EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE

The banal lyrics of this song are transformed by Nina Simone's extraordinary voice and piano into a profound hymn that hits you in the solar plexus from the very first deep chord to the last high-flying heart-tearing note. 

I'm posting it here because today's a good day for making changes. 

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ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSALISTS

For a long time I've been used to a rather hermitic, if not hermetic, life and the presence of another person or persons for longer than a day, whether family or friends, regardless of my feelings for them, is something I have great difficulty in adjusting to. Being on my own has never been a problem. On the contrary, I need a kind of open solitude in order to function as myself. I've had lonely times of course - who hasn't? - but solitude is not the same as loneliness. Solitude is an ingredient as essential to me as air or food. 

So this has been a difficult birthday week and in order to restore my own rhythm I went to see the Alternative Guide to the Universe exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. Big, bustling, pushy crowds are not my thing but those which amble along in leisurely fashion on a sunny day in pleasant surroundings are fun to observe and mingle with and conversations can be eavesdropped without having to join in - a pleasant way to be part of society without needing to be sociable. A bit like logging in to Facebook but not participating. 

The South Bank is in the midst of a Festival of Neighbourhood and all sorts of things have cropped up which weren't there before. Those yellow banners for instance and the fierce animals and humanoid insect-creatures drawn on walls. I don't know who did them or whether they will stay permanently and I'm not not sure what, if anything, they have to do with neighbourliness but they are startling and intriguing. 

Inside the Hayward I began by going up to the level where the Museum of Everything is exhibiting a few works by the wonderful Nek Chand who, like Facteur Cheval, Simon Rodia and other so-called 'naive' artist-builders elsewhere, created an extraordinary magical world from recycled materials. You can see some of Chand's Rock Garden on this video and there's an interview with him here with subtitles in English. 

I've always been fascinated and inspired by such mavericks: artists outside art movements, DIY scientists with no academic degrees, inventors/engineers/architects without qualifications, thinkers outside the outside of any box, philosophers mocked by their peers for their far-out theories, visionaries, odd-balls - I love them all. And the Alternative Guide to the Universe exhibition is dedicated to them. I only managed to sneak a few photos but have ordered the book and there are good images and plenty of information on the internet about all the people featured in the show. If you're as intrigued as I am by Otherness, please be sure to follow the links:

BODYS ISEK KINGELEZ (some of his models are on the upper right in the photo below); GEORGE WIDENER (below left).

EMERY BLAGDON (one of his 'healing machines' is shown below).

UPDATE: Don't miss this wonderful video about Emery Blagdon, his life and work.

Below: two works by PAUL LAFFOLEY 

And there's MARCEL STORR and JAMES CARTER and many more but that's enough to distract you from whatever else you happen to be doing right now. 

What interests me about these and similar outsiders is that whether they are as sane as you and I (hahahaha), a bit bonkers, completely bonkers, hypersensitive, autistic, visionary or any other classification you prefer, they all speak the same 'language' and explore the same kind of themes: cosmological, mathematical, patterned, symbolic, universal, sometimes mystical, none of it within accepted traditions and yet seeming to belong to a common lineage. It's as if a part of their mind is tuned to a wavelength beyond the reach of most minds, even very sophisticated, erudite minds. I don't think it's a coincidence that most of these mavericks are self-taught, if taught at all. Maybe their lack of sophistication is one of the factors which allows them to be antennae for whatever arcane messages the universe sends out. Of course any content they pick up and transform into paintings, constructions or words will be interpreted by their individual personalities and culture and thus may look weird, incomprehensible or merely charming to spectators. But I wouldn't dismiss it too easily. 

And then I went home on the tube and saw this:

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BORN........AGAIN

Apparently I was a healthy, bouncy baby but when my mother stopped nursing me, I stopped eating. The hunger strike lasted for such a long time that I couldn't walk and a variety of medical strategies were tried to no avail. Then my worried parents consulted an unconventional practitioner who prescribed a diet of sardines and red wine. Bingo! That did it, I became healthy and bouncy again and have more or less remained that way, apart from the usual trials and tribulations of life in which bounciness is taken away and would not be appropriate in any case. 

That's all for now. I wish happy days, birthdays included, to all who stop by here and invite you all to drink a toast or to put butter and jam on it if you prefer. 

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SELF-EXPOSURE

Isn't that what we bloggists are doing? Even when not writing about ourselves the very fact of putting up a blog is a signal that we want to be seen and heard. Perhaps not for full-frontal revelation, perhaps only for those parts of our thoughts, observations, experiences, opinions, creations that we consider worth exposing to public scrutiny. 

If this  sounds like I'm leading up to a moral lecture about everything being vanity and illusion and self-indulgence....not at all! I'm all for self-exposure, as you may have noticed if you're a regular over here. This blog is my modest little streaking across the olympic football fields of the universe. Or words to that effect. 

