Graphic Memoir project

Over on https://spacegirlproject.blogspot.com/

I began a  blog for my developing PhD research The Graphic Memoir as a Device for Healing. I have paused it as an academic pursuit and continue to work on it quietly and delicately in private!

Reset

 RESET

This word is following me around at the moment. 

It is pertinent to most aspects of my life, in particular my arts practice, which I have begun to see as an old folk tale, full of myth and make-believe and moral lessons... ... and which is now resetting. 

There was a point when the humble act of me drawing to keep myself entertained, in touch with my inner self and literally scratching an itch became a monster of huge and scary and untethered power. It survived by sucking all the ambition, drive and ego out of me and spitting out any authenticity left. It became bigger than the sum of its parts.  The practice was in fact built on nothing but concept and projected image. See me here brushing things under the carpet. As a performance. But also a denial. Deluezian folding in action!

I can't exactly see the place my art began to eat itself, but it's there, threading though the battle between outward facing 'Profile' and heartfelt, honest to goodness self expression.  Spacegirl, my avatar and selfhelp medicine has been a reset. A leaning into the parochial, autobiographical, messy business of just making what comes out, warts an' all.  

She didn't enjoy the process of being 'academised'.  The irony of making a project that researches how drawing might heal turned out to be a catalyst for another break.  Another break.  So we retreated yet again. Licked our wounds. Yet again.  And although it might be prudent to take down the blog, take away the intense pain of exposure, I feel compelled to share things in case it might be of use to someone with equally horrid monsters.

I'm tired of being mentally ill. Of living with a constant battle against this relentless pain. I look back and realise with a deep sadness that it's been like this most of my life. I'm colourful, intelligent, dynamic, creative, and yet I still can't stop the disease from taking over my body, psyche, soul.

Situationist...

Never before has my situation had so many extrapolated meanings.

SocialPhysicalFinancialGeographicalSpiritualPoliticalEmotionalCellularGlobalIdealogicalPhilosophicalRelationalIntellectual

We are immobilised but we are still travelling, what a situation...!

I am documenting my myopic journeys through the screen before me. It's a dérive. I can go from one place (situation) to another in a mere click.

Take today:
I began with my email inbox. My starting point. It took me to a call-out from an arts organisation inviting submissions relating to our lock-down. I followed a trail to the group's site who created the call-out and then to their reference page and then to a site with a recording by an artist of words and sounds and then to the site of the artist he collaborated with..... I'm now working on how to render this as a visual recording.... from my living room obviously...

This is the top of the Far Away Tree, but are these worlds whooshing around and coming to the ladder in turn or am I the one that is moving and discovering them?  Some are edgy and there is not good magic. But some are so delightful I want to take the whole thing home with me but find I'm settling for bringing back a small souvenir in the form of a jotted note to prompt my memory of it.  A postcard or maybe a virtual snow globe from my travels.  Then I wonder how curious it is to have this compulsion to preserve the experience of my ephemeral journeys in a material manifestation. But such is the condition (situation) of being a human (situation, site, state, setting, spot, standing, sitch).

" In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there… But the dérive includes both this letting go and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities". Knabb, Ken, ed. (1995). Situationist International Anthology. Berkley: Bureau of Public Secrets.

What to do?

Warning: this post is a tad solipsistic....

It's been a few weeks since I downed the tutoring tools and put The Drawing Board to bed. Like the fabled Sleeping Beauty, she is waiting somewhere to be found by a prince (preferably a solvent one) who will give her the kiss of life and revive her ready for the happy ever after. We all know there is no prince, of course, I have to be my own prince, and I am far from solvent...

But, this isn't a blog about woes, I'm not complaining: I'm actually one of the lucky ones. I have a home with a garden. I'm not claustrophobic. I have my creativity. I'm not at all bored. I have my children. I'm not too lonely.  I have my love on the end of a phone. I am supported.

But I have guilt - not just because an awful lot of people are contributing and sacrificing just now and I don't feel that I am - but there is a constant nagging feeling around my own existence.  I should be producing, earning, pushing, gaining, adapting.... 

I resisted the urgent flurry to grab a new existence in Zoom, fighting against the mounting pressure to carry on with 'business as usual'.  The saturation of offerings in those first days was overwhelming and instead of grabbing my coat and jumping on the zoom rocket, like the dynamic entrepreneurs clamouring for virtual space, I found myself hiding, shrinking back into my interior world. I'm still hiding now to be honest.  I just couldn't bring myself to hold space for anyone outside of my family. To be frank, I'm realising the way I lived my life before this event wasn't right for me. Like an awful lot of people I am waking up to the realisation that I was squeezing a hand grenade (missing its pin) and if I let go it would explode.

A lot of folk are experiencing a sense of burgeoning creativity. I have that too. I am overflowing with ideas and a hunger to use materials long abandoned, to play with things and express constantly what this storm of chaos is raising and explore the juice in the unfamiliar channels of thoughts and feelings. And yet in the background is the issue that this is a luxury or an indulgence: I should be utilising this creativity and making work to sell or I should be teaching people how to make work and building my business, adapting to the new online world of Zoom. Even in this enforced state of 'retreat' I am struggling to let go of these judgements and just be. Does this sound familiar?

