stop and start again

CN: PTSD, ‘domestic’ violence to women, hearing voices

Lots of ways to read that – one meaning is that the internet wifi has gone down irretrievably and my one hour callback from the tech dept arranged by customer services after the first fail [tsk tsk] still hasn’t come 9 days later.. my new router from a different company should arrive sooner than that though 😉 meanwhile a 5m ethernet cable from the £shop is making internet access possible, though not comfortable.

I’ve had an emotional break-apart/through too, I have had a painful experience in taking on too much and having to excuse myself… I was tagged to The Women’s Quilt, a very brave endeavour, where there will be a square for each of the 589 women in Britain known to have been killed by a violent partner, father, other male relative during the period 2009 – 2015. That’s 2 a week, in a relatively small country. I volunteered to make some squares, though finding out we had to do the research ourselves on the women was where I should have dropped out. I assumed there would have been a collaboration with the friends or next of kin over what they would like a woman remembered for. Having to read up about 8 women and a 16 year old girl’s horribly violent deaths and try and find any source of information about the woman other than as the victim was very difficult.. every newspaper covered the number of stabwounds etc very few said ANYTHING about the woman. The Facebook page became filled with heart rending stories as more people making squares shared how terrible the deaths were but also how horrible the gaps are… The admins were careful to tell people to protect themselves and only take on what they could, but the constant reminders via Fbk notifications were upsetting – yes I turned off the notifications, it takes a couple of days to take effect… I managed to make 4 squares, two of which are very plain because there just wasn’t any personal information. One woman was about to go swimming so I made her a mermaid

another was the concert pianist Natalia Strelchenko, so I found some music printed on fabric for her [ it’s The Holly and the Ivy, but needs must..]

I was really surprised how much this experience shook me… I think to be fair if I wasn’t already upset by my brother-in-law dying [the oldest and last of the three brothers, my poor mother- and sister-in-law] and his wife now being seriously ill in hospital, my therapist of the last 11/12 years having suddenly being diagnosed with cancer again and having to stop work, a friend being diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma… then it might have been less upsetting. Combined with my personal griefs, the Trumpland woes and Brexit suicidal xenophobia… I just felt very ‘precarious’, a word I use when I feel the PTSDs are running amok and I can barely hang on to the wild horse of survival… I’ve made it, and learnt – yet again – that pacing is some tricky shit.

I feel I need to withdraw from Facebook and use it much more carefully. I signed up as an artist and then Facebook made me have a personal account and a ‘business’ account. It’s a useful tool and a tyrannical master… my friends have a broad range of politics, so my home/feed is full of bad news with the occasional positive…no one means to be negative, but that’s a lot to hold your self and daily purpose against. While I was feeling ‘haunted’ by the details of the deaths, mixed in with life stories of others and my own experiences of violence and helplessness, I felt bombarded by all the bad news in the world, how the right are rising and fascism may overtake Europe and the US… and as the feelings of uselessness rose, I was rescued by the reminder [yes, voices in my head 😉 ] that you can only do your OWN work, that in the face of death and destruction, all I can and must do is make art, however I can. It was amazingly reassuring…

I can’t only make art of course, but if I accept the loving reminders of politically aware friends like Uditi Shane and Jennifer Moore, then my art IS enough of a protest to make… and the rest of the time I need more mental space, I need to have more space to experiment and be playful. Because life sends enough challenges without the constant flood of negativity the news etc brings. In my own words, “I am one 7 billionth of the problem – sometimes it’s ok to only be one 7 millionth of the solution”. I usually laugh as I say it, because it can be very easy today to feel we aren’t doing enough, and putting that perspective on it changes everything. I’m pretty sure even on a bad day I manage to do my share, because my ingrained habits of thrift, recycling, buying fairtrade, vegetarianism and giving to the foodbanks etc do that… During my internet hiccups, I didn’t miss Facebook very much at all – because I could connect for long enough to message friends but not long enough for general browsing or reading the feed, which I had come to dread. I read books, sewed towards the Empire piece, caught up with some dyeing projects, slept off the adrenalin rushes… and now I’m starting again, trying to follow Olitski’s excellent advice 🙂

 

Think Again: Being Human 2016

An exciting opportunity came my way and luckily I had the spoons to respond! [Viva Oxygen Therapy!!] Have you heard of Theodore Zeldin? He’s a very special person 🙂

sorry this is such a rubbish photo, but it was taken by candlelight 😀 that’s a commissioned cowl in his hand, made by Singing Bird Artist 😉 oh my, what an honour. You can find lots about Theodore Zeldin online, his short biography is here:

http://www.oxfordmuse.com/?q=theodore-zeldin

and his books are available from all good bookstores, as they say. Personally I think he has contributed so much to intersectional thinking by extending the way ‘respectable’ history researchers and professors can expand into political zones and make the voices of ‘ordinary’ people shine through. That he then champions a method of peace-making through conversation, an unfolding of understanding by breaking down stereotypes and having people respond not react to the person in front of them, perhaps from a group they had biased thoughts about, oh, this is Nobel Peace Prize stuff in my book…

He is here in Nottingham both to launch the Being Human Festival 2016 [many other venues across Britain, see http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/conversation-dinner/ for the event where the photo was taken, many events also took place at Contemporary, where some Black History events took pride of place ❤ ] and the Nottingham Portraits project, where a city will be revealed by the views of its citizens, many more events planned for that!

