Two Steps Backwards…

Are you Roaring?

“Courage is being scared to death… and saddling up anyway.” John Wayne

Have you ever found yourself at a party, temporarily mute, in the midst of a group of cool, elegant people who seem able to communicate and work the room effortlessly? This was me last week feeling tense and oversmiley. Just as I was beginning to wish I hadn’t come, a rather special person managed to engage me in conversation and drew me out of myself. Such was the ease I felt in her company (and I hope she in mine) that we comfortably relayed our histories and I found myself talking earnestly about my passion for art and the ideas that drive me. She completely got it and turned to me in her measured way and said: “Are you roaring?” to which I answered: “I beg your pardon” as I wasn’t sure what she meant. “Are you telling the world, shouting from the roof tops? This sounds like stuff we need to hear. Are you roaring?” I was momentarily stumped because I am not shouting from the rooftops, or even whispering from the ground, I am hiding behind my work because I am afraid.

“Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.”
Charlie Chaplin

I am afraid of heights, deep water, private views, funfair rides, other people’s dogs, flying, root canal work, rats and talking about the ideas that inform my work. I can however temporarily overcome fear while making art as in Fig. 1. flying in a tiny six-seater plane which was no more than a shaky teacup with wings, when mute with fear, I managed to draw the backs of the pilot’s heads and found that the concentration served as a distraction.

If you’re looking for something to be brave about, consider fine arts. Robert Frost

I have not made a properly representational drawing in the traditional sense for some years and the mere thought of it can induce a nervous tic, so I was genuinely apprehensive when I faced my rocks armed only with children’s crayons. Fig.2. my inner voice told me not to bother as I probably wouldn’t be able to do it anymore and in any case, that type of drawing is pointless etc, etc.

But I pressed on and during the process found my way again.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Winston Churchill

In Fig. 3. The drawing began to deconstruct.

“Leap, and the net will appear” William Burroughs

During the previous drawing I got the strange urge to crochet over the rocks, this felt ridiculously good and I was delighted with the first result. Fig. 4.

“If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.” Rollo May

However the feeling began ebb once I had committed myself to covering the three larger rocks and it was really hard! I could so easily have stopped and I still feel a bit ridiculous when I look at them.

“Defeat is a state of mind. No one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality. To me, defeat in anything is merely temporary, and its punishment is but an urge for me to greater effort to achieve my goal. Defeat simply tells me that something is wrong in my doing; it is a path leading to success and truth.” Bruce Lee

Yes I can be brave during the making process and override fear, but talking about the ideas behind my work, this will be a much harder nut to crack, I have picked such an emotive subject and just my being a woman makes me biased. It is going to take some unpicking. I don’t want to be a politician or an activist, I just want to talk about human behaviour in the real world…one step at a time.

“We put our art out for others to see like laundry on the line. We expose ourselves to the core. It takes great courage to be an artist.” Gwen Fox

Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

“Evolution is what it is. The upper classes have always died out; it’s one of the most charming things about them.” Germaine Greer

“Blogstipation” I moaned “It will soon pass.” quipped Sandra my new Twitter friend. Unaccustomed to complete mental limbo, I hit the beach for a very long walk. Optimistically I carried a strong bag, but without any idea of what I might put in it. It was hot and bright, after a while I began to notice things, first the lovely grey-blue flints especially the small ones that shape-shifted into pre-christian goddesses and miniature Moores and Hepworths. Broken bits of tile appearing like tiny ancient Tabula Rasas waiting to be inscribed. Whole planets of chalk, riddled with small craters. The big open space, promoted big open musings about the evolution of human mark-making on the landscape. Two and a half hours later, my bag had become heavy with gleaned beach booty and I struggled home like a giant Borrower.

“An artist must evolve to quell the voice within and find new ways to speak unspoken ideas.” William Scott Jennings.

Adhering to the Two Steps Backwards principle of not being seduced into making an “artwork” just when the “drawing” gets interesting, I went back to the drawing board, back to basics, just back. This time my new mark-making “rules” were: new ways to express surface and volume. Figs 1 & 2.

Fig.3. Fascinated by the hide-and-seek nature of the natural holes in the flint and chalk, I made some test pieces (a la Eva Hesse) by filling them with a mixture of beeswax, paint and rosin as a way of delineating and drawing attention to the particular shapes. This was relatively easy as the holes were facing upwards.

“Most species do their own evolving making it up as they go along which is the way nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with the mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there is nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone.“ Terry Pratchett.

