Sleep-drunk I dance

part 1

From my mostly supine vantage point I have a rather limited view of the world, and although I try to throw lassos around things/themes/issues outside myself with my art I feel like I’m doing it while teetering on a coin-sized island… Have been working towards a group-show under the title The Beginning of History, curated by Nick Kaplony – so good to be part of a project, but these last few weeks hands and head have been on diverging tracks: I’ve had reason to re-consider the horizontal plane, on which I mostly reside, in metaphorical and real terms. Fact is: Every time I get up I find that after brief lop-sided lean-to minutes I am pulled down by forces as unyielding as gravity. When I lie my body is happy-ish, something seems to re-align itself within, find a centre, a balance. My mind of course (my self?), when not completely overwhelmed by fatigue, strains towards the vertical and a phantasy of activity, agility, agency.

Almost two months ago I was diagnosed with Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), which in short means that my heart, for complicated reasons to do with the autonomous nervous system, is unable to pump blood upwards when I stand. Instead blood sags into the lower body, the heart gets in distress and tries to pump harder and harder and harder, without success. If you don’t sit or lie down you faint, and blood finally reaches the brain again.

The discomfort I have been feeling (on top of M.E.-fatigue) when trying to stand for more than a minute or so (tightening chest, racing heart, shortness of breath, vertigo, nausea) suddenly makes sense and I’m trying to get my head around this. Two illnesses for the price of one! The latter possibly brought about by the former. One good thing is that I can try medication, have started on a very low dose and am hopeful-ish, although I’ve got some weird side-effects already. You could say I’m lying in wait for improvement of some kind, no matter how small.

Have had a few very tired days, all of me in the horizontal, thoughts, gestures, desires, and at one stage pondered the image of my brain’s coils and curls unfurled and laid out next to me, two fleshy greyish-white cords that I’d need to knit (crochet!) together as body and mind started rising from the depths of fatigue. Coming out (never quite far enough) from this infernal tiredness feels like a re-assembling and charging of what constitutes a sharper, more viable (for want of a better word) version of me.

Last Thursday night I did have my tiny jar of joy when I went to the Nunnery for the gloriously packed private view of Shape Open 2013. There were many reasons to feel happy. First of all, it’s a really good show – go see! Well-selected, thoughtfully put together in the gallery. With the help of @ElizabethMurton, who pushed my wheel-chair, and @LizzieCannon I saw most of the exhibition. So much of interest, complexity, skill, in a multitude of media: from textile to painting, photography and sculpture, to installation and video. (Shape Arts had sent out an open call to disabled and non-disabled artists to present work under the theme ‘Disability Re-assessed’ – from which a panel of arts and industry judges (incl. Yinka Shonibare) made their selection.)

I am glad to have a piece there. Initially I wasn’t entirely sure about applying, due to worries about my work being labelled ‘disabled art’ or myself a ‘disabled artist’, which too often means being put into a corner where the quality of one’s art may be in question. The work should be the starting point from which everything else radiates – How does it engage, challenge, move? How can it be contextualized, how does it communicate meaning, where does its beauty reside? Any doubts were dispelled by the professional quality of the show.

I had put my Soldier’s child into a small box-frame and liked the way it was presented at the gallery, how it interacted with its neighbours. At first I thought: how interesting, it’s hung on a child’s eye level, and only then realized it’s mine too, sitting in a wheelchair. I still see myself in the vertical, six foot tall, no matter that I run out of steam after a handful of steps.

In so many ways this exhibition was no different from others I’ve seen, with lots of memorable pieces (some of which I wanted to snitch and sneak out, maybe a braille-piece or two, to which I dearly wanted to put a finger tip), movement and chatter, but one thing thrilled me esp.: this was a thoroughly normal audience, with all kinds of bodies senses sizes ethnicities, on legs wheels wings. I was in the world and slept that night in the curve of my contented grin!

Friday’s work was to send a couple of happy tweets in the morning. The crochet hook saw some action too, in bed.

Have a few regrets: managed only a couple of very brief chats with other artists before my body’s demands for the horizontal drowned everything out. And: in the end I did not have the courage to speak to Yinka Shonibare. Wished I had at least said hallo, shaken his hand. Lack of courage-alert…

So: lots of small and tall stories (you can see some of my favourite pieces above).
I was touched by much and wanted to touch in turn. Mission accomplished?