And since my birthday is coming up at the midnight hour on the seventh day of August, I will prepare the ground by pasting up few self-exposures taken recently in that photo-booth thing of the Mac which doesn't do flattery. I took a self-photo on my birthday every year for a long time but haven't kept up that exercise quite so faithfully in more recent years, no doubt because photogenecity decreases with every revolution of the planet around the sun. Yes yes I know that under-eye bags, wrinkles and turkey necks are beautiful too. We're not ageist around here. Anyway I'm rather proud that I don't look my age...yet. Which is why I'm offering no prizes for guessing it and wouldn't tell you if you guessed right. Exposure only goes so far and no further. Expect another photo on my birthday.  And pretty soon I'll do some serious blogging instead of this space-filling drivel.

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RAISON D'ÊTRE

Earlier this evening, in replying to a thought-provoking letter from a friend (thanks Tom), I wrote that "creative activity is my raison d'être". On further reflection, after sending the email, I felt that my statement was not really true and that I should clarify it. So, for the sake of honesty, and maybe also as a way of breaking this prolonged Blogger's Block, that's what I'll try to do here. 
 

First of all, before I could have a raison d'être, my parents had to have their raisons d'être and their parents before them and so on as far back as genetically possible and when that retrospective reaches the point where there's no further back to go to, then perhaps that is where my real raison d'être is hidden. 

What I understand raison d'être to mean is a sense that my life specifically, and life in general, has a purpose - a reason for being. And yes, I do believe this. You might say that there is no rational reason for being at all but that we can still live purposefully. Or you might say that in order to live purposefully one must believe in an ultimate reason for life. The pros and cons of these and other views could be endlessly argued but if I were to join that argument I'd be evading what I set out to answer: is creative activity truly my raison d'être? 

The truth is: I don't know. The truth is: I wish it were more so. The truth is: I'm always uncertain about my raison d'être, always feeling that it's on the tip of my tongue, just out of reach. The truth is: time goes by and creative activity ebbs and flows and I still think I have all the time in the world to discover my raison d'être. The truth is: deep down I know that I have much less than all the time in the world. The truth is: more than anything else in the world I would like to feel that I am fulfilling my raison d'être. 

Don't misunderstand: I'm not gloomy, not dejected, not lacking in self-confidence. On the contrary. I enjoy life. I can do Mindfulness, I can do Here-and-Nowness, I can do Serenity, I can do Let It All Hang Out. Yeah, really, I can do all that, no sweat. And I can do creative activity by the dozen. But it's not true that it's my raison d'être. 

So I haven't answered anything. But at least I've written a blog post. Now a picture to go with it.

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TOO HOT

What I've learned about resolutions is that as soon as you write them down, it's almost guaranteed that you are going to ditch them. I say "you" in that generic way which denies responsibility but what I really mean is me: I am the one who usually and predictably ditches resolutions. Eleven days have passed since I said I was going to take up the autobiography...maybe even every day! Ha ha ha and ha. So now you know that you shouldn't take any notice whenever I say I am going to do something. Hot air is what it is. 

And hot air is one of the reasons I am lying prone in the nation of Procrasti. It's just too damn hot. Wherever you are right now it's probably too hot unless it's winter where you are. And if you are able to do anything creative and/or constructive under the blanket of a heat wave  then I would salute you if I could manage the energy to raise my arm or my eyebrows in a salute. 

So instead of the promised autobio episode which I'm delaying, here is something which may be useful for those of us whose spirit is willing but whose flesh is easily immobilised by outrageous heat and other natural and unnatural  obstacles. I first saw it quite a while ago on the studio wall of a friend, a French artisan-printer, and asked him to photocopy it for me. I don't know where it comes from or who wrote it but I've translated it from the French and it's a prayer. But if you prefer a secular version, just remove "Lord" and substitute any source of encouragement you prefer. 

The Artisan's Prayer 

Teach me, Lord, to make good use of the time you give me for my work, to use it well without wasting it. Teach me to learn from past mistakes without sinking into recrimination. Teach me to plan ahead without tormenting myself, and to imagine the work without despairing if it turns out differently. Teach me to combine speed with slowness, serenity with fervor, zeal with peace. Help me at the beginning of a work, there where I am weakest. 

Help me when I'm in the heart of a work to hold tight the thread of attention. And most of all, fill the gaps in my work with your own inspiration.

Lord, in each work made by my hands let there be a virtue of yours so that it will speak to others and a fault of mine so that it will speak to me. Keep in me the hope of perfection without which I would lose heart. Keep me in the impossibility of perfection so that I don't get lost in pride. Purify my perception: what I do badly is not necessarily bad, and what I do well is not necessarily good.

Let me never forget that all knowledge is vain unless there is work, and all work is empty unless there is love. And that all love is hollow unless it links me to myself, to others and to you.

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YES, MAYBE

A kind of blog paralysis has set in, mirrored by a cramp in my left shoulder and extreme reluctance to approach the computer. Why? I really really want to keep this blog running and I really really want to continue the autobiography and...and...and... It's as if there is a rebellious, sulky, jealous troll living inside me who is determined to prevent or delay anything I really want to do. I've sampled enough psychotherapeutic theories, processes and techniques to know that there may well be some buried childhood blocks which can still make me stumble and that ignoring them does not mean they disappear. But: an urgent need to distract, disrupt, delay. 

