Last week’s span of sensations stretched between euphoria about another really interesting and invigorating art-visit (yoo-hoo Shelley and Kate!) and the severing of ties with the world when – after an exhausting health-appointment – fatigue sunk me and struck my head with a calamity: fierce, ferocious, like something had grabbed hold of me and not only stuck to my skull but fused with it. Trying to describe physical pain you’re in danger of cliché-hopping, but a memory from a film hovers, or a story, where a creature of an alien kind sprang in someone’s face and couldn’t be torn loose. Ring any bells? Was there a scream?
Now I’m getting back to briefer surges and a level of tiredness that allows a modicum of life outside itself. The relief/release when such intense pain abates is akin to happiness.
Those severed days can feel like lost days. All I want is for it to end, to sleep and wake up in a different state. Sleep is elusive though when you’re at your most tired and you just lie there, without thought or motion, without even a daydream. But then, in those wee moments when pain and fatigue start loosening their grip, something swims up from somewhere, a drive, a longing, that helps you re-emerge.
More metaphors? If the worst of M.E makes for a kind of secluded fortress in a far-off realm my art is the draw-bridge that leads me out. Temporarily. For practical reasons I work on several pieces simultaneously: there’ll be one in the living room and one next to bed, within easy reach wherever I am. I’ve also got gradations of complexity – intricate patterns and complicated shapes for lucid periods; simple and straightforward ones when neither head nor hands manage more than the very basics. Every stitch counts! Crochet remains the best thing I can do lying down and a couple of pieces are almost done, but I have an urge towards the three-dimensional and in December reworked an old figure of mine that took up too much room. I like the idea of pieces that lean against a surface…
as yet untitled
Dimensions: 31 cm x 39.5 cm x 9 cm
Materials: Paper and masking tape, knitting needles