So, what was Singing Bird doing there? Well, you know I’m a textile and fibre artist and work as a process artist, incorporating time and site specific details… Amber Forrest contacted me through Knit Nottingham, who suggested me as a knitter, who though disabled, would be very comfortable knitting during an event to commemorate it in some way. Thanks Eleanor, I owe you 😉 After an excited phone conversation and meet up with the lovely Amber who did so much [thanks again Amber] to make sure I was comfortable and my agoraphobia and fibromyalgic needs were met on the night, I was primed. Knit a hat, no a cowl, for a man who has pioneered such exciting techniques to open people’s minds and show them more is possible! This is my joy in action 🙂

This is a man who wears suits a lot – that’s what professionally active historians of 80+ wear, but I noticed in photos often has his shirt collar open, no hat and no tie. Aha! A cowl might be useful then, particularly when travelling. Amber had found the yarn above, a navy with white thread running through, which turns out to be recycled glass fibres, and get this, it glows in the dark!! How cool is that! I immediately felt how like a pin stripe it looked, like those suits… and having thought about how he has worked to bring out hidden sides of people, I thought of natural colours, a rainbow maybe, no, better, a sunset, with colours reflected in the sea, all the ripples he has made in the world, shimmering reflections taken on their own wave out into the world and the waves he has met and with which he has rolled, how much further he goes than you’d expect from the pinstripe… So I prepared for the event by knitting the ‘pinstripe’ side and starting the sea and sunset, with short lengths of yarns prepped to allow many elements, reflecting the diverse and various people expected to the event at Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant.

I arrived at the event and was seated with some help [bar stools and sticks don’t go!] introduced to some lovely people, then escorted upstairs [plenty of disabled people came to the event, but they all had to be ambulatory, and those stairs with cold brass handrails were no fun to come down]  to be able to choose where I wanted to sit. I smiled, remembering my late husband, as I chose the back corner where you could see 4 doors, but hide a weapon at my right side – yes, classic ninja/agoraphobic out but stressed!! He always knew where I would sit, and as a martial artist found it very funny, because I’m also a pacifist. 😉

There were speeches, from the head of Humanities at the University of Nottingham, about the Being Human Festivals and their intentions [improving community integration and access] and from Amber introducing the Nottingham Portraits and MUSE project, and Theodore Zeldin then spoke on how to use the Menu of Conversation we were offered to guide the process. He advised how to avoid traumatic topics if you needed to, but still speak of things important to your life.. it was an amazing list and very interesting… only one thing jarred.. the use of “both sexes”. Theodore has written some great stuff on improving communication between men and women and works with his wife [they have joint copyright on some ideas/processes] so understands the huge need there is for this work.

However, it is 2016, and we do now know there are far more sexes/gender orientations present in our communities, I have several trans friends, some happily transitioned, some at the beginning of their process, but most of my closest trans friends are non-binary, and I have 2 cis friends who also feel they identify more with genderfluid orientations. What is commonplace to me doesn’t seem to have reached Theodore, but I hope someone will draw his intention to this lapse in language, because I don’t feel any lack of diversity in his approach… I will include it in feedback to the Menu process forms and if I am part of the spinoff events MUSE intends, I will definitely raise it, and suggest sticking an amendment over the top. [I am torn between eco awareness and trans ally on that, far better to have new forms, but how many have been printed already??]

 

Overall I was very pleased to see a diversity of people there in terms of race and culture and disability, I met at least 2 gay men, spotted some lesbians and doubt I was the only bi person there… there were a lot of white academic types, but then they were there as helpers, so like the wait staff created another group making it slightly hard to get a sense of true proportions. One University guy made a gaffe, but it turned out well, as he casually said he had been hoping to meet some homeless people – silence from 4 of us, and then a refuge project guy spoke up about varieties of homelessness and to support him I said, hmm, yes, I had been 20 minutes away from having no key to a place of my own, flat sitting for a friend while unsafe at my own place [house sharer was letting in violent neighbour angry I had helped her partner leave… sigh] was this close enough to give him an idea? Lovely project guy immediately says ‘Twinnies!’ and goes for a fistbump and handshake! The other two joined in and it turned out we had all been in precarious positions, the woman next to me making that very good point about how many paycheques most people are away from the street if they lose their home. The Uni guy looked a bit embarrassed but got over it and joined in and heard about the project in Beeston. Sorry I didn’t get people’s  names, but knitting takes two hands, actually it takes three when you get your work out and find you have lost a long needle in the taxi!!! I spent a flustered time figuring out how to knit in smaller sections at a time with many dropped stitches being sorted by candlelight [omg] as every other row took all 3 of the short needles from my mitts project… and then some… and BREATHE!!

