Blog 9

The Interior of our Van / Spaces that I inhabit

We had the full-on de-clutter on Friday - books, cupboards, draws, clothes, equipment, the lot, and the van looks more tidy now, even though nothing visually has really changed. I feel more organised, in control and ready. Ready for what. And the beauty of our van is that this task doesn't take too long, as we only have a finite amount of 'stuff' and a finite amount of space to put 'stuff' in. The longer we travel, the more we realize what we need and what we can do without and we are certainly not at Pam and Gary's level yet!

One of my favourite books is by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard called The Poetics of Space. First published in 1958, to describe the book I will quote from the back cover,
" ... one of the most appealing and lyrical explorations of home. Bachelard takes us on a journey, from cellar to attic, to show how our perceptions of houses and other shelters shape our thoughts, memories, and dreams".

Whatever and wherever a home might be, Bachelard beautifully describes the home in terms of it's layout and design, storage of belongings, spaces we inhabit and move around in, size - from the intimate to the immeasurable, order and disorder. In the book, Bachelard writes about the differences between inside and outside and the sense of being and not being, discussing the metaphysical aspects and nature of existence.

What is 'home'? What does 'home' mean to you?

I have done a small drawing of the interior of our van and I was thinking about what parts of it I inhabit, be it sleeping, sitting down, eating, cooking etc. I have 7 metres by 2.4 metres to play with. That is for both of us, besides the infinity of outside. When we change location, I might change where I sit. It's not just about the view, but something much deeper.

We are all creatures of habit, even Shawn and I, even though we lead a more 'care free' life. Personal habits, shared habits, public habits. Think about what habits you have. Some of your habits will make you cross, other habits you have will make you smile, and some of your habits might make you cringe...

I am currently reading Wanderlust A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit. She talks about how in contemporary society, we don't walk like we used to and we move from one interior to another interior by mechanical transport. I am guilty of this. I might spend 3-4 days in the van, and move from the van to the car to the supermarket. I walked a lot when we were touring the UK, but the last 4 months I have been pre-occupied with other pursuits. At our next destination, I must walk out more often.

This latest blog really links back to my thoughts about pods and cells, movement and contrasts in Blog 6. It is also about spaciality.

When I draw it reflects my mental state and how I am feeling at a certain time. My creativity will be influenced by my surroundings. The schematic drawing at the top explores divisions and links between spaces, connections and separations, the inside and outside. Blank spaces are often seen as a negative spaces or voids, suggesting emptiness or loss, but I like the quote from artist Tania Kovats who describes blank spaces like "... a subject being suspended in time as well as space, removed from the world for quiet contemplation".

The black dots look like they are quivering in the blank spaces and describe parts of the whole space that I inhabit the most, or move around in. Perhaps they portray a sensation of claustrophobia or a fear of confined spaces. As artist Louise Bourgeoise once said in an interview "I love claustrophobic spaces. At least you know your limits".

I love our van, my home. It is my shelter. We do have some 'stuff' stored in England, but everything I own, for daily living, is with me. I am like a snail carrying her shell on her back. It's like a big handbag or box. What do you carry in your box?

Book references:

The Poetics of Space  Gaston Bachelard

Wonderlust A History of Walking Rebecca Solnit

The Drawing Book Tania Kovats

Blog 8

I have started the de-cluttering process. I've been through all my box files and thrown out a bin full of paper. I only did this last Autumn, and I feel clearer again about what I am interested in and what my subject matter is.

I've also written a 'To do' list with short, mid and long term goals. They don't all need to be achieved, but it gives me a frame work to follow. I have still yet to write a brief about what I would actually like to make.

We have even talked about the possibilities for me to rent a studio space for a short while.

I've just finished reading Kevin McCloud's Grand Tour of Europe. We saw the TV series in 2009. Going on a 'Grand Tour' is a familiar phrase. Historically, the original Grand Tour era ran from the mid 16th to the mid 18th centuries, and I was particularly interested in why people took this trip and why we travel today. It seems that the past traveller's aspired to the same desires of today, albeit in a more scholarly manner.