However: when it came to the chalk “planet” it was a different matter altogether as the holes faced every which way but up. I endured hours of patient tipping and propping of the chalk and much pouring, dripping and burning (mostly me) of moulten wax. Repeat drippings were necessary to get the wax flush with the surface. It was during this agonisingly awkward process that my live-in technical advisor walked past. He watched the torturous process with loving concern and advised:

“If you’re going to take this further, I suggest you find a big one of those (planet) one without holes, and then you can drill the holes yourself and get them exactly where you want them.”

There was a time, dear reader when I would have bristled defensively, and responded with a mini rant, with more than a whiff of moral high ground, about highlighting the organic beauty of creature-made holes, the random specificity of each… and how he would never understand…or get me etc, etc. But instead I kissed his concerned forehead and he went back to doing what he was doing.

“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Next morning, fired up with creative over-enthusiasm and intent on stretching my own parameters of drawing once again, I remained undaunted even by a casual remark from a friend. On hearing that financially things were a bit tight and that I was now taking students to augment the budget, she looked me in the eye and said:

“Without wishing to demean you or anything, have you considered cleaning?”

I felt considerably demeaned- but not daunted and I went back to my small “pre-Christian” goddesses and stood them up and put them in their own specially made bases, thus bestowing them with a sort of rampant authority. I happily surveyed the work laid out on trays looking like a fresh batch bake and it felt good.

“As Ye Sew, So Shall Ye Rip” Anon.

From the manner in which a woman draws her thread at every stitch of her needlework, any other woman can surmise her thoughts. Honore de Balzac

Reflecting on the mark making of the last entry, I felt the need to introduce an object in an attempt to begin to synthesise the 2D and 3D elements of my practice. The leaf idea was spontaneous, and suited the purpose, in that it is flatish and an organic object, which relates to my practice of interventions with organic objects.

(Fig1.) Began again with repetitive mark-making using white ink, it felt deliciously naughty and took me back to childhood. However results hinted at ancient universal patterns Aboriginal? (Fig 5 detail) And I got that weary been-here-before feeling.

If I stitch fast enough, does it count as aerobic exercise? Anon.

Where the idea to start sewing the leaves originated I don’t know except that a lot of my recent work has involved textiles and sewing in some way: http://www.ruthgeldard.com/ My first idea was to use a machine (Fig 2) but there is no setting for “leaf” tension and soon; mess began accumulating, thread started breaking and my studio looked like an unsupervised Nature Table, in frustration I moved on to hand sewing.

Really, all you need to become a good knitter are wool, needles, hands, and slightly below-average intelligence. Of course, superior intelligence, such as yours and mine, is an advantage. Elizabeth Zimmerman

It was like getting into a warm bath, the scent of the punctured leaf the delicious feel of the pink silk as it slid through the glossy leaf, sensorially satisfying (Fig 3.) Having stitched blanket style around the edge I went further and picked up the stitches and crocheted. I felt peacefully domestic with the repetitious movements of the hook.

Asking a seamstress to mend is like asking Michelangelo to paint your garage. Anon.

Having established for myself in previous work that sewing can be drawing, up to this point I was happy that I was, still “drawing” but then I went a subversive step further (Fig 4) and indulged the desire to “mend” and darn natural holes. I can’t tell you how delicious that was and how satisfying but I am not at all sure it could be classified as drawing.

May your bobbin always be full! Anon.

Mental Drawing.

It was so easy to write loftily that I was inspired to “re-evaluate my practice with a focus on drawing”, (what does that even mean?) when the time came to actually do something about it, to walk the talk, put my money where my mouth is and get off the pot, I procrastinated, not helped by the recently discovered Huffingington Post tweets, with seductive titles like: “Woman contracts plague from choking cat”, suddenly irresistible.

My drawing had become diagrammatic, almost entirely functional, a mere tool, passively subservient to my three dimensional work. I laid out ink, paper, pens and brushes and gave myself some rules like Sol Lewitt, intent on simply making marks and concentrating on the process, but first I had to read: “Tongue stuck in water bottle for eight hours.”

“After a while it became nonsensical, my mind told me I was doing a ridiculous thing.”

I took a brush full of ink and made a casual mark (fig 1) and then made another in relation to the first. It felt good. Soon my hand fell into a pattern, with easy gliding bits, fast and slow, and bits where my hand was pushing, working against the bend in the brush. After a while it became nonsensical, my mind told me I was doing a ridiculous thing. I pressed on. And then everything began to make beautiful sense, my hand, the brush, the marks.