My main conversation partner of the evening was a joy to meet! She was full of anger and righteous indignation and an edge of despair about Trump and Brexit and we talked non-stop!! I told her I am a possibilitarian and relentless optimist [at least when I have the right painkillers!!] and how I felt the working class had been abandoned when the first Council houses were sold off, and then when things like the Trade Unions, which had begun to diversify, black leaders in the TGWU [Transport General Workers] and women getting senior positions in the FireFighter’s Union, were pushed out of the Labour Party and the spin doctors let in, and the training and development side of the unions and the Labour Party stopped. I was never a Labour Party member, but I knew loads of Labour and various flavour Communists from being a socialist feminist with the National Assembly of Women… well I was the token anarcha-feminist 😀 [some of the working class women were very doubtful when I joined, but were won over by my ability to make profits on the catering to fund speakers for International Women’s Day] These were mainly women who had become politicized by the Miner’s Strike, strikes over working conditions, by meeting or being refugees and feminists in teaching or Council work. It makes for a different energy, less despair, more backbone when the shit hit the fan, and because this ISN’T the pit collapsing on 200 men in your village/town, a relief it isn’t worse. Although it is very very frightening…

The rise of the alt-right/ white supremacists seems to have started with Brexit, risen with Trump and if Marine Le Pen gets in in France… ffs… the recent event in Spain with Franco praised and the Nazi salute being offered to a Catholic priest – omg, omg… this is very, very frightening. Or is it? This was here before, but underground.. now it has surfaced and like a particularly bulging spot, it can be tackled and all that pus can run away. Before, Britain First and other despicables could deny their Nazi roots, now they are gloating, out and proud. And they are sickening the middle way-ers who very naively thought they could vote Ukip and it would only be black suits, not blood on the streets… if the second referendum comes through, I think enough lies have been proved, enough nastiness has been shown that with more canvassing and talking to lost-in-the-muddle types, we could get a very different result.

There is a pause in which we have time to organize against white supremacism, already Muslims and Jews have acted to make a joint organization to defend religious rights, which is amazing.. I have seen Jewish Voices for Peace making common cause with Black Muslims via Facebook through supporting Black Lives Matter demos over the summer and a couple of days after Trump’s election, this amazing announcement of the new organization. I had tears of joy… may this feed back, may this help those American Jews who do support the sending of military aid to Israel stop and instead build a programme of mutual understanding and send peacemaking volunteers to Israel/Palestine…

 

But back to the event, celebrating thinking again, meeting and talking and responding, not reacting… there was such a buzz, such good energy in the room… I woke up the next day early and full of positivity, and managed to start clutterclearing my studio! That’s a win! I am meeting Amaya for a cuppa at the weekend and we will talk more about the ideas thrown up, she has great energy, skills and education and empowerment and I hope we will be able to come up with some ideas to help gather the resources of our individual networks and enrol them in creating more connections…at the least, hanging out with likeminded friends is good for your mental health! more win, more hope, more possibility webs spreading into the world! It has to be good.

 

transphobia, feminism and being a permaculture activist

A Statement of Trans-Inclusive Feminism and Womanism

please read the statement at the link: it marks an historic moment, a turning point where feminists [people who believe gender-based oppression of people is wrong] are coming together to be clear that women affected by transgender have a place in feminism and women-only space, as equals, and is probably the first statement where people who identify as feminists are queuing to sign in solidarity of trans-inclusion within feminism.

image (Keith Turner) : detail of ‘diversity is our strength’ in situ at Nottingham Pride, 2013 Singing Bird Artist

*****TRIGGER WARNINGS: lesbian/lesbian violence, transphobic comments repeated, collusion with abusers*****

Why is this so significant?

Well, transphobia is one of the reasons so many good women lost their energy for feminism – fighting transphobic lesbian-feminists [let me be CRYSTAL CLEAR!  that’s SOME, not all lesbian-feminists] in the late 90s. I was fairly new on General Committee at Nottingham Women’s Centre when a letter came requesting clarification on the right to access the facilities, written by a post-transition woman. I read it out, and said, “well that’s a clear yes, isn’t it?” and looked up to see a variety of expressions, but all including exhaustion, on the faces of the other volunteers. To cut a very long story short, no, this was round 3 or 4 on trying to get agreement for access. I volunteered to be the ally/advocate for transgendered access (all the other lesbians on committee heaved a sigh of relief, and the Lesbian Centre sent a delegate to oversee our process and advocate remaining closed – while knowing this would mean losing all Council funding for workers and basic costs.)

image (Keith Turner) : detail of ‘diversity is our strength’, Nottingham Pride, 2013

The next several months  of “process” were agonising…for me, it involved becoming emergency homeless after helping a lesbian neighbour leave her violent lesbian partner and being told that the perpetrator was welcome in the Lesbian Centre and I was not. That’s the level of shunning I received… I lost all but 2 friends in Nottingham (luckily I still had 3 in Newcastle, a mere 4 hours away by train…remember I’m agoraphobic…) Meanwhile I continued to volunteer several hours a week to keep this huge unwieldy building with 40+ rooms and 60+ projects open and available, warm, dry, safe, secure (I notice I realllllllly need to let go of the £6,000 gas bill ($8,000) for one winter quarter where we would come in on a Monday to find the Lesbian centre had left the radiators on full and the windows wide open…ALL weekend) That was just one of the disillusionments….

