Threads

Those who read this blog, or who follow me on social media when they meet me they say “You’re SO busy aren’t you?” And yes, it does appear so, and I am tired so it must be true! Some of that is the pressure to produce “content” which I outwardly abhor, but inwardly I still feel the need to succumb to. But I am attempting to slow myself a little. For one thing, this Busy-ness is unsustainable. Also I find myself stepping back to analyse my need for it. Is there a need to be SEEN to be busy, as well as a need to FEEL busy, that one is producing work?

Good Question…

I am making arrangements for the RBSA’s Professor of Painting, John Devane, also of Coventry University, to visit me in my studio, to talk about all this activity, product, content… and cast a fresh pair of eyes over it and take stock a little. 

Just as I am thinking about this, I have started reading a new book, lent to me by my son, called “The Disappearance of Rituals”. I am still only in the first chapter, but I am gratified to read something that chimes with my own thinking, at just the right time. Author Byung-Chul Han talks of rituals being the means humans take to make themselves at home in the world. We need around us familiarity, repetition, recognition. “Recognition elicits the permanent from the transient” (Han quotes this from Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful p47).

Instagram “content” is the most transient of media. Instead of scrolling endlessly for the new and fresh, what I want actually, is something familiar that I can ponder. Something to ponder is reliable. The act of pondering is comforting. One should linger, tarry and dawdle.

One can watch the cycle of annual feast days and seasons and hold the rituals they are tied to. These mark out the year and give it structure, stability and meaning. They slow things down so we can appreciate the year and the seasons, and repeat the same old rituals, be they religious, or social, or familial. These things endure. 

While creating content, for others to consume, our communication becomes meaningless, it passes, does not endure, we don’t linger over it, we don’t ponder the existence of it. Our connections are EXTENSIVE but not INTENSIVE.

So, while I tarry a-while and contemplate… linger… ponder… maybe I can appreciate more the things I have achieved while I have been “SOOOO busy!” And actually take the time to review what they mean.

This has been illustrated perfectly by the time spent with Stuart in Sweden. Instead of the emails, collected and read when convenient, and the photo on Insta, that we click “like” and move on, we had the opportunity to take our time with each other, and each other’s thoughts. 

In the five days, we established a few rituals: rising early; eating breakfast together; discussing the day ahead; me washing up while Stuart gets ready; Stuart preparing food while I sit and watch him… hahaha!; small seemingly insignificant habits that soon become fixed and speak of home, settledness, comfort. These things are INTENSIVE.

Our working together in the project room was also intensive: establishing a common language and pattern of working, a repetitiveness derived from the need to sit back and ponder, and drink tea. 

We talked a lot, and as Stuart said in his post, not always about the work, but often about these things that make our lives what they are, the rituals with friends, with our work colleagues, our families.

So, yes, I agree, going to Sweden for a residency does seem “busy” … but actually, once there, there was plenty of time for pondering, and lingering, and establishing small rituals to add meaning to it all.

Thinking about my own work in relation to what I am reading, I look at the repetition in the way I work; the cyclical nature of it; the pattern that my studio days always follow.

I am always looking at relationships: what is it that we do that creates and upholds them? How can this be fostered when it starts to break down? What do we do to recognise and appreciate the ones that endure? 

So I am going to let this writing stand, as it is, no pictures of work in progress, no fleeting Content… just words to linger over, and reflect upon.

Back in the studio, the effects of Sweden are still swimming around in me. I’m hoping that it lasts.

I have taken down all the large drawings of sticks and stones, feeling that they have done as much as I needed them to do. They might return, once I’ve taken another turn around the mountain.

The things on the wall facing me now are the pods and the aprons, waiting for Helen and I to configure them, and still the wrapped twigs. I have on my table a pile of textiles, including the sheet and pillow case given to me by Stuart, and the vintage cot sheet and baby pillow case I bought at the huge second hand shop in Örebro (amongst many other items ). Following on from the residency I am carrying on with the arranging and rearranging. I find it fascinating how a pile of twigs in one formation doesn’t work, but when I shuffle them round into a different configuration, they work. I suppose it is a matter of language, of semiotics… pile them up on a tablecloth, no, line them along the floor, no, arranged like a nest in a baking tin? No, but nearly… Cram as many as I can into a pillow case… yes. The pillowcase does it. These symbols work. I am thinking I might submit this piece to the RBSA Prize show. It speaks to me, it’s now just a matter of whether it speaks to the selectors. These twigs are still standing as signifiers for the children living in poverty. The wrapping and the pillow case is an attempt by me to give them comfort. I think the title will be “How Do They Sleep at Night?” Which works for me, in the week before the election… I’m full of hope, somewhat desperate hope, that there will be change soon.

