Artist Berndnaut Smilde creates clouds in indoor spaces and then uses photography as a means to capture their transient lives. Using a combination of “frozen smoke” and moisture, the Dutch artist is able to create these beautiful clouds that last just long enough to be photographed. You can watch him do that HERE
Today I’m thinking of my sister-in-law Tandy whose life was too transient by far…
It’s cold, there’s snow on the ground and I can’t go out far as I have a poorly post operative patient (nothing too serious thankfully) to look after, all of which means that between chores I’m getting a fair bit of writing done. I’ve also been spending some time on the net looking at what people are doing – finding inspirational projects, blogs, websites, etc.
I love this about the internet – the way there’s always something intriguing out there, something to enrich your day. As a break from prose I often look to poetry, art and music for this. Here are some of the thing I’ve been looking at:
The Poetry Project (sign up here) Poetry and art from Ireland. A poem for a Monday morning…’ What better way to start the week, wherever you are in the world? Every week, from January 1st 2013, we will be uploading a poem and accompanying video artwork, in celebration of Ireland’s literary and visual creativity.’
I loved this week’s video, music and poem, they really made me smile…and want to dance…it’s an uplifting thing to have land in your in-box on a Monday.
Esther Morgan’s website – she’s one of my favourite poets and her website is full of goodies – like the Journey of a Poem – a wonderful insight into how she works and how a poem develops and also Beat the Blank Page with lots of workshop ideas to get you writing.
Susan Rich – on being honoured as a writer – I keep coming back to her blog.
This wonderful piece on insomnia in Granta, by Chloe Aridjis. (Found via Twitter)
Eliza Carthy singing Whispers of Summer – ‘all in my mind.’
Stunning photographs – Kirk Palmer: Hiroshima, at Minimal Exposition
Poet and translator George Szirtes on Twitter, just an hour ago - ‘ Snow, dense as a swarm of bees, the sky dense grey-white. Settling.’
Enjoy!
My free newsletter is out today and includes some competition info and tips on beginnings – if you’d like a copy please use the form on the right.
In last weeks newsletter, in a piece about France, I mentioned a three-legged dog. Well the dog stuck with me as I wrote it into a short story I’d been thinking about – only in this story the dog has four legs. It’s one of a set of linked stories about a small group of characters who won’t seem to let me go. I wrote it fast, straight into my notebook- quite a lot of scribble – but it’s what works best and most creatively for me. I find the story comes out hot – there’s plenty of time later to hone and polish. It’s about a man who keeps a dog chained and ill-fed, it begins….
Bridger stood in the meat aisle in Tescoe’s surrounded by the Taliban...
~
Now for something completelty different – Yesterday I spent the day on a wonderful textile memory book, course. I went with ideas of what I wanted to achieve and came away with something entirely different – I like that! I liked being able to use words in a new minimalist way..
Memory books don’t have to be made with pictures…………………….
This is a detail of it in its early stages, simply laid out, nothing sewn down
The troubled skirt is a piece I’m working on for next years exhibition where much of the work and the poetry is inspired by my relationship with my mother who was a dressmaker.
It seemed important to make something in the form of a garment. I found a skirt in my wardrobe. I bundle died it by filling it with stones and hedgerow flowers: ragwort, campion, chicory, sorrel, all found growing along the railway track, then tying it up and boiling it. But I had to stop boiling because the house was filled with a noxious smell, so I left it outside for a week in the sun, the water turned an iron brown. When I untied the bundle the flowers had become a mess of vegetation, the skirt was the colour of tea. I hung it out to dry. I began to think of a poem. I wrote the first draft of a poem Made of Leaf, while the skirt was drying and it was this that inspired me to a final vision of the skirt laid on a sewing machine which I’m working towards.
Its leaves are cut from paper and cloth – both our mediums: hers being textiles, mine words. It was difficult to write directly on, but I wanted to take my pen to it..the poem begins
Made of leaf this dress of awkward things bundled round stone tied with string, in its seams our lives indelibly inked.
Stitched in skin this sleeve of folded wings...
I’m still experimenting with it
It’s Friday afternoon. When I worked in the prison Friday afternoons were tough. I was shattered, the place was like a morgue and all I wanted to do was go home and lie down in a darkened room. But being a Senior Manager meant no skiving. In my book managers should be first in and last out.
So how lucky am I now to be able to sit in my modest but lovely consevatory in the blistering light drinking a lunchtime glass of cold white? Yes, wine at lunchtime – there’s no better time – although I try not to do it at midday too often for fear of the habit. Still today I think I deserve it.
It’s been an odd week, not as much sleep as I would like – nothing new there – and a visit to my eye consultant who tells me it’s time to operate. I saw it coming (like the pun?) and fair enough, it’s just that to prevent any further derioration they want to operate on my best eye (my worst being too fragile) and I’m bound to feel protective.
