Month: March 2015

In support of The Campaign Against Climate Change – because I didn’t make it to the Time to Act demonstration

9pm (awake since 3.30am up at 4.30am)

All best plans can fail. I never imagined that the coach to London from Bradford wouldn’t show, I tried to reassure the organiser that it was only a few minutes late, it would come. The coach did not come. We even had a sea dragon, but we couldn’t fly it. In the end our attempt to get to London together failed. Some of the younger people (beautiful woodcraft folk) ran to catch the 8.15am National Express coach down. I couldn’t risk the trip, lack of funds and I am no good when plans change. I struggle with change. Maybe I am getting older and I am more risk adverse, I try not to be.

I drive back home over the beautiful moors. I have been awake since 4.30am, I have to concentrate hard, I am tired now, I eat some of the food that I had packed. I eat a plain bagel. I am now concerned to get back home before Syd goes off to see his dad for the day. Next demonstration I want all our family to go. I cannot go it alone, a demonstration needs full family support. I just read the article about climate change by Naoimi Klein to the children…..then they both fell asleep. Naoise seems ill again, he has a temperature, we seemed to be going around in circles with viral infections.

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I went to sleep for a couple of hours but Naoise kept waking me up just as I fell into sleep. He kept jumping on my back then poking his hands and fingers into my face. After Patrick and Naoise went to the local cinema showing at the theatre, I decided that there was no point to lay in bed any longer.

Words are not actions.

I felt so sad about my failed attempt to join the national demonstration, I needed to mix up some sort of a domestic, localised action to compensate.  I found some cardboard in the cellar, some felt pens and some words, I wrote them down photographed them in my kitchen and then walked out onto the tops. I saw catkins and a caterpillar. I felt the sun on my skin. The wind was blowing but it was warm and beautiful. I took my box of words and hope up onto the hill, posed it in a number of scenarios. I noticed that the moor in the distance had caught fire, you could hear the brigade sirens heading towards its smoke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FkaX6aklmU

Coming back down along the road that snakes beside the river I spot a dipper bird. Its so sweet and shy and each time I approach it flies further down stream. It should be scared of humans. Humans are no friend of nature.

Today feels like the first day of spring. There is hope. There is hope in my feeble demonstration. I have failed once more. I try to turn the failure into something. I stand and feel the wind and the sun on my skin and look and look at the beautiful trees in the wood. The trees are waving their protest. I feel like crying. Crying for the beauty of mother earth. Tears will not save her, only actions will.

This is but a feeble action but it was the best that I could muster out of a bad situation today.

 

1pm ( awake at 6.15 up at 7am)

Twenty packs of yellow butter; is equivalent to the weight that I have lost in the past two months. I would ideally like to get rid of 28 more packs of fat. I bought some cheap trainers and running clothes to celebrate my intermediate success in getting fitter, and now I am sipping miso soup in the studio whilst dreaming of chocolate cake!

I feel so proud of both my sons this week; they are both making good progress at school, but most importantly they seem happy. There are scores and grades and levels and hopes of improvement, but I am just content with the fact that my children seem to be loved by others, of cause I want them to do well, of cause I have aspirations for them, but love comes first. It should always come first.

At breakfast time a stranger knocked on our door. When I opened the door, I was taken aback. A man, a man and  his begging bowl and him mumbling  requests for food, at least I think that is what he was asking for. My first reaction was to rather rudely close the door in his face. Patrick asked who was at the door, a man asking for food…I think, I replied. Patrick walked down the street to see if it was food that he wanted. He mumbled to Patrick in the same way he had to me. I took two bananas and a packet of oat cakes from the kitchen, and we gave them to him.

I walk to school, Naoise is scootering, I am still aghast that this poor desperate man has been reduced to knocking on doors and begging for food. What sort of a society do with live in where men are forced to beg for food? I do hope we get rid of this nasty government in the next election. Ordinary people waged or unwaged need at least to be able to cloth, feed and shelter themselves. Our food offering felt so feeble and sad.

