To London on a train that's way more crowded than I'm used to. Hurtling backwards in a bubble of strangers. I can't remember how it all works. I am from the past.
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Button hole stitch on chroma key green.
Button hole stitch on the edge of black holes. Black velvet holes. String theory of my hair. Black velvet cat, the darkest possible grey. Last day of home schooling, 2 days after my daughter turned 6 years old.
I have a huge task ahead of me. The creation of my female Dr Dee green screen lined black velvet dress, with under-dress and globes. This is exciting and daunting as I need to move as quickly and carefully as possible. Where are we? We search inside ourselves or are uncomfortable with having to spend so much time with ourselves. Black velvet and spheres reminds me of Dr John Dee. What was he up to? The unthinkable? "What do you see with your eyes shut?" So hard to remember what life was like, to choose how it should be. What I need, what I want.
I want to finish all my work, my ideas, to have them exhibited. To preserve all I have already made. To tell my story. I just feel so sad, like I'm failing/flailing. I keep watching time travelling films, and they make me so sad. So many broken hearts, knowing too much. A bit like Our Town by Thornton Wilder. So very sad. What time would I go back to? Could I go forward again? I am a performance artist, but what am I performing? Lots of objects and costumes, but what of them?
I have mostly been static in my work Singing has been the most movement I have done, apart from a little bit of morris dancing. Or moving slowly on wheels. A procession. I wouldn't want to process in Wellingborough. Only by the viaduct. Perhaps I need a procession trolley. Some sort of vehicle. Something that would fit through the kissing gate. I'm a bit torn about this. I am very unlikely to repeat this performance but it still pains me to pack it away as the packing requires a sort of flattening of the paper globes that makes them deteriorate a little further. I wish I could afford the space to preserve all the artifacts as they were, like a costume museum. But I'd rather this than throwing the away or even reusing them.
I'm using pieces of sheet material from the Tree Dress as the bag/box. It's the paper globes that are beautiful and fragile, even though they are bursting apart and held together with crisping sticky-tape. As a token of hope, I'm assigning each globe their own white balloon, so that they can each be inflated back into shape and reattached with velcro to their white satin nightdress. In tying the flattened, fragile, bursting paper globes to their little virgin balloons with white ribbon, I'm also linking them to the previous performance "Teardrop". My embroidery documentation of the sketch features the same ribbon that represents the music box paper. It's all like a wake, a melancholic celebration of a successful but fragile performance and its artifacts that need to be buried or archived. My current interests are embroidering my past work onto calico.
Slowly slowly planning and gathering for my album. I'm slowly slipping into better habits and a better pace but nothing is getting my full attention. I long to immerse myself, submerge myself in art. drawing imagining dreaming reading connecting with others. I feel like I don't have enough of myself to give to others. I don't quite have enough to give to myself. I want to make an enormous black velvet dress against which items can be displayed. Lots of gathers and puffs. We are now in the era of the Uncanny and have been since March 2020. We live our lives in it. While the scientists help to save our lives we can either struggle against the Uncanny or embrace it. It's time for creativity to step up and help to save our souls and spirits with both high and low technology and everything in-between. How to work to a feasible schedule when time and energy are scarce. How to ignore the Protestant work ethic. Value space and time, family connections, music, art, conversation. Locality.
How to make low-tech Zoom Look to Roussellian solutions. My bed is my study. I want to make art all day at my own pace. There's so little time for me now. I feel trapped in nighttime and I'm so tired by then. I have lots of ideas to complete, lots to start and lots waiting to be planned. I'd like to exhibit myself in a space that can have visitors. If I think about [The Funcanny] as an exhibition space I can hang my sconce, hang up my masks and dresses, show my music boxes...my lampshades
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