I’ve spent several days calculating circumferences and diameters for my work at Melbourne Festival next week. No room for any margins of error as the base board has been made smaller than I anticipated. In this case, the margins divide areas; they aren’t peripheral.
So in the grand scheme of things, what is the other side of the margins that I’m moving towards? Is there anything beyond? The Free Dictionary suggests it’s a blank space. Not looking for blank spaces at the moment; all my spaces are full up to the brim. Is a brim a margin too?
Other margins
Watching the paralympics, I have been struck by other margins. The emphasis in the Olympics seemed to be on the fastest, the most powerful and the men’s races. Why is a short race deemed to be the best? The paralympics seems to be about something different. It’s still competitive but there is something else going on too. There’s a wide range of abilities and ages and huge appreciation. I’d like to think then, that disabiltity issues are no longer on the margins but I know that’s not always the case. And then there are gender issues……
I went to a new inner margin yesterday. Is that a misnomer? Can you have an inner margin? Well, it was somewhere new to me and in that, it contained inherent challenges such as how to get into a seemingly seemless building. Step one in the challenge, find a way in. I only walked round 3 sides to find the entrance. Could have been 4 sides and back to the beginning though that would have spelled incompetence. Didn’t want to project that. I don’t have difficulty talking, but being succinct is another matter. It’s more what I didn’t say than what I did. This crept over me on the long journey back to my own inner margin. But hey ho, today is sunny and I’m going to rescue my brassicas from an infestation of caterpillars. Working with my hands this morning is a good antedote and so long as I wear my glasses, will be sure of success.
To a southerly margin
A week away from the computer and my blog fingers feel sleepy. The only risk I took was cycling on top of a cliff into a gusty headwind on the Isle of Wight. Do I behave any differently as a tourist than an artist? Do I see things differently? I guess not many tourists launch into physiotherapy exercises in a tourist attraction, (I pulled my back on the road trip south).
Back home, I’m puzzling on what do I really do, for a commissioned piece of writing. Well…
Been to the margins, ambling around unclassified roads and seeing how other people manage their lives. Minimally in some cases. What do I really need to undertake my practice? I found an exquisite Baroque church at Great Witley, a jewel nestling quietly up a track managed by the community, still used for services.
I wrote, ‘A church full of people come to look at glory. Feed the eyes. Rich curls & reliefs. Relief from everyday flatness. Beautiful goldness.’
It survives quietly, well I’ve never heard of it and the signpost in the vilage was fairly low key. I’ve found this: http://www.greatwitleychurch.co.uk A 360 fimshow is just a taster; have to be in it to appreciate it. A bit like my events; you can look at the pictures but you won’t feel the atmosphere, emotion or sociality of it. So if I’m at the margins taking risks, how do I transmit those elements to those not there?