I'm lucky enough to be part of some initiatives that don't exist in a framework or context of 'business'.
With collaborators who honour truth, connection, integrity and understanding as success and not the familiar toxic elements of capitalism.  There is so much to explore and discuss around this. There is a lot of hope that things will change and we will see a world emerge that aligns with our true values but that's maybe a chat for another time. I'm getting into rhetoric so I'll leave you here with one last thing.

Emma Capper messaged the SAP collective yesterday and I wanted to share it because it reassured  me, gave me hope and reminded me of who I am, wisdom from just being where we need to be and trusting it. What to do? Do what feels good....


"I am starting to emerge more often now from the fog of emotions induced by this situation to feel some clarity, sense of purpose and direction. and in these moments of clarity it is our collaboration that is a shining light.. together we are stronger and we can do so much just being there for each other as a base line.

All things change and energy ebbs and flows in natural rhythms, sometimes one of us will be in a place to give and take action and others might be in a more introspective and resting place. It is important that we allow ourselves to honour that. I know I can easily guilt trip or beat myself up for not doing enough etc."

The line of least resistance.

 

I love lines.
They are secure.
Hand rails.
They keep the journey on track. For the moment at least.
Lines can be questionable but for now I daren't question anything.
I keep to the line.
I don't colour outside of it.
I have lines of lists. Like talismans or mantras that hold some sort of reality for me.
I don't veer off the line, wayfaring.  I follow the path.  The paradox is that I am drawing the line ahead of myself. I am creating the path for my insecure, confused self to follow.

The Missing ' ' roject

In the company of the soothing voice of Sarah Gray.

There was one day, earlier this week, that felt like we were still in what we knew but we were entering into what we really didn't know. A transition, a borderline, a precipice.  I sat with Sarah Gray in Soundart Radio's recording studio, creating a programme, talking for an hour about drawing.

We were just getting used to constant handwashing, not really hugging, feeling a bit weird.... little did we know the world was going to get even weirder.
Sound Art had to close the next day.  I had to cancel all my work.  And then there were no baked beans left on the shelf. ...

I keep drawing. .....

This is a message in a bottle from that day. ☟
https://soundcloud.com/user-494675905/ep-4-on-attendance-with-beth-heaney


For more soulful, nutritious, wise and delicious work from Sarah she is here https://www.soundsitesomatics.com/

Sap Rising

I'm part of a collective called SAP.  We are in our infancy and I will tell you more as we gain ground over the next few weeks but here's a little snippet of us preparing some charcoal and oak gall ink for some fun in the woods on Friday.
The sheer pleasure of getting out, making fire, messing with alchemy and feeling the longer light this evening was just what I needed.

A Room of One's Own

We chatted in last Monday's group about the frustration of not having a space to make in. I always bang on about sitting every morning with your cup of tea and drawing it for a regular exercise in limbering up but it's not enough if you're itching to really get into something.  It needs space and time and ideally to be left and then returned to and this doesn't work on the kitchen table where you have to clear up each time you've managed to grab five minutes to 'create'. 

I'm without a studio at the moment and I haven't been making anything satisfying for ages. I've been busy setting up courses and trying to grow The Drawing Board as a thing and I haven't been going 'in' at all. The thing is, it doesn't just mean I feel a bit off because I'm not really connecting with my own art it also means I'm not as good a teacher because I'm not exploring and evolving in the same way.

This is one of my more recent pieces and it was so good to connect with materials again. I have a practice that often gets way into the conceptual and it's heady and as much as I love it I need the process of letting something just emerge through the material. They are very different ways of working but they feed each other. Eva Hesse was very much a material process artist and conversely Sol Lewitt was ideational, conceptual. I love them both.

Accepting your own process and understanding it can be a great grounding for your practice but also for your being. It even reaches into self forgiveness and that great feeling of letting go of any grasping need to be something else. We all have it in us to be these fantastic beings. Our own knowledge is rich with how to be fulfilled and it does seem to begin with acceptance. We owe it to ourselves to make the space and time to do this, even if it does mean creating a crazy mess in the house!  It's worth it. Put some music on, get the paints out and re-use some old paper and get going, just make some marks and see where they take you.

Drawing Surgery ii

The surgery was so lovely. It was great to be with a mix of generations, all drawing. We helped each other, made connections, laughed, conquered fears!  Happy place.  The next one is Thursday 10-12 at the People's Cafe, The Mansion, Totnes. ALL WELCOME bring something to draw with (I have supplies if you don't have anything) and it's just pay what you feel.

Ceni was so inspired by the breakthrough she made in drawing portraits that she cannot stop and sent me this from her now bulging sketchbook. She has really made use of suggested lines on the hood. She got skills that woman! So we started tackling portraits by doing some continuous line drawings of faces opposite us (without looking down on the paper) and she just ran with it and loved it and now it's energised her drawing as you can see.

Drawing Surgery

There's a little cafe in the Mansion in Totnes, right under Studio 1 called the People's Cafe. We're going to be there every Thursday 10-12 to meet and chat and draw and I'll be on hand to guide, inspire, motivate and support with anything drawing related.  Just pay what you feel. Here is the badly rendered poster for it.... ...                     One of the best things to come out of any drawing course is the sense of community the group feels. I know I struggle to work in isolation and the times when I've been most happy and productive have been as part of a cohort. I wanted to extend this out of the constraints of the courses.  And create an informal group that sustains a               philosophy of learning, developing, growing, exploring, experimenting and being through drawing. So I hope to see some of you there. Absolutely ALL welcome.