10.05.00 : physical silence

Wed. 10th May

Hi everyone

Brigid's mail (and the fact that I will be coming to Dartington very soon!) has prompted me to write.
I have felt annoyed with myself in this group because I have not contributed as much as I had hoped and wished to. This mail is something of an explanation of that. You may remember that when I wrote just before I went to Australia for a month I had all kinds of grand plans about using this project as a voice for my travelling thoughts. Well, that didn't happen, for 2 reasons.
The first was because I actually wrote much less than I had planned, because I was too busy LIVING!
And the second, that the stuff I did write I have not had any time to type up yet.
I kept a notebook, especially when on the Indian Pacific Express for 3 nights and 4 days, but it still remains next to my computer waiting for the mythical weekend when I have enough time to work on it. I began to work on the text Brigid sent but did not complete it. But to me, this neglect is important because it is actually about place and the artist. One of the things I have been thinking lately is that too many artists concentrate more on making art than on making life. I was like that too for too many years, imagining that I could shut my door on the 'real world', whatever that is, and just build in my head. And in fact that is what I did. But my work got more and more sterile and introverted, so now I am going through a much more externalising phase, where I actually make less work and live more life. It is, one might say, a period of research!
I returned from Oz with my head full of newness and I am still processing that material, so I feel as if the place I was in is still in some kind of non-verbal birthing-chamber, and indeed it could take a lot more time before it is actually born and articulated. But that doesn't matter, because I can feel it inside me, and already it connects with other parts of my current English environment. I also feel I am joined to it because I know I will go back.

So my silence on the list is because I am incredibly busy with my job but also because right now I am still working on the text of the place I have been to and it feels almost like a physical silence. But I am hoping that soon I will be able to speak up and give you some moments of my sense of place here, there, and in virtuality.

So sometimes, life occurs in place of the page.

I am really enjoying reading everyone's work

sue