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Its world book day, well to be precise the day after world book day. Naoise was going to go to school dressed as the alligator from Alberto the Alligator, but he changed his mind and went as a normal child without a costume. He wanted to be a child from Toni Ungeras The Beast of Monsieur Raccine, he took the book in, but he really did not want to dress up. Thats ok, its ok to opt out. He also took in the Eiffel Tower keyring that Syd had bought back for him from Paris, I am so glad he remembered gift for his little brother.

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The yellow spring sun is shinning.

Daffodil heads are opening.

The birds are more vocal, active, visible.

I look forward to the return of the swallow that is the true sign of spring arriving.

Life is beginning to feel more hopeful. My conference paper has been excepted for the Motherhood and Creative Practice conference at London South Bank University in June. I am thrilled and excited and just so pleased and happy. Its good when hard work pays off, this is not always the case. My friends helped me, they read through what I had written suggested changes and edits and I am grateful to them. I am so lucky to have the support of such wonderful, clever, creative artist friends.

I am alone in the studio. It is good to be alone with ones thoughts.

I am thinking of songs, songs of celebration, strong songs. It has to be PJ Harvey Man-Sized I so love that song so much, I even named a drawing after it. I’ll post a link to her singing that here then I will listen and just give myself a little rest. Its good just to breath sometimes, breath in the spring and the hope. Rejoice in a small success.

 

 

 

Can’t remember what time I woke up or got up.

Write about the home/school…..institution/private space……playgroup/park (save this for another day when you have more head space and energy to consider).

Madly busy day, school run, interview, school run, parents evening, dinner, bed. Everyone is shattered. Poor Patrick had to spend two hours waiting in a cold carpark for Syd’s coach to return from Paris, whilst I slept through all the messages from school telling us that he was running late.

Thinking about resilience this week. Head full of information about Barbara Hepworth. She was totally awesome triplets, one other child, two divorces. She would look after the children during the day then draw late into the evening. She must have had a formidable amount of energy. Thinking that I need to be more resilient. When I am feeling tired I will think about Barbara Hepworth drawing late into the night after caring for four children all day, what a hero.

There is an inside and an outside to every form. When they are in special accord, as for instance a nut in its shell or a child in the womb, or in the structure of shells or crystals, or when one senses the architecture of bones in the human figure, then I am most drawn to the effect of light. Every shadow cast by the sun from an ever-varying angle reveals the harmony of the inside to outside. Light gives full play to our tactile perceptions through the experience of our eyes, and the vitality of forms is revealed by the interplay between space and volume.

9.25pm ( can’t remember what time I woke up)

Syd back later tonight, he will be exhausted, it will be good to have him home and hear all about his adventures in Paris. Been too busy to think about writing this, life gets in the way sometimes, not to worry.

Yesterday when I collected Naoise from school and he asked that I make a video of him scootering around the playground. I had to make four videos until he was happy with the results. This is take three, he said that it was ok for me to post it here.

http://youtu.be/BSeLParYnIg

6.40am (awake since 5am, got up 6.30am)

I have woken up feeling anxious. My body aches all over from the fell running yesterday. Its mainly my lower back that hurts. I have my period again and I feel all bloated. I look in the mirror and pinch the rolls of fat stuck to my hips and I think of the Linda Benglis lead pieces I saw at The Hepworth. Such as Meteor and I feel like that, heavy and fatty, melting onto a floor. I wish I looked more like one of Naoise stick people. I am anxious that I haven’t lost any weight. I try so hard. I’ve cut down substantially on cheese and alcohol and sugar and all comfort and fun. Last night I ate cake and drank wine. Patrick is stressed out and its starting to take its toll on me, I am glad that Syd is away in Paris so that he gets a break from the tensions at home. There is definatley a correlation between food and feelings and anxiety for me. If I feel stressed I want to eat sugary things….and there is plenty of cake hanging around in the house right now.

