Thursday, 27 May 2010
A Fellow Artist Collaborator , Graduate & Bursary saves
So far I have been able to to get a fantastic fellow artist, friend and collaborator for the project to read through all the stuff so it can be reformatted and re-submitted YAY !!! got to get the moulah ....Also an opportunty has also been sent to me for a bursary to pay a graduate for 20 days work which I could use for the creative digital arts e.g. the performance platform etc. so I have written to my digital consultant to advise me on this before applying or it. So things still going then -but I am overcoming the low level disillusion allied to panic, about timelines that befell me recently . More ideas coming on the story lynch pins, staging and scoring ideas so this is very reassuring. Memory, conversations with peopel on a whole host of topics in bars, cafes etc or on the park enjoying the sun as I did with friends last sunday- an absolute scorcher that was gratefully received by me - was very energising creatively !
Monday, 10 May 2010
All Hung Out with Frida Kahlo
So today several days after the predictable political turmoil England currently faces, of a hung parliament. I effect to be confident and sanguine, as I now know I must definitely get the help I require from some quarter. It starts tommorow I meet a woman skilled, experienced and knowledgeable in these dark arts, of getting money from Arts funding bodies for emerging arts wonderkinds as myself. Just as in the days of patronage I need to get her on my side in my camp so to speak in order to bring forth this work !
Wonderful inspiration I found at the weekend, provided in a incredible performance by Khadijatou Doyneh, a strong confident articulate and eloquent artist, just re - confirm how joyful is it to meet a British Black woman, so able to utilise all her gifts so magnificantly. However this is a rare occurence far too rare today.
We dont see such artists on our arts cultural radar never mind the media etc, I had taken to studying more of women's art feminist art etc over the week end. I just marvelled at how countries like e.g. Germany Europe in general just churn brillant women artists out all the time. Only a couple of Black women artists are listed in the book I read , no other women of colour included , thus surely providing the opportunity for this omission to be addressed more fully by commentators, driven to correct this glaring imbalance .
On the phone I chatted with a male colleague in a similar situation to myself with his arts project , we shared our mutal disappointment in having our ambition, raised only for it to be scaled down by the circumstances, outside of our control that were not divulged at the time we embarked on our respective artistic journeys . We find some comfort in these conversations with each other, i.e. to carry on with the 'struggle', saying with hindsight if we had all the facts - would we have taken on the enterprise ?
Later I noted a frustrated , almost bitter tone on his part, also curiously secretative as if he had information of great import that he could not divulge at this time. As he felt more than slighted by these untoward developments affecting his work, he felt the political uncertainty would only worsen matters, hasten further cuts in arts spending, therefore the end of all our larger hopes. I was more cautiously optimistic, I had a weekend of fun and deep reflection, this has strengthened me and gvien me a certain necessary detachment at times , to be able to see things a little more clearer, rather than through a mist of frustrated anger . I understand though how he feels I guess we have similar problems but have different ways of dealing with it. For me as I said before it is all grist to the mill.
This then follows on as it brings me into some affinity, tenous connection and fascination with the works of Frida Kahlo. European Surrealists, wanted to call her a surrealist, but she said she 'never painted a dream' she painted her lived authentic experience - infused as it was with unimaginable agonies and her passion for Mexcian folklore. Looking at her photos it is her gaze that arrests you and the proudly unplucked dark lush eyebrows, that give her a defiant yet melancholic beauty. It is these qualities that I find most compelling of all.
Wonderful inspiration I found at the weekend, provided in a incredible performance by Khadijatou Doyneh, a strong confident articulate and eloquent artist, just re - confirm how joyful is it to meet a British Black woman, so able to utilise all her gifts so magnificantly. However this is a rare occurence far too rare today.
We dont see such artists on our arts cultural radar never mind the media etc, I had taken to studying more of women's art feminist art etc over the week end. I just marvelled at how countries like e.g. Germany Europe in general just churn brillant women artists out all the time. Only a couple of Black women artists are listed in the book I read , no other women of colour included , thus surely providing the opportunity for this omission to be addressed more fully by commentators, driven to correct this glaring imbalance .
On the phone I chatted with a male colleague in a similar situation to myself with his arts project , we shared our mutal disappointment in having our ambition, raised only for it to be scaled down by the circumstances, outside of our control that were not divulged at the time we embarked on our respective artistic journeys . We find some comfort in these conversations with each other, i.e. to carry on with the 'struggle', saying with hindsight if we had all the facts - would we have taken on the enterprise ?
Later I noted a frustrated , almost bitter tone on his part, also curiously secretative as if he had information of great import that he could not divulge at this time. As he felt more than slighted by these untoward developments affecting his work, he felt the political uncertainty would only worsen matters, hasten further cuts in arts spending, therefore the end of all our larger hopes. I was more cautiously optimistic, I had a weekend of fun and deep reflection, this has strengthened me and gvien me a certain necessary detachment at times , to be able to see things a little more clearer, rather than through a mist of frustrated anger . I understand though how he feels I guess we have similar problems but have different ways of dealing with it. For me as I said before it is all grist to the mill.
