I have happily come to the conclusion that I am the most
unsuccessful blogger in the bloggisphere and this opens a great door to freedom
from scrutiny. You can look over my shoulder if you like and watch me while I
am thinking but your continued non input is a companionable way for us to sit.
A journey began for me several weeks ago with a master course
in Art Practice and Research with Ruth Hadlow. It came at a time when I was
flailing with this incessant drive to be more visible and commercial which was
like a loud flapping noise stopping me from thinking. As soon as a pirouetting child
absorbed in a fantasy of ballerinas and princesses feels the adult gaze, she
also becomes her own audience and she constantly watches out of the corner of
her eye for approval and adulation and loses the rhythm that prompted her dance.
Ruth’s course was a wonderful antidote for that but at the
same time is difficult to describe. It was if anything, like being cloistered
in a contemplative order for a week with five other earnest and gifted artists.
Personal attributes and biographies were irrelevant to the tasks at hand. We talked of cabbages and kings, as my father used to say, when we sat long hours talking around the subject of his impending death without ever touching on it. Understanding was found in the sopped up tears and and pearls of wisdom that could be retrieved from the tangled threads we wove around that tender wound.
Knowledge is an obstacle to Knowledge.(Thich Nhat Hahn,
Buddha Mind Buddha Body)
There were enlightening readings which were not about their
content but more about their style. There were oddments from pockets along with
skilfully made artifacts and emotionally charged talismans all rubbed up
against each other which were available for us to meditate on and practice some
of the thinking skills Ruth presented us with. Disparate objects hooked our
attention and drew threads of passion and accumulated experiences from our
brains as we fashioned our own interpretations of what it was we were dealing
with.
Synchronicity and
serendipity seemed to magically influence our responses but in reality
the objects that hooked our attention were simply touchstones for lived
experiences that had resonated in our lives and were our driving forces.
Our analysis involved
unwrapping information embedded in art forms and objects and then using those
techniques as a lense through which to approach an artistic task.
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| Barnacles and hibiscus caught my eye |
Sometimes language traps an idea like a bug in amber and prevents it from growing but it can also liberate ideas especially if it is circumspect and dances around the edges like children poking at a dead bird . Language can be direct and descriptive, it can list physical
attributes, it can allude to romantic notions or emotional ideas elicited from
an object, it can talk in circles around a subject without ever putting a
finger on it. Language can approach an object and wander off into nostalgic
musings and then attention can be drawn again to the object with new questions
in the mind. Language tends to be a linear description, except if you are
speaking in sign language, which can be a multidimensional expression of
emotion and action attached simultaneously to information.
I could for instance tell you the boring fact that every
morning (almost) I walk around the oval a minimum of 3 times to begin my day. I
walk in an anticlockwise direction and expect to see certain individuals also
taking their morning constitutional and it gives me a sense of solidarity with
all those who are walking.
Michael Moore the documentary maker started a
movement about walking in solidarity with others who are walking. His simple
act motivated thousands of people simultaneously around the globe. I used to
feel a certain solidarity with women who were up feeding babies at 4am.
I could also represent my walk with a list
Flock of corellas lifting off,
newly mown turf,
dew,
long shafts of
sunlight,
silhouette of park
bench,
ant holes,
feathers,
lorikeet chatter,
hot air balloons,
empty drink bottle on the war memorial,
drifts of spent gum blossom,
increasing numbers of coloured eucalypt
leaves,
old man peeing behind the cricket shed,
golfers exuding early morning smugness,
magpie keeping one metre distance with
sideways glances,
pinging kneecap,
new hole dug on walking path by bored child,
fallen sticks,
streaking flash of an exuberant dog…etc
I could represent it mathematically
440metres x 3 = 1520 metres or 3 laps x 5mins= 15mins = time
for 2 more laps or 2 laps x5 minutes + 1x slow lap because of THAT couple…
don’t they know how slow they are. 78 breaths =I gm of fat processed and
deleted.
with a reference;
The Superior vena-cava collects de-oxygenated blood to the heart aided
by heart suction. This vein carries blood from left to right. Centrifugal force
due to anticlockwise running helps this suction. If we run clockwise, the
centrifugal force impedes suction. That is why, in olden days, health officers
ensured that all carnival merry-go-rounds were run only in the anti-clockwise
direction. As the heart is on the left side, for humans and animals, running
anticlockwise makes the centrifugal force in the body to act from left to
right. Whereas it is from right to left for clockwise running. Racing tracks,
animal shows in circuses, bullock-drawn pelt on wheels, all mostly have only
left turns. Stairways in temple towers have only left turns for going up.
Clockwise running tires people. http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-1416,00.html
or with an image
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the walk - Jo Quirk
I could of course share the work fragments from the course but it may
not lead you any closer to understanding what it was. I was introduced to the
art of Agnes Martin which corresponded to my own drawing exploration and illustrated pulse and
breath.
I was once again charmed by Ursula Le Guin’s writing and can now go back
and explore where her femininst ideas resonate with me. Everything I see has
taken on a new light
A spoon has been poked into my head and
the fragments have been stirred around. Just like the game Barrel of Monkeys,
you can’t pull out things that weren’t there before but monkeys that come up
may be in a different order.
When you view art and it confuses you,
revolts you, intrigues you or fails to engage you, instead of making a quality
judgement about it, sit with it a while and think what did the artist have in
the barrel to draw on. Describing what you see and what you feel using
categorical lists, similes, poetry or other manners of communication may throw
open revelations to you about why you have had a particular response. Your barrel
of monkeys and the artist’s barrel of monkeys could have something in common
after all.
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