I think that children pick up on parents worries. Naoise is being persistently stubborn and difficult, a child cannot always articulate their feelings, it can manifest itself in acts of defiance and rebellion. Last night it was the battle of brushing teeth….again. I am trying to keep my cool, and not show Naoise that he is stressing me out. I am going to try and coax him to school with the scooter. He loves to ride his scooter and all his best friends are riding theirs to school too.

I am feeling anxious about writing this blog….is it focussed enough? My mind wonders and gets distracted, moves off the point of axis. Wobbly. I am having a wobble. Focus. Life isn’t like that though, is it? Least mine isn’t, I cannot always see the wood for the trees, or the table for the lego. Lego has literally taken over my front room. Naoise has had a lego fest of a birthday week. Patrick showed me a photograph that he had taken of Naoise hand reaching into a pile of lego spilt on the floor. I love it when Patrick spends time with the children,building and drawing, giving him them his undivided attention. He is a very hands on dad. Naoise is lucky to have him, and I am grateful that he enjoys the children. The love is clear.

I am feeling anxious because when I look at other blogs they look neat and concise and don’t wonder off track. I probably cannot help that though, thats how my head is fixed. It sparks in one direction and then another. I just need to draw, that will help. Or I need to transform and develop some of the ideas that I have started here. I wanted to make the film of me pushing the empty pram up and down the hill. I wanted to join together the films of the black clothes pegs swinging on the line. I wanted to develop the ideas of the moss on my body further. I wanted to mop my floor with my hair dipped in milk after Janine Antoni. So many ideas and what seems like so little time to realise them all sufficiently. I am literally all over the place.

I probably should write a list, work through it, tick each thing off. Perhaps this is just how I work, how I sketch, the most important ideas will rise to the surface, they will become art.

I found this blog site called The Reluctant Father by Phillip Toledano, its great. Its witty and honest and moving. Through it you can see his struggle to bond and love his child. To grapple with his new identity as a father. Its really refreshing to see that men struggle with becoming dads just as women struggle with becoming mothers.

 

 

 

10.28 am  ( awake in the night 2pm-3pm then awoke at 7.20am)

Winter has returned the snow is falling outside. Falling gently, a thin covering on the ground. Its quiet and beautiful. The snowdrops and daffodils and primroses are up but the snow falls. The snow falls in ever which direction.

The snow sporadically turns to hail. I have started running. I cannot believe I have started to run. I was better prepared today and had running trainers on but forgot my sports bra, so I found myself having to cup my breasts into my chest, form a hand bra to restrain the bounce. I see now why a sports bra is essential.

The hail hurts. It falls in wild circles around my body, blinds my vision. I follow the edge of the stone wall, so that there is no danger of getting lost. I put my hood up to try and shelter from the hail. The fall is fierce. The hood does not prevent its hurt.

Another morning spent gently coaxing Naoise to school. He had started saying yesterday that he hadn’t wanted to go, that his head hurt, he felt ill. I have no idea what has prompted this resistance to wanting to go. I try to ignore his protestations and encourage him to be brave, and that even if he doesn’t feel like it he just has to go. I have to foster resilience in him. I had awful problems with his elder brother refusing to go to school. I guess I need to talk to the school, see how they can help me out, what they can do to coax him in, this is a collaboration isn’t it?

Sunday was boring. A cleaning and colouring in book day. There is little to say about cleaning and colouring in. The felt tip pen colour is applied neatly to fill in each shape defined by the black line. Naoise likes it to be neat and evenly applied, I help him.

The detergent is squirted onto floor and door and surface of the kitchen and each is scrubbed clean.

Highlights of the boring day, some lego modelling, Naoise drawing a picture of me on the blackboard, Naoise painting my face to make me into a tiger.

Lowlights of the boring day, taking till 2pm to get Naoise dressed and his teeth brushed, eventually getting out to a pub opening and then Naoise wanting to leave after only ten minutes.

Naoise fell over in the playground on Friday, he has a big graze on his arm, it looks so sore. He has an aversion to having cream applied on his skin. So each night Patrick creeps into his bedroom when he is asleep to apply the antiseptic cream to his cuts and sores. He is such a picker of scabs, and his skin is so fair and pale and sensitive, I fear he will be covered in scars if the picking continues. I should cut his finger nails, least then he won’t have the implements to cause himself damage.