Sight is such a precious thing and I’m lucky, I have it now in reasonably good measure, just hoping I can keep it that way. And now, while I’m in confessional mode, to my other guilty pleasure: I’m obsessed with pictures and I’m constantly painting them with my eyes – colour, form etc especially in my house – I’m addicted. I blame three years of the History of Art at U.E.A. all those years ago. How about you? What’s your guilty pleasure? Do tell…
Looking Like Jackie Kennedy
You wear the suit you made: apricot mohair, Chanel jacket tailored skirt, to meet me from school. Stand at the corner by the ironmongers looking like Jackie Kennedy minus the hat, waiting to tell me you’ve passed your driving test, hair immaculate black. Out of factory uniform, a stolen afternoon you take me to the Bluebird café for melt–in-your-mouth shortbread and coffee that smells nothing like Nescafe.
They serve you in fine china not bone; their jungle cat in the yard, pearl in grit, non-porous itch on the skin of a small town. Your shadow prowls through porcelain.
I share your delight, you’ve proved it you say –women are better drivers than men. I nod, eat my shortbread and watch the light dance on your wedding ring.
Collage ideas inspired by poetry….
and yes my mother did meet me from school in her Chanel suit of apricot mohair -
OK I admit it, I’m hooked on the Olympics. I can’t get enough (although some down time is essential to prevent couch-potato blight setting in) and so it seems is just about everyone one I know, and that includes a number of females friends, who like me, have often complained about TV and its endless sports coverage.
I blame the start of my Olympic craving on the opening ceremony – that was definitely one for the people – quickly followed by the sight of the Equestrian stadium in front of the stunning Queen’s House in Greenwich Park. The choice of venues is inspired. It would seem also that the athletes are inspired and we are all riding the tidal wave of team GB’s success – long may it continue.
My exhibition piece in progress
With this in mind deciding to get my novel The Sweet Track onto Kindle as I had, seemed like bad timing. But I’d been working on a piece for my exhibition next year which involved deconstructing a copy of the book, so it was very much in my mind.
As it happens the Kindling worked out fine. I managed to get it done when not glued to the other screen or when I just couldn’t take anymore of the Velodrome or ‘Velodrone’ I like to call it with reference to the less than sparklingcommentary (love the cyclists though!)
I had to go through it, book in hand, line by line, as my Word document was not the same as the publishers, Flambard’s, final copy. At one stage it seemed like a huge effort for little gain – no medal in sight you might say. But I should have known that no effort is ever wasted. I learned a few things in the process. I learned more about punctuation* – I admit I’m not the best. I learned that my style has loosened up and improved. I learned (or perhaps I should say was reminded) that this book, the first thing I ever wrote, although almost entirely fictional, has so much of me and my early life in it. And as if to signal this while I was working on it I had vivid dreams of my mother, and of babies too.
I’m glad it’s done (although I still need to download it and check the copy ). It was unfinished business. I’m thankful to Flambard for allowing me to use the cover and as you can imagine I’m relieved that I can get back to the Olympic Games now and give them my undivided attention.
*A top tip for punctuation problems – if you can, find a similar usage, sentence construction, dialogue passage, etc. etc. in a published book and take your cue from that. the same is true of layout.
On Friday I spent the day in Oxford with Jan and Becky at Art in Action - what a treat! The company was very special, the surroundings – Waterperry House – were beautiful, the artists inspiring and the weather was mostly well behaved. I came away with a head full of ideas for developing my collage and printing, plus some new materials and a copy of the irresistible, Second Skin by India Flint who can be found as Prophet of Bloom on my blogroll. This beautiful book is all about clothes but not exactly as we know them.
Clothes are of course our second skin and clothes were the connection my mother, who was both tailoress and dressmaker, and I shared. Our relationship was not easy but I grew up with a love of colour and fabric which I know I owe to her and I’m beginning to explore these connections in my collage as well as my poetry….
But clothes bring me to more pressing matters... what to wear to the launch of the Structo Lit Mag on Saturday at the Society Club in Soho where I will be reading my short story Tokyo Dreaming? Well whatever else, I have a new scarf and some killer wedges which I bought for £9.99 in New Look so that’s a start…
And if you’re in London then why not come along? It would be great to see you there!
I’ve been reading ‘Stillness Speaks’ by Echart Tolle and almost every page makes me want to stop and think and write down what’s there.
Among many things he says is this – ‘Whatever you accept completely will take you to peace, including the acceptance that you cannot accept, that you are in resistance.’ Reading this made me think of Aung San Suu Kyi and her years of resistance and huge sacrifice. Perhaps you saw the interview with her at the weekend, if not you can watch it again here.She was also on the cover of the latest Amnesty magazine.
For me she is inspirational – without her example and her long years of imprisonment under house arrest it’s hard to imagine Burma’s transition to democracy – but she is also enigmatic and the price paid by her personally and her family, especially her sons is beyond anything I can imagine. I’ve been trying to think about all of this by writing and collaging…
sit in the forest of teak/hardwood, small/flowers
flower like bull-hoof / trampling the long grass/from within
wear yellow Paduak/ in your hair / spring blossoms
you the piano key, pewter vase, raw silk scarf, planters cooling
splinter like glass/in the cupped hands/of power
Some lines (not necessarily in order yet) from a poem.
Read more about human rights in Burma http://www.amnesty.org.uk/burmainfo
If you missed Grayson Perry (on Channel 4 last night) in Topshop dress and fake tan on a night out with the lasses in Sunderland then watch again here – it was brilliant – he’s the only artist working in Britain who could pull this off – next week Tunbridge Wells…
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