This was the time when I came to realise that extremes meet..that the worst kind of rabid tabloid and the supposedly politically aware and analysed and completely anti-oppression transphobic lesbians both believed and would state with conscious cruelty remarks like “they’re just men in skirts” or “what about when they rape women and children”. I apologise to any people affected by transgender for repeating such hurtful crap, but it is like when discussing child abuse, some people really don’t get that some people say things like that unless you share the truth you know. I was there, it scarred me. I would go and talk in therapy about how I felt struggling to keep the centre going, for these heartless, horrible oxygen thieves….as a survivor, with a family who insisted on silencing me, I find collusion excoriating.

After public debates in more than one venue, with consultations with all the projects, eventually access was granted. I never felt the same again about the Women’s Centre, and I don’t think I ever entered the Lesbian Centre again. I started the Art Access course and found great joy in exploring such a healing space for myself. In the second year, the new head tutor asked me where I “fitted” in Lesbian Art, and I just said, “Oh, I don’t…” and he said, “Well, you must, you’re a lesbian?!?” and after a pause, I said,”No, I think I just came back out as Bi !” We both started laughing, it was a very odd experience!! 😉

image Keith Turner: detail of  ‘diversity is our strength’ in situ, Nottingham Pride, 2013 Singing Bird Artist

But I had just been researching lesbian artists, and I was very aware that I had so little in common with the more famous ones, and certainly wasn’t welcome among the local ones, but most importantly, art is where my utmost truth is crystal clear to me, and I just KNEW I didn’t fit there…2 years later I met my husband and fell head-over-heels in love, so I was right about that! 😉

But one of the sad things is that the same lesbians who are trans-phobic are also bi-phobic…and on the rare occasions I would meet a lesbian from those days, I would feel tainted, like, it would look like the only reason I supported trans-access rights was because I wasn’t lesbian enough…16 years on and I finally, finally feel I could join a feminist group again because trans-acceptance would be accepted…and  bisexuality would be accepted too. Hopefully this would be a feminism where so many more experiences would be validated too – womanism/acceptance of the dual struggle against racial prejudice, being a woman of belief (without oppressing others eg being Jewish and being welcome, but accepting Zionism would have to be left at the door; being Muslim and leaving violent jihad there too, being Celtic Pagan, Christian, Hindu , Atheist…even Daoist 😉 ) class and privilege reversed to support and education, issues of health, disability…. and then things I would call for now that weren’t really on my radar then:

access to shared organic landscapes, wildness and the right to share cultivation (bring back the REAL commons!!)

commitment to a future that values all living species and organic entities over industrialisation and dis-embodied corporations of capitalism

commitment to the future, of the planet and all the species we can protect

a redesign of society as if people and planet mattered (I just need to be clear that animals etc are people too, just not human)

– this all exists, it’s part of ‘expanded’ permaculture, which is sooooo much more than gardening design, brilliant as that system is. Read Starhawk’s ‘Fifth Sacred Thing’ to get a sense of how a state could run with that level of respect, or the second in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy. Yes, I know they’re novels, I recommend them because they are so brilliantly written that you can imagine yourself inside that decision-making process, and feel how hard they would be….but worth it, because the alternative of yet more ‘unlimited growth’ capitalism is beyond terrifying. So I want a feminism that includes permaculture as its anti-capitalist strategy and a permaculture that welcomes all to the orchard 😉

visitors and my rollator at Pride 2013

And the single best thing for me is that right now feminism is the phoenix in the fire, it has the chance to spread its wings and become a campaign FOR things that would make the world better…so much of people’s opposition to feminism is based on misunderstanding, and feminism has this moment to seize the chance to re-frame, re-name and re-empower itself, ourselves, all the people, the planet, save our present and future…

How exciting is that? 😉

diversity at Pride

First: a big thank you to the friendly strangers who helped me when the taxi driver jammed the brake on my rollator again! They pushed the rollator lifted on to its front wheels and carried a big bag of diversity (!) down from Addison St to the community stage so all I had to do was walk slowly, and only once! I was panicking about how to manage two trips with nothing going missing or wrecking myself 😦 And they weren’t even going to Pride, so it was particularly nice of them to help me 🙂