This then follows on as it brings me into some affinity, tenous connection and fascination with the works of Frida Kahlo. European Surrealists, wanted to call her a surrealist, but she said she 'never painted a dream' she painted her lived authentic experience - infused as it was with unimaginable agonies and her passion for Mexcian folklore. Looking at her photos it is her gaze that arrests you and the proudly unplucked dark lush eyebrows, that give her a defiant yet melancholic beauty. It is these qualities that I find most compelling of all.
Monday, 3 May 2010
Fighting Dragons & Turning the Wheel - Inevitably
I am about to do the inevitable,have somebody else work and support me in this production phase. It is a very new development but very much unavoidable given the circumstances as 'the race or game is on'. I have done so much as to be completely 'fagged out' in the process and experiencing something quite foreign to me a 'writers block', as regards my grant application only. Despite having done all the work and got all the information required previously. It all needs to formatted and redone etc.
I cannot see the wood for the trees right now , my head when not 'turning the wheel, keeping the wolf from the door and sword fighting dragons '. Percolates all the while with intriguing words , poems, staging ideas and the such. I am blessed with a lively creativity , however I am resigned to the back up practical support right now. It is new as my journey is a one where duw to a lack of support, based on my particular location on the 'totem pole' I like others like me have done everything often on my own . This case is quite different, I only have to find the artist user friendly person, to basically re -format my own work in the required way. Fundraisers are ubiqutious now in arts organisations, whether freelance or in house. This raises questions to me about what types of art actually gets made and why as such ? Is it the work that can always get the funding and does this aggregate over time ? How is innovation therefore maintained ?
I am strengthened though in my continuing resolve, by artists that read this blog and cite on their own e.g Leanne Stoddart a Poet in Birmingham. I will need to 'pull my finger out ' sharpish and keep on trucking with it all . The author of the 'Sports Writer' Richard Ford on the radio offers a variety of priceless advice on the craft of writing he says it is 'a vocation rather than a profession' he talks interestingly of writing dialogue, character development, locations and not physically describing his characters much and his dyslexia - it makes him a slow reader but he is able to pore over his words and attune more to the musicality of them. I conclude he is very much a poet too.
He also talks of his humble background and crises of confidence, I now so identify and empathise, with why I know artists become disheartened, apathetic or have crippling self confidence in what they do. In my background and also Alan Silitoes and many others, as we come from similar backgrounds - as to class . We definately did know anyone who was a writer or wished to become one. I acknowledge how this has shaped me and gives me my own rich imagination a uniques view on the world. The struggles and the journey that starts from traversing numerous barriers and obstacles can steel such writers and make available to them abundance of wildly orgianal ideas to draw on. I consider myself fortunate to have been largely self educated and to have come as far as I have, enjoying arguing the toss with literature Ph.d's and MA's etc.
I cannot see the wood for the trees right now , my head when not 'turning the wheel, keeping the wolf from the door and sword fighting dragons '. Percolates all the while with intriguing words , poems, staging ideas and the such. I am blessed with a lively creativity , however I am resigned to the back up practical support right now. It is new as my journey is a one where duw to a lack of support, based on my particular location on the 'totem pole' I like others like me have done everything often on my own . This case is quite different, I only have to find the artist user friendly person, to basically re -format my own work in the required way. Fundraisers are ubiqutious now in arts organisations, whether freelance or in house. This raises questions to me about what types of art actually gets made and why as such ? Is it the work that can always get the funding and does this aggregate over time ? How is innovation therefore maintained ?
I am strengthened though in my continuing resolve, by artists that read this blog and cite on their own e.g Leanne Stoddart a Poet in Birmingham. I will need to 'pull my finger out ' sharpish and keep on trucking with it all . The author of the 'Sports Writer' Richard Ford on the radio offers a variety of priceless advice on the craft of writing he says it is 'a vocation rather than a profession' he talks interestingly of writing dialogue, character development, locations and not physically describing his characters much and his dyslexia - it makes him a slow reader but he is able to pore over his words and attune more to the musicality of them. I conclude he is very much a poet too.
He also talks of his humble background and crises of confidence, I now so identify and empathise, with why I know artists become disheartened, apathetic or have crippling self confidence in what they do. In my background and also Alan Silitoes and many others, as we come from similar backgrounds - as to class . We definately did know anyone who was a writer or wished to become one. I acknowledge how this has shaped me and gives me my own rich imagination a uniques view on the world. The struggles and the journey that starts from traversing numerous barriers and obstacles can steel such writers and make available to them abundance of wildly orgianal ideas to draw on. I consider myself fortunate to have been largely self educated and to have come as far as I have, enjoying arguing the toss with literature Ph.d's and MA's etc.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)