The Grand Tourist wanted enlightenment, 'intellectual independence' (I like that phrase), the opportunity to gain knowledge and first hand experience of a place. It would be a research trip, a kind of training to broaden one's horizon. Grand Tourists wanted to trade as well as study architecture, art, music and antiquities. Often it was a pilgrimage, religious or otherwise; a route to follow myths and legends. A challenge and an adventure to do something different. The Grand Tourist liked to mix with the locals, be part of a different culture, taste new culinary delights (or not) and indulge in sexual activity and drinking.

Stopping in one place for a longer period of time has allowed Shawn and I to make new friends. There is Catherine and Michael, both in their seventies who have been travelling Europe for the last twenty years, often months at a time.

Brian and Mary who we have just met, are both in their seventies. They have been camping all their adult life starting with a tent and now with a mobile home. Brian has always written a diary and recently they retraced an old trip through France. They have no intentions of giving up.

We've also heard about Pam and Gary. A younger couple in their fifties, they have got the simple life down to an art. They live in a small caravan, walk everywhere, buy fresh food each day for their meals and only have two sets of clothes, one for wearing whilst the other is in the wash. I would love to meet them and hear their story.

Gary, the campsite owner has said, one thing he realizes is that this lifestyle keeps you younger, healthier and fitter with a much better outlook on on life and he has seen it time and again with his guests.

Shawn and I briefly spoke yesterday about why we are doing what we are doing. I think it is this sense of a nomadic life. Certainly a life style, we love the freedom of mobility. Even if we end up staying in one place for six months or a year, we can move on without complicated ties.

Certainly in the western world, we have become an individualistic society. Shawn and I are part of that modern individualism, but we depend less on society to support it. I mean things like services - electricity, fuel, wealth and such like.

Its interesting, we are now more stable as a couple living in an unstable environment, than when we lived in a very stable environment, when we were less stable in our relationship.

For both of us it is a life style choice first (which may change as time develops), and location choice is second. For Shawn it is more an external experience and for me more an internal experience. It will be interesting how we develop!

I would like to think I am more tolerable of other people and less stereo-typical critical of those who are different to me. I feel more aware of being an EU citizen, something which I wasn't aware of before I left the UK.

Blog 7

Decisions. Decisions.

I haven't done any practical work for the last two weeks as we have been busy and I'm feeling a bit twitchy.

I've been reading the February issues of a-n magazine and Art Monthly. Both journals emphasize technology. It seems to be the buzz word at the moment. Blogging. Facebook. Tweets. YouTube. The internet is something I've been looking at myself, a useful media tool for someone who is often working in isolation.

I think I need what's known as artist' surgery, where you meet with an arts professional and discuss your practice, both it's strengths and weaknesses, explore new ideas and objectives with the eyes of an outsider. I have two thoughts running through my brain...

Firstly, should I try and sell some of my work via my website, and how do I go about this in a practical and cost effective way? Providing a product range and setting up PayPal doesn't seem too difficult, but my concern is how to ship artworks out to the customer, particularly if I'm working from a temporary or remote location? Please, if anyone could advise me on this.

Secondly, I would like to set myself a simple brief, or a set of parameters, in order to develop a series of new artworks, but what should that be? I've seen a couple of examples that have re-prompted this.

We went to Galeria Pedro Cera in Lisbon two weeks ago and I saw the works of artist Paulo Quintas. He is a painter who develops his paintings by using two paint colours and the canvas frame, his own bodily actions and just these materials to create a series of works.

Reading about Lu Qing in Art Monthly, she is the artist who is married to Ai Wewei, who has created Sunflower Seeds at Tate Modern. Qing sets herself the task of taking a long piece of silk fabric and painting on it over the course of a year. She starts a new piece of fabric at the beginning of each year.