Between writing the last sentence and this one I went in the kitchen, washed the dishes, made a cup of tea, read a couple of friends' blogs, checked my stats. I am definitely afflicted with Creatorius Interruptus. Talking of buried blocks, a buried Mickey Mouse was how I started the autobiography. I know I've left a lot of gaps, moved on too fast and interrupted too often but let's see if I can begin to fill in some of the blanks before taking up the thread that was left hanging when I stopped the story. Yes, maybe I can now continue in small chunks. Maybe even every day. Maybe twice a day. Let's see. 

* * *

Looking at my life from a distance as if it were a map, it seems like a vast ocean with a scattering of small islands.The name of that ocean is Love and it is dominant, possessive, demanding, jealous, altruistic, egotistic, ecstatic, carnal, spiritual, all of these in constant tidal motion, wave after wave furiously or gently shaping the waiting shorelines.

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WORK AND PLAY

 

Have just spent a beautiful few days on a working visit to the The Old Stile Press to discuss our project of the book of Blaise Cendrar's poem Trans-Siberian Prosody and Little Jeanne from France translated by Dick Jones, which I'm illustrating and which the OSP will publish. We are making very good progress but there's a long way to go before I complete 48 images and Nicolas' busy schedule allows him to begin printing what is sure to be a stunning book (premature boasting is allowed in this space). Dick's work is done but has gone through much fine tuning before arriving at its final crystalline state. We're fortunate that Miriam Gilou Cendrars (Blaise's daughter) has been extremely helpful with comments and is very interested in our undertaking. 

Here's a glimpse of a tiny bit of the work in progress - a couple of the relief blocks I'm cutting and trial proofs. The poem's text will be incorporated within the images. The beautiful setting made every moment of shop-talk a pleasure. When the sun finally came out I started a couple of drawings, first on the banks of the river Hay (oops! It's the river Wye) - Nicolas' camera caught me in the distance - then in the orchard, but I'm finishing them at home. UPDATE: Have added the orchard drawing below.

This will be my third collaboration with the Old Stile Press - the first one was an interpretation of Revelation and the second, line drawings on the Life of Jesus - but my friendship with Frances and Nicolas goes back a long way and I never fail to be inspired by them, their life dedicated to making and living with beautiful things and the magical place that is both their home and workplace. 

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HAPPY SCHOOL

The wonderful Eleanor Palmer primary school, just a street corner away from me, organises a Summer Fair every year. This school is such a bright and happy place, your spirit soars just walking past its cheerful exterior and inside, the colourful, stimulating ambiance is one I wish I'd known in my grey/brown early schooldays. 

The school's PTA association tries to raise funds so that the teachers can bring the curriculum to life, organise trips for the kids, hire artists and musicians etc. and an auction will take place at the Fair on July 6th. All sorts of treats are donated by local people and I've given some prints in the past. This year, I've decided to give them a couple of large watercolours and hope they will raise a goodly sum for this very worthwhile cause.

Offering NdA 1985  Watercolour. W 69cm x H 55cm 

I painted the second picture in Canillas de Albaida, a beautiful village in the mountains above Malaga where I was invited to give a printmaking workshop at an art school run by an expatriate American artist, Jack Rutherford. 

Canillas de Albaida, Malaga NdA 1982. Watercolour & ink. W 42cm x H 29cm

Jack Rutherford standing in the dazzling Spanish sun with a local abuelita, 1982. 

Lunchtime at art school, Finca el Cerillo, Canillas de Albaida 1982 .

And here's Natalie, looking uncomfortable next to a portrait of her by a student who probably didn't give up the day job. Anyway I had a great time - it was a happy school too, as all schools should be, for pupils and teachers alike.

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TAKING A BREAK

Working every day drawing and cutting blocks for the Trans-Siberian book project, often I lose track of time altogether. A measured work/rest/play balance isn't really my thing, especially since the work I do is also play, even when it's hard and demands a lot of wrist action. But this week the weather became more like it's supposed to be in June instead of an imitation of March which itself was more like December. So I decided to take a break and actually Go Out into the sunshine and the world beyond my window. 

To Tate Modern by my favourite route, taking the underground to London Bridge and then walking at a leisurely pace past Southwark Cathedral and through the apetizingly odoriferous Borough Market where all the food steaming, simmering, frying and bubbling looks and is too delicious to make a decision so I can never decide and end up only having a coffee and sandwich at the dull Tate snack bar. But on the way to the gallery, through the tunnel and along the embankment, I took some photographs.

Fake flames were shooting out of the busker's tuba and I suspect that most of the music was coming from the tape recording he was sitting on - such an incongruous and jaunty figure against that distressed wall. 

 Hard-edged abstraction? Architectural chaos? Pile 'em high and keep adding more. 

Sitting alone in the midst of the ceaseless stream of busy strollers, this thoughtful and kind-faced old lady moved me deeply.

 

In front of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. The world's a stage, it's a Season of Plenty and all the tragedies and comedies are played over and over again every day. 

I'll be back very soon to re-start the autobio, yes I will.

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