Blog 61

What is my research question?

What is my subject?

What is my material to visual my subject?

Why do I keep thinking I have to make?

How do I communicate what I am doing now? How can I present what I am doing now?

What is my end goal?

What level of importance is my art to my life? 

Big questions which I don't have all the answers to.

It is very hot here in Portugal, like nothing I have ever experienced before with temperatures in the mid thirties centigrade most of the time. The weather is actually effecting my daily living existence and I am frustrated, angry, tired, exhausted, yet intrigued and curious by this experience. 

How could I express 'hot' with an artwork?

The heat has stopped me from doing things and slowed me down. I have had to alter my routine getting up during the night and working until late morning when the temperature becomes too intense to do any more. I could not do anything, and sometimes I don't, but it is important to me that I achieve 'something' each week for my own self worth and value. 

The best thing is that I am reading, the most I have done in a long time, and I am loving the chance to do this. These hot circumstances have presented me with time and enabled me to do this. 

'Reading List' Mind Map from Blog 60

So, I have tapped into my reading list from the mind map that I showed you in my last Blog 60 starting with Georges Perec 'Species of Spaces and Other Pieces'. This book follows on from Gaston Bachelard ‘The Poetics Of Space' which I read a few years back and still pick up from time to time.

Georges Perec's book is brilliant, perfectly in tune with the love of our 'van - centric' life and the importance that Shawn and I put into our 'van', which is our home and the space we hang out in most of the time. I only describe the first section here written in 1974 titled 'Species of Spaces'. Perec starts with a simple list around the word 'space', such as Open Space, Lack of Space, Deep Space, Blank Space and so on and so forth. He then continues to write about his room, the bed, the bedroom, movement through 'one's' apartment, useless rooms, doors, walls, belongings, the street, the neighbourhood, the town. It is so banal some of it, yet for me, I love it. Once I finish this book I plan to read Xavier De Maistre 'A Journey around My Room' about a young officers voyage around his room whilst under arrest for participating in a dual. It was written in the late 17th century. 

The next book I have read was a complete yet relevant diversion. We went to the cinema to see the movie '2001: A Space Odyssey' one evening. Released in 1968, the film was directed by Stanley Kubrick with a subsequent book published by Arthur C Clarke the same year. I had to read the book. It is a story about evolution, starting from primitive apes to man living on the moon and eventually going into deep outer space. It is a story about existence and 'one's' state of being, time and time travel, ownership and knowledge, fact and fiction. There were interesting observations about the future such as the invention of an iPad type tool, the derogatory effect of an Internet style communication system and the idea of computers taking control of humans. There was also a great big black slab monolith which appeared three times and the key to connecting the different evolutionary periods. Interesting the author's take on this when objects of this type, minimalist based art, was happening in our galleries around the period of this films release. The film and book have become relevant to my growing interests and curiosities, and the big black slab monolith my favourite type of art. 

My big large scroll of black pierced paper I presented in Scotland in 2012 is like some kind of monolith. What is that saying?

Photo: Shannon Tofts

Photo: Shannon Tofts

I am wondering whether to read David Lewis - William's 'The Mind in the Cave Consciousness and The Origins of Art' next? Seeing the apes in the film and their development, this book proposes where the origins of image - making and art come from, starting with the caves of Western Europe and the Ice Age. I have read something similar on this subject a few years back, since we've been travelling. This would then link me into the making of artwork, another branch and investigation in my 'Reading List' mind map. I'm also ready to pick up Tanya Harrod 'The Real Thing essays on making in the modern world'. This looks like a book I can dip into as and when I want. 

I have just finished the Kindle book 'The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone' by Olivia Laing. I actually found the text a bit harrowing in places, loneliness perceived at it's most extreme, and yes, touching on the personal. I realise I have been lonely in my life many times and like the hot weather here, whilst to some it may appear negative, I am curious about what is this feeling of loneliness? This thread of interest follows on from Sara Maitland's books 'A Book of Silence' and 'How to be Alone', both which I have read in the last few years. Silence and 'alone time' are important to me in my life, loneliness, well I haven't thought about that much before.

How could I portray loneliness in my artwork? I think some of the answers are already there. 

Shawn and I are away soon taking a short break from our current stop to house sit for a couple of weeks. Still in Portugal, further north, we are going to look after a cat. It is a new area of the country which we have not visited before.

On our return to where we are now we are thinking of trying a little experiment and try to live without a clock. It is something we have talked about on and off for a while. To live by day and night light. To eat, sleep and work when our bodies need to. To resist the time on the clock telling us what we think we should be doing. How would we get on? As two individuals would we want to eat and sleep at different times? Would it bring us closer together or further apart? Could we be more productive? How would it effect our cohesion with others? Our neighbour here lives like this which has made us think about the idea of what is time a bit more and we are curious about it. 

We don't go out much, particularly at the moment because of the hot weather, and our life revolves around the van and the land we live on. Perhaps this will change when the cooler weather returns. We love our 'van - centric' life and small space living and strive evermore for a simple lifestyle and to live without 'clutter' in all its various guises.

For me it is a time of reflection and I have many questions. I am wondering about taking a writing course, an add on and diversion to my creativity. This is something I have talked to Shawn about for a long time. I like writing, I am good at it. It would need to be the right course, with a recognisable qualification or award from a reputable organisation, to add to my development, CV and biography. Can anybody recommend a suitable course please, that would be brilliant? 

What kind of writer am I? 

I haven't done any more mind maps since my last Blog 60 but I will be taking my big sketch pad and coloured felt tip pens with me on our trip north. Perhaps Shawn and I can do some mind mapping together? We will see... 

and which book should I read next?