It was touching to receive your comments last week – thank you. There’s something sustaining and transformative in writing and having one’s wounds (in the widest sense) and worries witnessed and acknowledged.
And the art appreciated, of course. Look here – my newest foundling. Four done, three to go! You can begin to see how the shapes evolve from and relate to each other.
I seem to have a fondness for words ending on the suffix ling: changeling (you can see my series here), foundling, fledgling, gosling (oh, I love a gosling, how it feels in my mouth when I say it loud). Not so much because of its diminutive, endearing aspects, but because it denotes beings in process, in growth. The other day I wondered what I would call my M.E.-slammed self – lieling tireling snoozeling dozeling groundling wakeling layling artling… I decided I wasn’t ling-material and was ready to settle for woman who lies (not quite The Spy who came in from the cold, is it?) when the verb’s devilish forking in two directions brought me up short. What at first seemed suitable – after all I am in the horizontal for much of the day -, suddenly flung its second meaning of ‘tell an untruth’ at my supine form. Interesting that this split should disappear once you get to past tense and past perfect (as if looking back could clarify and settle conclusively) – the present tense however catapulted me straight to the bias permeated by government and some of the media where people out of work/on benefits are indiscriminately disdained and distrusted and called scroungers. Sticks and stones, yes, but names too, I say.
Still, I’ll stick with woman who lies for now. During the last year or two I’ve been lying indecorously in all kinds of public places when my energy ran out, mostly on floors (where’s a sofa when you need one?): in a seminar-room, a gallery, a pharmacy, various hospital aisles, the library…
I am fervently hoping that an art-outing will be possible this week-end. Can’t wait, art-starving again, last life-viewing in May! Preparations in full if slow swing, incl. for the ensuing non-days. Is it too much to ask for floor-heating? I dream myself there, now: draped on a bright red divan on rolls, with a purring engine… Eyes wide, ears cocked. Notebook at the ready, drinking it all in.
Next foundling in hand. Lifeline really – so good that I can crochet and write lying down, at least some of the time, and that my artist-self is as upright as can be in the circumstances. Gosling, gosling, gosling
Foundling 6 (2011/12)
Materials: Crocheted from cotton-thread
Dimensions: 19.5 cm x 30 cm