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I’ve come away from Sweden with a profound sense of clarity about who I am and what I should be doing, and feeling grateful that I can do it.

It wasn’t without its difficulties and obstacles. I must say up front though that it would not have been possible without the amazing phenomenon known as Assisted Travel. If you have mobility problems and they are preventing you from getting out into the world, book yourself some assistance. It makes the totally impossible completely achievable. My time while there was also eased by the care and concern of my kind friend and host, who made things as easy as he could for me, without making me feel like a burdensome old baggage.

And I am resting now. A bit of gentle physio and a bit of stretching… in a couple of days I should be back to my normal level of mobility. At the moment I am in quite a bit of pain, I’m stiff, and not very mobile at all. Don’t attempt any meaningful conversation before I’ve had tea and medication.

I am hoping by the next time I go over, I will have a new knee… two would be good, but you have start somewhere right?

Anyway… considering all that, we did quite a lot!

Two very full-on days in the studio/project space; an artist talk; a day in Örebro for an arts festival; a day in Stockholm in galleries and shopping… and eating cinnamon buns of course. (Definitely worth falling off the gluten free wagon)

The whole trip was a good balance I think between looking inwards and looking out. The days in the studio helped me think through a few things, gave me some ideas about the work I’m doing at home. The days out, particularly in Örebro showed me options I might never have considered.

Last night over dinner, my son asked me about my trip, and I got a bit emotional. It was fun, intense, exciting, creatively and intellectually stimulating and challenging. It is still with me, I’m thinking about doing all sorts of things in a different way. It has opened my eyes to new possibilities. Part of me wishes I was still there… and that the things I’ve imagined doing would be easier in Sweden, in that I think they would be received more openly and with more appreciation. One of the things I have in my head would not find an easy audience here. But maybe it doesn’t need to.

Maybe I just need to do it?

Kanske jag bara behöver göra något?

Remember the scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when they rig up a helicopter with banks of lights and speakers and send it up to communicate with the mother ship?

Bah bah bah baaah BAAAAH! KABOOOM!!

That’s what we do… that’s what we did… Day one of Correspondence sees Elena and Stuart in their helicopters, sending out signals. We are trying to find a useful common language. I bring my twigs, Stuart brings his ties, and we see if they can communicate. We try various arrangements, (like building a hill in furniture or mashed potato) just to see if we can find something in common as a starting point. We have loads of “stuff” so we keep trying, adding, connecting, with string, wool, little clips, tying things together. We wrap things and we stitch. We draw lines on the wall, write words, ideas, and we set down traces on the surfaces from one item to another. We arrange similar items in groups, and we start to classify… we start to draw similarities.

Sometimes while we are doing all of this we are talking, commentating as we go, about what we are aiming for, and what we hope it will achieve. Sometimes we are working silently because we have an idea that doesn’t have words. In retrospect now I think about that process, it did have a cadence… an ebb and flow. And that cadence was mutual, because I can’t think of a time when I thought “I wish he’d stop talking, I’m trying to think over here!” I must ask Stuart if he thought the same? Maybe I was not so perceptive?

I think by the end of day one we had established the rules of engagement, and we had a basic vocabulary.

(No KABOOOM here!)

Overnight something changed. By the morning we had both come up with things we wanted to try, so when we got to the project room the first part of the day we spent dismantling, in order to give ourselves space. Interestingly we were both happy to remove, to take it back a step, more than a step in fact. Almost all of the arrangements of the previous day were taken down. Neither of us felt the need to cling to much, it had done its job and so NOW we were ready to start.

Given the empty space, we were now able to put together phrases, spare and eloquent, in contrast to the excited jabbering of the day before. Day two’s Correspondence was about light and form… and of course materials, and the appreciation of folds, holes, texture, shadow.

We both wondered what would happen if we had another day… or two… or a week… and I now wonder if any of what we learned about each other would change if we decided that we would open this conversation to the public at any point? Would the prospect of outside scrutiny have changed the way we worked?

What I have learned about myself is that to fire on all the artistic cylinders, I need to feel that the room is a safe place, there’s respect and trust. But there is also a light touch, humour, a finely honed Sense of Daft. I find, in working with Helen and Bill, as well as Stuart, that the Sense of Daft is serious business. If you are willing to let things go, without fear of ridicule, if you are happy to be truly playful, and not worry about how other people see you, then you can find something really rich.

