The first book I caught up with was one which I had brought in a charity shop during our travels in 2011 called Sleep by Ian Oswald. First published in 1966, this second edition was from 1970 and I loved some of English language used which seems so dated now. Ironically and unbeknown to me, I discovered a lot of the experiments on sleep in this book took place in Edinburgh.
When I make my work it can be very meditative and I wonder where the subject of sleep may fit into this? From being dozy to asleep to wakefulness. When we don't have enough, what does lack of sleep feel like? What about the environment around us, our mental state and outside influences? How does this effect our actions?
I am sure the study of sleep has progressed much further since. It was a lovely gentle step into my reading fest.
I followed this by going completely up-to-date with an e-book published in 2013 called 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep by Jonathan Crary. Oh my God. I stopped reading it a third of the way through feeling really stressed out. Aggressive, fast moving, quite depressing, the author talks about the latest experiments to control people's sleep, technology that enables us not to sleep and how we live in a global world which doesn't stop as time circumnavigates the globe.
I will finish it. I am fascinated with culture and our modern world but this was not holiday reading for me.
My next book I took a step back and read Waterlog by Roger Deakin. I had brought it home with me last March 2013 from my book-making course on the island of Iona. It is the story of Deakin's year of wild swimming in some of the waters in Britain. I had first learnt about this book back in the summer of 2012 when I had read Wild Places by Robert Macfarlene who was a friend of Deakin. I found the book, hmm, a little boring in places. There was a lot of reminiscing back to his younger years, clearly swimming an activity he loved. But I did like his tour of Britain, something we did from 2009 - 2011.
I love swimming, yet not done it for a while. One of my personal 'bests' in life was completing a swimathon for charity in the early 2000's. I have a photograph of me, head down in the water, one arm curved over out in the air, doing the crawl. I should have it out really. I see it as an image of sheer determination.
In early 2011 I read A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland. It is up there in my top list of favourite books. Maitland has since published How to be Alone in January 2014, the next step on from A Book of Silence.
A lot in this book seems to be repeated from her previous text and Maitland admits the subjects of being alone and silence intermingle with one another. I live on an island and spend a lot of time alone, something I have chosen and happened upon at this time in my life. It may not be forever. The majority of the time I love it, very happy in my own company, but did struggle a little last year due to circumstances that I was uncertain how to manage.
Maitland writes about how in our society we are encouraged to be individuals and yet it can be frowned upon, misunderstood, or feared why some people want to be, or are alone. Being alone links back to the subject of our modern busy (un) dependable 24/7 lifestyles. And how much solitude is too much? Are you a hero for stepping out on your own, or selfish?
It is a personal line of enquiry and I want to understand why I like being alone and how to manage those times when it may feel difficult. Maitland suggests ways to do this, ways to be alone if you find it difficult to find time to do that, small amounts of alone time, and how to manage the balance of work, maintenance (i.e. chores, housework etc.) and leisure. We all complain of not having enough leisure time!
By now I was well into the mode of reading and completed my holiday with Wanderlust A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit which I had started in March 2011. This time I finished it and have since wondered if this book may be more significant than I perhaps realise at the moment. As I read through the book a number of streams of recognition relating to my practice popped up. Solnit dedicates a chapter to artists who incorporate walking in their work and regularly mentions thinkers, writers, philosophers, artists, creative types, who incorporate walking into their lives.
There are all types of walking, from the pure physical need to exercise, to finding a place that helps you think, look, travel, encounter others, and seek embodiment and spirituality.
She describes walking as reading, walking as writing, walking as making, walking as speech.
In my 10 metre pierced paper scroll that I completed in 2012, Rebecca Gordon writes in her essay to accompany the work: The amplification in the film of the sound of the needle piercing the paper accentuates the rhythm of the work, the abstract sound reminiscent of the beat of a Gaelic waulking song.
The fact that my scroll is 10 metres long is like going for a walk, where you can follow the holes and patterns from one end to the other.
I have walked many a town and city and it is really the best way to see and feel a place, two highlights being Edinburgh and Amsterdam in 2013. But, I have only felt a place "really, really", twice in recent memory. Once when we were walking along the edge of the cliffs on the Southern Coast of England and the other, one of the three walks I took part in with artist Hamish Fulton in 2009 through the town of Canterbury in Kent. I remember hearing someone clattering about in their kitchen inside a house, and I definitely went "somewhere else", hmm, a kind of sleep? A trance like state? I didn't want that walk to finish.
Beyond the realms of reading, whilst we were away, I was delighted to be in a couple of shows in Edinburgh and disappointed that I could't attend either. I wrote about them last time in Blog 44.
The first was Discardboard, an exhibition of artists, makers and designers who work with cardboard. You can catch up with the show here: Discardboard and Interview Room 11
And What is Textiles? presented by Kalopsia Collective. Take a look here: Kalopsia Collective
I also had three small works in The International Postcard Show 2014 held at the Surface Gallery in Nottingham and one artwork has been sold. The show includes an exchange programme and I am waiting to receive a postcard from one of the other artists to keep.
I received an email whilst we were away to say that I have been selected for a group show in Leeds this March 2014 by the artist -led organisation called SEIZE Leeds. A press release has just been published and I attach a copy for you to read: Overtime: Art and the Office I'm really looking forward to being part of this show.
We are home now. I have one more task to complete for Shawn and then hope to get back into the studio the next couple of weeks. For us it is the start of 2014, albeit just on seven weeks since 1st January. Happy New Year everyone.