So, a lovely sunny day, with lots of entertainment, people dancing barefoot on the grass, lots of stalls to look at and good causes fundraising – including Pride itself, as it all costs money to sort out. I was at the community stage at the beginning and saw the march coming in as Single Bass sang, then went home for a rest and came back to take down the installation about an hour before the rain was forecast, which meant I got to see an excellent singer, Emily Franklin, wow, what a voice! And it was lovely to hear Single Bass sing again, she is such a thoughtful writer, ‘Aseity’ (empowered groundedness) is one of my favourite songs, and as ever I got tears in my eyes when she sang ‘Weather the Storm’. I missed her second set, which matters less now this is available online 😉

http://single-bass.bandcamp.com/track/heavy-woman

– Keith helped me hang ‘Diversity is our Strength’ and then took some photos, so here is your eyecandy 😉

And now I am resting and very slowly pottering round tidying up the yarn explosion…where did all the feathers come from???

Hollie McNish: the best poet of the streets since Benjamin Zephaniah?

A friend sent me a link to Hollie McNish on you tube, and I was stunned: she is the best poet I’ve heard perform for ages! I went to a lot of performance poetry events with Andy (Andy Postman, my missed by many super funny/ out there surreal/zany poet and artist husband) and I have seen some very good poets, call outs to Mark Gwynne Jones and Dave ‘Stickman’ Higgins, local stars Sue Allen and Michelle ‘Mother’ Hubbard, and the nationally acclaimed, truly amazing uncrowned poet laureate Benjamin Zephaniah (the ‘Naked’ album is outstanding…)

So this accolade is not given lightly.

She is human, witty, politically aware in a very “personal is political” way about the underpinnings of the system, but, as she says in ‘Mathematics’ she has done her research, she has found out for herself, she has checked her sources. Like Zephaniah she is on the side of life, the overflowing cornucopia of  delight it can be, that is imperilled by thoughtlessness and greed. Like him, she knows WE have the power to change the unquestioned into the unthinkable. She engages us, and leaves us wanting more – I’ve checked with friends and I am far from the only one to repeat play immediately, with a “wow, that was good!”

She appeals to the part of everyone who knows what is fair, but may have been gaslighted (manipulated) into silence or denial, shouted down or isolated to the point of self doubt. She knows when to be positive and affirming; we must protect the wild places, honour the mothers doing the best for their babies, stand up for our right to be ourselves…

She is an original thinker, with fresh imagery and an ability to set out clearly the issues that may have been niggling at the back of our own minds – the school uniform fetish has always set my teeth on edge and I’ve been able to articulate why quite easily. The cloying cutesy cupcakes/vintage housewifey thing has annoyed me ever since it came in, but I assumed it was an age thing that these girls/women had no idea how much physical hardwork and brain numbingly boring real housewifery was in the 50s, whereas I could remember my aunt talking about getting her first hoover: in a pit village, dusting and sweeping was a twice a day job and depressingly pointless. Hollie joins the dots and holds up an image that makes me shocked, yes, little girls playing house are little girls with no power and could be depressingly easy targets for the predators waiting to pounce, but more importantly they are women missing out on their own lives. They are missing the now, the only place where we have power to respond to what happens in our life, to set aside the endless daily lists to make the memories that will sustain us, and if we are caring/parenting, making happiness for others too. No one at my memorial will stand up and say I was always on top of the dusting (friends rock with laughter at the very thought!!) but they will remember fruit smoothies in the garden with laughter as we made bunting to cheer up a friend moving to a new city, they will remember calls to say, the chestnuts are ready, fancy a bike ride? Paints and fabrics at the ready, seeds and trowels, and yes funky food….though pesto scones, 20 ingredient salads and lemon and marzipan cookies are what happened this week, not cupcakes, and duster, no, fraid not  😉
She breaks down the barriers of political thinking that run on rails, with no room for manoeuvres… if ever there was a time when we needed fresh, heartfelt thinking, humane values and clearheadedness, this is it. And the best news: she is young, all being well we have years ahead of us of her work, her questioning eye and clear voice calling society out and inspiring us to find a better way. Viva Hollie!

a rose by any other name?

– would definitely smell as sweet…but would a rosegarden sound as attractive if it was called a thorncob border?

I am preparing to promote a piece going on display [all the details will be shared as soon as I’m allowed!] and realising, though the name makes perfect sense, it lacks pulling power…it’s also out of synch with previous exhibitions, which in some way or another reminded people to pay attention.

the same but different

no such thing as empty space

nothing is ever wasted

flagships for the landlocked

So the working title of the piece was Gaia’s Gorgons, and relates to a dream I had where I could see Medusa/the human Gorgon (she has 2 immortal sisters) being slain by a warrior and hearing a braid of voices saying ” You killed my daughters, my guardians, who will protect me?”