@marjojo2004

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A to Z over M to E (Notes to self)

Albeit. Art ⋅ arrow ⋅ aspiration ⋅ application

Brief encounters. Bravado ⋅ breath ⋅ break

Crochet the core. Make a cosy for my heart

Downright dedication ⋅ denial ⋅ deferral – a kind of upright

Eye on the smaller picture. Effervesce!

Fatigue + fervor = focus. Fly fail fall fly

Grin, ghost, grin

Happy hiccuppy heaving heart

I

Joy in a tiny jar, tonight

Keepsake, keep safe

Leap now, lie later (having lain before)

Morrow, oh my. Make memories

No to nay. Need to slip through the needle’s eye

Occupy my place in the world

Purple ⋅ purpose ⋅ polka-dots (not steps)

Quintessentially queasy

Raising of spirits. Hey there, Ruby Thursday

Supinity ⋅ serenity. Soldier’s child.

Teeter on tippy toes (eyes, tongue & brain)

Uppity downity = the morrow. Made memories

Veering ⋅ verve

7 glasses of water. Wings on wheels. As the wishing well yields

X = unknown factors

Yinka Shonibare speaks. Yeah yeah yeah!

Zealous ⋅ zany ⋅ straight to the zigzag zone

Tonight’s the night (packed a pillow and a blanket):

Shape Open private view 6 pm
Yinka Shonibare will speak at 7 pm
Exhibition: Friday, 4 October to Sunday, 20 October 2013
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am – 5pm
Address: The Nunnery, 181 Bow Road, London E3 2SJ

Even if I am a kind of pop-up figure in the land of the upright, an occasional visitor in sitting country and residing mostly (and not in state) in the realm of supinity – my art finds ways to stand up for itself. And for me. Much to report, much to catch up on, but today I’ll only say hallo, I’m back, and put down anchor for my artist-self right here.

I am delighted to have my piece Soldier’s child chosen for the promotion of Shape Arts‘ exhibition, but to find my work on the same page with Yinka Shonibare, whose work I love, admire, covet, made my little heart heave and hop. He will speak at the private view and all being well well well I’ll be there too.

And: The Arthouse chose LR’s child for their poster and invitations. Ha, says the merry crocheteer!

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After last post decided to take a break from blogging; aim to be back in September. Until then I’ll be pondering the links between snippets of texts, ideas and images mixing it up in my tired head: Iphigenie, Grimm’s The Girl without Hands, Otto Dix’ invalids, LR’s girl, Crivelli’s child watching the annunciation, Elfriede Lohse-Wächter’s work, Suetterlin, nursery rhymes, primary colours, polymorph modernist shapes, bodies and psyches, right (and left) arms, the gestures/deeds they are capable of, sleeves, stares and stories, hand-me-down memories… Will look at old photos with my mom, maybe record some of our conversations, crochet, draw, cut, tear, note, think, but first of all take long series of deep breaths and unwind the tightening coils of my brain.

Closed my Linkedin and Facebook accounts, when time is right will start from scratch and make better use of them. Skull-pains much better – good reason to break into stand-up song and lie-down dance. Dizzy though much of the time, esp. when supine, seem to be floating feet up to the ceiling, flat and flimsy as a tissue paper doll. Tune in for whispered version of Louis Armstrong oldie Nobody knows how tired I have been…

On Saturday I received a letter from the Arts Council – my grant application, supported by the Arthouse (for money to pay art-professional to support, evaluate and enhance my practice, establish ways of more effectively linking me into the (art) world and researching how artists who, for reasons of ill-health or others, are excluded from regular direct participation in networking, face-to-face contact at exhibition openings, training, interviews, studio visits and other events, can build and sustain relationships with arts professionals and audiences) has been rejected. Set in motion all kinds of useless dispiriting thoughts about where they’d found me wanting – my art, my project, myself… Luckily had been bolstered a bit by lovely, constructive art/life visit from Kate Murdoch the day before. Brushing off, bumbling on. Threads to pull, see what comes. Until soon. Have a good summer!