Both simple briefs. Process led. Meditative. Risky?

When I worked in the food industry we had to write HACCP plans. HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points. For example, if a customer liked product 'B', then actions 'C', 'D' and 'E' would take place. If the customer liked product 'B' but wanted changes made, then 'D' and 'E' might happen but action 'C' wouldn't, and so on and so forth. Conversely, if the customer didn't like product B then you would revert back to the beginning 'A' and start all over again. The Critical Control Points were the routes or actions that you took at the most crucial time.

Art development is like a HACCP plan. All our daily actions in life are like a HACCP plan.

Decisions. Choices. Obligations. Risks.

Returning to technology, there was an artist recently who used the internet to create a drawing, where the audience texted in what she should draw next. Once the drawing was complete, she then sold it (I think).
Hmmm.

Certainly in terms of my drawing brief, perhaps it should revolve around dots and holes. That seems to be my obsession at the moment.

Blog 6

It is a strange life that I lead, moving from one place to another.

Last week we travelled across Portugal on a brief trip to Lisbon, Sagres and Faro. Three very different locations.

Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, is a higgledy-piggledy city, full of people and noise, grand architecture and history. In the centre it is very old and on the outskirts it is very new. There were tourists of many nationalities, business people, children and families, beggars. A city of contrasts.

Sagres is at the most south westerly point of mainland Europe. A bit like Land's End in Cornwall, but without the tourism. It consisted mainly of one high street and a harbour. Silent, but beautiful. The bluest of skies and sea that I had ever seen, only heard about.

Faro, in the Algarve is the most southernly point of Portugal, a package holiday destination, full of high rise hotels and concrete. The area lacked soul, authenticity, space and charm. You can gather this was my least favourite part of the trip.

The morning we headed out to the beach in Sagres, it was hot and sunny. Idyll. A fellow artist back in England, not much older than myself, was burying her husband. A life lost, suddenly. I could not stop thinking about it and how much of a contrast my life is, compared to what hers had become. I felt like I was cheating, but what, and with whom?

My family have been together these last two weeks, back in England. I think about them a lot. I wondered what they were up to and hoped they were having a good time.

Last year I travelled in the car from Newcastle to Kent for an exhibition I was in. I remember thinking that I was in a pod. A travelling cell / pod. Moving across the land. I remember getting out the car to get some lunch in the restaurant and the transfer from my individual (private) space to a collective (public) space and how big the contrast was.

In Faro, we watched the planes come right over our heads. They were very close and very graceful as they touched down on the runway, in the distance. Another form of a travelling pod. There is always hope, anticipation and excitement as the airport comes into view and you go to land in a foreign destination.

It felt strange because I was a tourist too, yet I had arrived in town by car and not plane, and that when I left, it would be by car and not plane. When I went home, it would be to another part of Portugal, my temporary residence. I was also familiar with the Portuguese culture, but not Faro as a town, itself. A foreigner, not quite.

Our van is like a travelling pod.

Before America was discovered, more than six hundred of years ago, Sagres was like the end of the known world. It is a very interesting concept to think about what might be beyond, and I guess today, man's wonder is space and the moon.

The sunsets were amazing when we there. Bright red and vivid pink colours. Hugely vibrant, almost violent, expressive. The tourist guide literature remarks on man's imagination of 'unspeakable terrors and feral monsters' out there, associated with the unknown world (before America was discovered). If the skies were that bright six hundred years ago, you can imagine people's fear.

It is a strange life that I lead, moving from one place to another.

I'm thinking about pods and cells, movement, contrasts, displacement. I am happy and confused. I live a privileged existence and know that I am lucky. It is complex in nature, simple in practice.

Book references:

Altermodern, Tate Triennial  Nicolas Bourriaud

A Week at the Airport, A Heathrow Diary  Alain de Botton

The Poetics of Space  Gaston Bachelard