This is not my normal style of dream at all, I assure you! Anyway, I jotted down a few things from the dream, lots of red and green, that there were 3 gorgons, daughters, and that the sword was the warrior’s hand. Then I went on some classical/ Greek Myth sites online, and discovered, yes, there are 3 gorgons and they are daughters of the nature and ocean goddesses, or if you read Hesiod:

“the Athenians believed Gaia birthed the Gorgons using the castration blood of Ouranus to protect her earth from the carelessness and cruelty of the failed Gods, the Titans.”

– so getting why that wasn’t the version in primary school!!!

After some more delving I found a (new to me) myth:

When Perseus laid the Gorgon’s head on a bed of seaweed at Lake Tritonis, the soft, dancing weed was changed to strange fronds, which out of the water became stiff and hard as rock as they died. The nymphs were so startled they took the head from plant to plant…

[you can find out more by reading Timeoroi Libyes C3 BCE; Diodorus Siculus and Ovid C1BCE, and Pausanius C2AD]

–  I knew the theory that the head of snakes was a (literal) whitewash of a head of dreadlocks, the European Greeks invading Africa and killing the Libyan warrior queen and rewriting history in the way of all victors, to make themselves heroes, but that the link with Libya was written about 5,000 years ago kind of blew me away 😉

Now I started daydreaming dreads and braids, all in reds and greens and linked with seaweed and coral…I even chatted to a guy in the bank about it, he’d got a really fresh cornrow with snaky dreads and I got caught staring, so I explained it was for art and why, [probably won strangest customer of the day ;)] but he was mega impressed with the idea of making a piece about it, because by now I knew I was linking this to Gorgonian Corals, a family of corals which

“are now studied as important indicator species of environmental (including climate) change”

– read Heikoop, Risk, Shearer and Atudorei 2002/3

You can imagine, I was a bit startled where this dream had come round to!

My hands knew exactly what they wanted to do though, all those dreads, braids, the waving fronds, the coral like statues of seaweed:

So, it all makes sense, but…that’s a lot of information for anyone to take in who isn’t already really into Greek myths.

And the thing is, like all my work, it’s a celebration of the small, the tiny inflections of colour, the hundreds of threads making a whole that is in turn part of a larger thing…it’s very tactile, it ranges from supersoft acrylic yarn to machine cords all twisty with tension, to rustling crepey taffeta, to bristly torn and machined organza to slippery nickel chain to pearl smooth shells…the dreams and the myths were all the inspiration that brought me to make the piece. It’s format is site specific and it will possibly be hung as tree jewellery, possibly extending from a seat… so in situ, it’s about surprise and delight and wonder at the sheer time it took to make….and the fact that it will be open to the elements (it’s fully washable) and what is it doing there?!

What will be evident is the extended repetition of simple techniques, using the huge variety of jackdawed leftovers and upcycled scraps, working slowly and making something new and pleasing 😉

Add to that the fact that I suffer from chronic fatigue and crochet makes my hands hurt now (I finished this before the great fall of last August) and I’m not sure I could make all this beauty again, that is fragile if treated with disrespect, it feels precious, just like the corals, there’s an edge, how do we value the irreplaceable?

What sort of name does all that convey/ what sort of name conveys all that? And attract the eye/ear to come and see the actual piece?

I am hoping I’ll dream the answer…

bundles make magic

“The proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us” Ursula le Guin

found with a much longer quote, here: http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2013/03/elucidating-the-world.html

– well worth reading, the full quote and the whole post from Myth and Moor, lovely photographs too…

I have bounced from being in a very happy, post-chiropractic tired but cheerful and optimistic place to a post- letter -from- the- Benefit- Centre, heart in mouth place…Knowing how badly these civil servants handle tricky don’t fit the boxes claims, and how upset I got in 2007 when I had to fight for a year to get my DLA back, my first instinct is to cower with fear…but an alternative thought is playing on the edge of my mind…it will be what it will be…so you might as well make art 😉

I have a lot of components sitting on the table in the studio from a piece I wanted to make ages ago, called cradle for stones. It involves papier mache shells (think grapefruit to large cabbage size) cut in half with bundles inside, like fibre art geodes 😉

Remembering that art objects are also texts, that can be read… maybe it’s time to make some power bundles to help me through the trial by ordeal, trial by endurance that standing up for your rights with the benefit system can be. I paid into a National Insurance scheme to cover me should anything awful happen to me, and guess what, it did, and guess what, I feel entitled to the service my contributions paid for…I am not a scrounger, I live with chronic pain and fatigue, but knowing the humiliation they feel entitled to put claimants through, I feel my adrenalin rise…and then the pain follows…

yes, better go make art!

