also Pauline McLyn, Joanna Scalon, Amy Lame, Kate Malyon, Nancy Del’lolio and my own friend and superstar Beverly Hills. I had to ask myself Why all these brilliant women would put themselves out for no reward unless it was a very good play.
A week before the performance I met with the new theatre owners and was shown the upstairs room where the work was to be hung. My heart sank, it looked pretty derelict but the enthusiastic directors assured me that all the work would be done in time. It was but when I arrived to install I found that the walls upstairs had been painted a deep Victorian red, amazingly my 6 ft piece of work in various shades of pink red and purple looked stunning. Below is the text written specifically for this audience.
To Fold Wall hung sculpture.
The Verb To Fold To bend any thin material over so that it comes in contact with itself. To fall over-to be crushed To enclose within folded arms (see also enfold) To give way on a point or in an argument. To stir gently with folding action.
Using the verb To Fold as an action and space for reflection as well as a constraint within the work, the action of folding was repeated with personal or found, used textiles that all relate in some way to women’s domestic lives. Each fold is stitched leaving a gap or hole that is allowed to fall as dictated by the specific qualities and history of each textile, echoing the individual and particular qualities and patterns of wear that shape our lives.
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The tiny womb-like theatre created a safe and intimate space in which to fully appreciate the episodic play. For me it was breath taking, (literally) and life changing coming at exactly the right time.
Upstairs the audience mingled with the amazing cast and my work generated curiosity everyone was asking questions. The play had opened minds, relaxed and softened thinking, allowing the art in to do its job.
Somehow an artwork is completed by the audience and this rare and synchronistic coming together of all the elements created a magic moment for this particular piece (To Fold) and I will never forget it. Oh and Rita Tushingham gave me her autograph.
Equation for optimum artwork perception: the right artwork + timing + venue + audience + alcohol= bliss.