How beautiful his skin is, so soft, so tender, so white as the snow.

I find a little picture of me and Syd on my chest of drawers, its always there, but I hold it in my hand. I hold it because my big baby boy is far away.

The picture was taken in the photo booth at Kings Cross Station in 2001. I remember closing the blue nylon curtain, leaning forward to place the money in the coin slot, balancing Syd on my knee, holding him up to the camera, the noise of people moving through the station. Holding him tight to me.

I got the itinerary muddled up, he is up the Eiffel Tower today and then the Louvre and then a river trip down the Seine. I hope that his smile today reaches wider than the Monalisa. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.50am ( awake in the night at 3am up at 7am)

Closing my eyes, pausing, taking a moment, don’t want to stare at the light from the screen. Ive been keeping this blog for over two months now, only another ten to go. Writing seems to speed life up rather than holding it still. I am tired, its Sunday, maybe I can write this then slip back to bed.

I didn’t receive the text message that I had been hoping to get from Syd to say that he had actually arrived at the PGL centre. The last one I got, I received yesterday;

 Saturday 9.11 am Hi mum I have arrived in France xx 

He will be up now, should be eating his continental breakfast, if its croissants he will be happy. He will be seeing the sights today, Arc de Triumph, Eiffel Tower, Louvre. I am only a little bit envious.

I find a text message listing items that I was arranging for him before his parting.

Wednesday 20: 33 Token for mobile play store, pillow, asthma inhalers, money in pounds for coach £30 and euros. Snacks for coach, water, small fleecy blanket….bag for dirty washing. Patricks small suitcase, reading book, NME magazine, sketchbook and felt pens.

I hope that I hear from him today. I had a look at his Facebook wall, there was a lovely photograph of him and all his friends all holding hands and looking out to sea at the top deck of the boat, how awesome teenagers are. I cling to this image, to this list, to his last message. I must learn to let go, he is safe and happy in the company of friends.

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I took some photographs of my body with the moss I had taken from the dry stone wall. I lay in the bath. Patrick helped me, he noticed that the moss stank, I didn’t care too much, nature smells of earth and dirt and wet, thats ok. It was good of Patrick to help, though what he sees and what I see are entirely at odds. I need to get a selfie stick so I can do this myself.

I close my eyes. There are about six little spiders crawling around my body, I can feel their little feet on my skin, its a pleasurable sensation. I am not scared of spiders, not these outside ones, I do have an aversion to house spiders though, I am not sure if I could manage them crawling around my body. I need to develop this body of work further. I like the idea of bringing the outside in. Of moss growing out and between me and my home.

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Naoise didn’t want to come to The Hepworth with me yesterday. I didn’t want Naoise or Patrick to come with me to The Hepworth yesterday. Naoise refused to leave the house, he stood holding tightly  onto the runs of the chair as if they were prison bars saying I am not coming, I am staying here all day, at home on my own, I want to do colouring in, I am not coming. He looked so sweet and stubborn, I wanted to take a photograph, but I decided not too, it seemed too cruel. After an hour long stand off Patrick conceded to stay home and look after Naoise. I did feel for Patrick and Naoise. Patrick had valley fever and needed to get out, whereas Naoise just wanted to rest and stay home.

In the end they had a good day hanging out at home, and I got away, I escaped, a few hours of freedom.

I saw the Linda Benglis exhibition and did some research for the presentation that I need to give about Barbara Hepworth on Thursday. I took some images of things on the street, things that caught my eye, a metal fence prized apart and some plastic sheeting, a hair band scrunchy, a pink plastic bag… (cunts) and escape routes. The things I saw made me think of the Cornelia Parker photographs that I had seen at The Whitworth; Spilt Milk ( Jerusalem), Oil Stain( Bethlehem)

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The first day of spring……the dark days are gone, hooray!

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