Here are some images of components from the  installation ‘Gaia’s Guardians’, it took me a mere 2 years to make 😉 and is based on freeform crochet and other fibre and textile art elements about the use of gorgonian corals in climate change prediction. I’m hoping to get it out in a public space in a couple of months, it’s a site-specific installation so hanging it outdoors would be amazing…it includes freeform crochet in nickel chain, yarn, fabrics, machined cords and the funkiest pompoms you’ve ever seen 😉

because i am that woman

because i came in today

and saw that The Guardian thinks it is ok to frame a discussion of

International Women’s Day

around the right to wear a skirt

and I am really

ANGRY!

when there is still topless page 3

and women are still called names in the street

and ‘asking for it’

‘it’

being violent attack, stitches and broken bones and maybe death

when maybe

going home

is more dangerous than walking the streets

and women earn less than men

and women get less pension if they stayed at home to raise their kids

but are to blame for the kids running riot

if they don’t

and women are not to have abortions

but not to need contraception or childcare

but not to stay home and look after their children or their parents or their partners

didn’t that just go in a circle?

and women are bitches who nag

or whores who seduce

or acting like your mother, your teacher, your nurse

anyone except someone

who has been raised to ask

quietly and confidently

for what they want

and notice what they are offered

and calmly negotiate what works

round men

who have been told they are weak if they listen to a woman

hen-pecked or led by the nose

(the nose standing as we know for something else)

because men are told they will be judged on their sexual prowess, their fertility,

and their control of their woman, their family

and they are supposed to swagger more,

to get their respect, to get their due

they are supposed to demand more, to threaten, to fight, to die,

anything

except asking,

like someone who has been raised to ask

quietly and confidently

for what they want,

notice what they are offered and negotiate what works

as women and men are forced out of the old ways

into

ways that are not new

didn’t that just go in a circle?

and all the time the sandpaper on open wounds

the grit in the works

the whipping up of anger and blame between the powerless

stops the coming together of people

to work together, to become powerful,

to ask calmly for systems of government that respect our work,

our efforts, our contributions

and share benefits between all,

not give profits to a few who have forgotten they are human

or maybe, actually, aren’t human, but are corp-orations,

embodi-ments of economic power;

to notice what we are offered

and negotiate for what works

for the greatest number, not the super rich 1% or the landed 10%

or the inhuman business model

but a planet full of people who would have plenty

if we shared

because i am that woman

who wants to yell: STOP!

we are not each other’s enemies

we are picking up the pieces after a cocoon got ripped,

a mountain broke and a glacier melted and the world flooded

and the foragers ran out of game

and the wandering life of bounty

changed

changed utterly

to a life of growing and grinding

and where people had been  different but the same,

strong in arms or strong in legs or strong in wits or strong in memory,

and not everyone could survive but there was no malice;

to a world where ownership of more than the tools in your hands became possible

where land became what you fought for, not what ran over it, water or game or green vines

but the land itself

and taking land is stealing from everyone, because so little is left

and as we build closer and closer and crowd like rats

we turn and fight and bite

and forget

we are family

we all have genes of people who ran the savannah

and watched the prairie grass ripple like waves

and some of us sang when the sun tipped the stone to say

spring is coming

and we knew

we knew to our bones

that we needed each other

not just the family, not just the clan

but the far peoples we never met

but who sent their spices

and to whom we sent our flints

and we all carved bones and we all told stories

and we all protected a pregnant woman, we all protected a child

we loved the boys, we loved the girls

we loved the both-ways as the new shaman-to-be

because i am that woman who feels the earth turning

and the clouds gathering

and because my hair is turning grey and i am entering awareness of wisdom

by simply living that long and surviving  so much

and i have seen such strangeness

not much shocks me

but a lot saddens me

and then i see

The Guardian wants to talk about skirts

on International Women’s Day

and

i am ANGRY

re stating intentions…

Mmmm…I just re read my description of what I’m making to be fundraising pledge rewards, and you know what, it’s drifted… which is fine, because I have a better idea now! 😉 This is what is known as iterative process, doing it to find out what it is, as I like to define it. AKA life/process…;)

So all is well, but this seems a good moment to re state my intentions:

to fund an exhibition called the whispering wall, an exhibition of installations and films, with a major piece about the silenced

to use my stash/ upcycle art that I no longer exhibit to make pledge rewards: these should invite creativity or meditation/solace

ideas so far:

handmade books

i) a limited edition of 6, but one of a kinds (so far: green tree and damselflies; maps; mudras; pre-raphaelites & kimonos, probably armchair traveller and mandalas)

ii) an edition of 12 blankbooks, collections of pages to work on, from my piled up papers and fabric stash (oh, the joy of setting to and making lots more 😉 )

challenge/resource packs ( for art journalling/embellishment and card making/ATCs)

and some small art and craft, eg brooch/cards, wearable or frameable images, bags and cushion covers, solace/ scented sachets

I am beginning to see a ripple in my stash, more small boxes with neat labels 😉 and biggest crates starting to receive non-art items, I can’t tell you how exciting it is to think I might get to have a seat to hand sew in by the window onto the garden in the studio…and an empty table!!!

The distraction art dreaming creates is wonderful, but it requires a certain space to be possible: today I woke up at first light and wasn’t in pain…after 2 hours, I can feel I need to take the tablet, so I can take the tablets (??!?) but this has been a precious window 😉

I’m about ready to make some more of these components of the whispering wall, the cones covered in brusho paper. I have been doing a fair bit of freeform crochet to make the fishing net/clusters they will be gathered in, but I’ve yet to fully embellish any.