Hosted by Stuart Mayes and Glitterball Showroom.

This residency took place at Ateljeföreningen Hospitalet, Uppsala, Sweden from 12th to 16th June 2024

I took with me a bundle of the wrapped twigs from Five, Six, Pick up Sticks, and a bag of materials to give to Stuart: some ties, some detached shirt pockets and some old crisp white starched collars from formal dress shirts.

Stuart supplied all sorts of materials and a selection of fixings from his studio.

The initial plan was to keep in mind the word and concept of Correspondence… because that is what we have been doing since 2011. We have commented on each other’s blogs, emailed and sent images, we’ve critically discussed each other’s work, commented and supported over the last 13 years or so with increasing frequency.

Stuart and I met in Stockholm just once before, in 2016. The conversation has continued and we now often have Skype studio visits and work in parallel while we talk. After a few of these, we decided it would be great to meet again, and maybe do some work together.

So here I am, Corresponding!

We worked together, sometimes in companionable silence, sometimes in raucous laughter: “It’s NOT a Dick-Hat, it’s a Reading Bonnet!

Day 1 (Thursday) felt a bit like a getting-to-know-you dance: we took it in turns to place items and manipulate the space, asking, seeking agreement, “Do you think it would be good if…” “Do you mind if I try this?” We established our language and our modus operandi. We assessed the potential for correspondence. We left the space at the end of the day happy and thoughtful. That evening over dinner we discussed what had happened, what had been successful, what hadn’t, and ideas we had for tomorrow.

Day 2 (Friday) was interesting in that we slowly dismantled and replaced what we had done the day before. Even those things that had seemed precious in the moment. We stripped away all the colour, to concentrate on form. We folded the tables we had worked on, to give us back the space in the room. If day one had been about surfaces, lines, and negotiation, day two was about space and form and spontaneity. On day two, it was harder to tell who had contributed what. I think we talked less, and possibly laughed more.

Stuart has a grand collection of fabric and household textiles. These loves we have in common, and he has very generously given me some to bring home.

We lifted sheets into the air, hanging them from the ceiling to divide up the space, to conceal and reveal as we walked around the space. We let them bathe in natural light, from sunshine in a bright blue sky. We tried artificial light, we closed the blackout blinds and added spotlights. All these differences were noted and documented. But we felt the liberation of not having to make decisions, just experiencing the different opportunities offered.

We collected new, naked twigs as we strolled around the Hospitalet grounds (the old psychiatric hospital is surrounded with huge and ancient trees, appreciated and planted for their healing nature) and then we stuffed them into pillowcases, carried them around, piled them up, placed them and balanced them carefully. These materials provided from both our studios started to correspond sensitively to each other, making friends, as we did too.

As we reached the end of the afternoon, it was good to welcome Stuart’s friend Mareia into the space too, good to see her move quietly among our makings, appreciating the qualities of light and form, and of course the materials that had brought us together.

As we disassembled the installation, we took last chances to rearrange, and took things away slowly, enabling us to reassess, and take even more photos.

We put the room back together for the next users, stacked tables and chairs, and swept up the debris of threads and twigs, leaving no evidence of the activity, creativity, and the products of those things.

I expect both of us will study the photos over the next weeks, extracting meaning, and inspiration, and we will no doubt post again with those findings. But for now I just wanted to describe what happened, what we experienced, and how we worked around and with each other. It felt rare and special, and effective. We will undoubtedly be following on from this.

On our last evening together as we ate leftovers and shared the last cinnamon bun, we talked about how risky this might have been, or might seem from the outside. We’ve only really met once before, and despite all the Skyping, it might seem foolhardy for a 63 year old, not very mobile woman to fly to meet someone she doesn’t know very well, to live in his home for five days. And risky for Stuart to let this woman into his house, without even asking if she had a criminal record! (I haven’t).

The correspondence that led up to this however, brought us to the point where it didn’t seem at all risky to us, just a natural progression for our professional relationship to explore the collaborative possibilities. And of course to cement our friendship. Stuart will I’m sure appreciate the peace and quiet this evening, as we have only stopped talking to sleep since he met me at the station!

A friend who can make you well up, and then laugh with you till your ribs hurt, is a good friend.

So now it’s gone a bit quiet, I think I should don my Reading Bonnet, and perhaps my new green Ladies’ Slack.

(Is that a slack for green ladies?)

Thank you Stuart. x