In a deliciously meditative state the second drawing developed contours with hand pressure translating into light and shade. It was all going rather well. Cocky, I made some inkblots ala Rorschach and things began to go downhill. The tinkered with ink blots were beyond dark, verging on disturbing-I binned them.

“And then I found the pipette with all its dribbly potential and forgetting the rules managed to go completely off piste.”

I read “Causing fear and alarm with black pudding” which cheered me up enough to make drawing number 3, with a fat, square brushfull of ink and nice repetitive tonal marks. Much better. And then I found the pipette and all its dribbly potential, (fig 4) forgetting the rules I managed to go completely off piste. What came out of my brush then, almost wilfully kept turning into things: trees, water, whole forests and worryingly sperms!? Every time the figurative reared up I tamped it down, wiping out, scraping off and trying again. It all got a bit Sorcerer’s Apprentice and four hours later, filthy and knee deep in wads of manky toilet roll I gave up.

But tomorrow is another day and I will try again, once I have looked at: “Cat eats with fork”.

Precious Metal.

By Ruth Geldard.

There was no trumpet. And looking at the disparate group of five musicians setting up onstage, I thought it unlikely that one would be produced. We had obviously made a mistake, even so I felt childishly disappointed. Looking at the band members it was impossible to match them to a particular musical genre. The audience was made up of twenty-five people standing listlessly about in the too large and rather seedy venue, except for one who was already very, very drunk and busy head butting cushions.

By now two of the performers were taking off their shirts behind the drum kit, in that way that lets you know that they know you are looking. The lead guitarist with swingy Pantene hair and sporting bare legs and cute little worn out boots (with their tongues out) slipped on an elegant shirt and morphed from AC/DC into George Michael. The other guy sauntered slowly to his drums wearing only shorts and tattoos that made a kind of bra pattern on his beautiful chest. He looked about 12.

The base player looked stereotypically afro caribbean, long boned and laidback with slow graceful movements. I was sure he would sound like Rastamouse

The keyboard player looked exactly how I would imagine the tall one from Kraftwerk might look now (and I’ve checked and he does) holding himself very still, eyes staring straight ahead a hand poised enigmatically.

And then they started playing…Superstition…in heavy metal stylee…Genius.

The lead singer appeared to have become separated from his Hell’s Angel Chapter, possessing a massive Saxon head and impressive shoulders that tapered sharply into tiny Max wall legs. The long pointy beard at the end of his chin left his face with too much flesh. Big white letters on his “T” shirt said: ALMOS, which I took to be the name of the band, until he took off his jacket and I realised it actually said: ALMOST HUMAN.

And then they started playing…Superstition… by Stevie Wonder, in heavy metal stylee… Genius.

I was completely blown away by the quality of sound, my first live exposure to heavy/rock/metal. Each performer seemed cocooned in a bubble of musical sureness and at the same time respectful of everyone else’s performance, evident in the politely given physical space as they wove around each other.

And then the very, very, drunk man took over the mike and began an eerie, whale like calling. He was ever so politely and expertly, removed from the stage by the lead singer.

The crowd went wild, well, as wild as a crowd of twenty-four could…

The performance headed towards a crescendo: The laconic base guy’s fingers were now a blur of speed, the key board player a one-fingered and rapid, minimalist, George Michael was on his knees guitar howling, the Hell’s Angel was dark and sodden with sweat and the drummer hysterical. The sound became a satisfying, mutual hum made from the collaboration of all the elements. A sum of its collective parts.

And then the very, very, drunk man put his head on my husband’s shoulder, suddenly poetic in his drunkenness and cried: “There’s a devil in my soul and something wrong with the controls.”

The crowd went wild, well, as wild as a crowd of twenty-four could and I it was then that I understood that for this band the performance was everything and that they really would give their all for every audience, no matter how small, no matter how drunk.

…heavy metal has shaken me out of my comfort zone.

Which brings me back to Art, where of course the performance/process is also what it is all about. Accidentally finding heavy metal has shaken me out of my comfort zone and the band’s artistic integrity coupled with wise words from the talk: The A-Z of Surviving as an Artist, with Rosalind Davis and Annabel Tilley, has inspired me to re-evaluate my practice with a focus on drawing. I rather fell out with drawing during a recent and intense period of study favouring three dimensions over two. I need to find a way to reinstate it which feels like going backwards, but at least now I have Highway to Hell, to keep me company.

Drawings coming soon.