At first this piece was going to be about silencing of survivors of sexual abuse, but lately I’ve started to feel I want it to cover other abuses, political and economic too… I get frustrated when people argue among themselves rather than seeing we all need a better way of doing things…

so it will be interesting to see what happens as I make more, while my hands are busy, my mind thinks a different way 😉

ps: the top image is handmade paper drying on the line a couple of summers ago, a lovely day!!

contemporary conversations: making work

****TRIGGER WARNING FOR 999 CALLS AND SUDDEN DEATH****

I was fairly wrong about what the Friday class at Nottingham Contemporary Gallery is about, I thought it was going to be about professional development and improving technique for applying to galleries for exhibitions. It seems to be more about making marks and learning how to resolve a body of disparate work at the moment 😉 But I’m having fun “playing with the pencils on the bench”…(Alice’s Restaurant) and it is a very interesting group of people. On week 3, we had a really wide ranging discussion of why and how people make art, covering neolithic cave art/ shamanic dance/ mindfulness/ performance art/ Black Mountain College/ El Anatsui’s recent work at Brooklyn/ and so much more, we did a show-and-tell on what we liked markmaking with (charcoal/ body/ freeform yarn/ random up and re-cycling/ words/  fountain pens and moleskins/ editing suites…and more!)

We then had an hour to make a piece on a set theme and incorporating the brass rubbing technique Chris tutor showed us (be careful if you want to look up frottage,  ALWAYS include art or you will need eye bleach) and blank newsprint, but then letting rip however we wanted. After having discussed lines/line making/ marks/ markmaking and explaining that my favourite way to draw is with yarn, in the air, that using a chain of freeform crochet creates instant texture and three-dimensionality, my mind had wandered to lines and Hundertwasser’s words “The straight line leads to hell”. The theme was text, texture and context and I found my mind wandering from straight lines to flat lines…

and I found myself making a piece about the experience of watching my husband flat line, while the ambulance crew worked really hard to try and re-start his heart…I’ve talked about this in therapy, but not much elsewhere, and for a moment I considered not following the idea…but then I felt how much I wanted to do something on it, so I went with it, and luckily it worked for me and didn’t seem to upset anyone else. Partly because the rest of the group has to ‘read’ your work before you explain, and partly because I was so immersed, I didn’t give a trigger warning, which I felt a bit bad about afterwards, but that was just how it fell out. Chris class member took a photo:

It’s a very long piece, at least 2metres

These are the flat lines and monitor heart beats and de-fibrillation attempts

This is what I was left with, flat lines and the paper wrappers from all the cortisone syringe shots etc

and a place I cannot follow…

the coloured ‘line’ is the variegated chenille yarn I happened to have with me to start making a component for ‘whispering wall’, which I had freeform chained with loops during the discussion, which I laid (too linear a word!) over the papers. It puddled and looped from before to after the papers, and represents the 3-dimensionality, I as a living person retain (though so many people try and bury the widow with the coffin, hell’s teeth, stories I could tell you) and the disconnected connections I feel, I can tell you the story of this event but in the installation half the story belongs to Andy, and his story becomes disjointed…I started off shifu-ing the paper (Japanese paper/fabric technique) but it was very reluctant to do anything other than knot, so I let it lead and worked with that. The group caught  most of the signs/signifiers, but without the narrative, they had no context to give them the story, they got very close though. I liked that my story  is what made sense of it – that echoes the real life event and the role of the yarn element in the installation.

I feel like making this was very important for me, it may not be a great piece of art, but it was cathartic. It’s not art therapy, it still clearly had formal values and presence, it just also had a more personal story than gallery art often allows itself to tell….which I think is a shame, I think it is possible to make impassioned art on personal subjects. Curators often don’t realise the bias they show, what is allowed and what is taboo, joy and beauty are hardly seen in galleries 😉 Not serious enough?

It reminds me of being an anarcha-feminist who wore bright colours – REAL anarchists wear black…(ahem, REAL anarchists do what they freely choose?)

Week 4 was more markmaking, with a lot of resist techniques shown, including one new to me with oilbars, where you use blender to cover words and then watercolour the rest of the page. You could use any of the stain/wash- able oilbars if you diluted them with blender, but then you’d have to get your hands dirty 😉

Anyway, I had a lot of fun, and as I happened to have a roll of hessian texture wallpaper with me, used  that:

I really amused the other class members as I crooned over the paints, it was so nice to feel paint rapture again and see the texture of the paper springing out…

I paid for it though, I still have a sore arm four days later and I really did barely any, sigh…I think it was doing it on top of taking parcels to the post office and carrying a roll of wallpaper around…but wait till summer, then I’ll be able to do more I hope, and meanwhile these fragments have given me happy thoughts 😉