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
