Our cerebral theatre set

The last week has bought me a fair few treats:

A trip with Free Space Gallery to see Romeo & Juliet, the ballet, at Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. A group of 170 of us went; all people who have been involved in the mental health care services and activities at Kentish Town Health Centre. It was incredible. I'm not a fan of classical music, it actually makes me a bit irate and brings back some slightly uncomfortable memories of some bad parts of school, so I was a bit nervous of watching a ballet accompanied by classical music for nearly three hours. BUT - the music was very subtle and gentle and kind of modern sounding classical as far as I could tell. And coupled with the fact we were sitting high up in a dimly lit red and gold theatre made it a really relaxing, calming experience. Of course the dancing, costumes and set were magnificent! Juliet was tiny! Rome had nice white tights. And there was a group of six male ballerinas carrying lutes, wearing amazing pink leggings and lime green pixie boots.
Dom came, and we saw a few friendly faces of people who had been to some of my mono-printing workshops in the previous weeks, which was really nice.

This is one of the sketches i did at the ballet. It's the stage set, and some strange thoughts about a boneyard. The structure of the set reminded me of the elephant graveyard in the Lion King, and also of an installation about dying trees and deforestation and endangered species that I planned months back. So all these stray thoughts came together in this sketch somehow. More to come on this idea I think....

I also finished off two pieces inspired by my research into tattoos, rituals and creating 'safe spaces' that i've been doing during my Free Space residency. One piece involves onion skins, blue paint, and orange gems.
The other involves a lot of silver glitter, white suede and a smooth totemic stone that I acquired on the beach when Dom and I went camping in a tipi in Suffolk for my 21st birthday/our first anniversary.
Watch this space.... they are for my exhibition at Free Space Gallery in November, but I may show both in the reception area of Kentish Town Health Centre in the meantime, They are quite playful and text based so they'd be nice distraction for people waiting for the doctors.

I also started painting some fabric with which I am going to make a Japanese/Patti Smith inspired room divider/space maker screen.
Again... watch this space.

I've also been sourcing frames form charity shops. I have a tendency to be a bit messy with my work, but I have now vowed to look after things properly and frame them when they are done. Alas I am not in the position to get nice frames made so charity shops it is, but i've done well so far.

And also, lucky me got a handmade macrame plant pot and holder from my ever clevee and fabulously talented friend Emma who just learned and mastered this skill and presented me with a beautiful birthday present as a result!

Another theatre structure. With something beyond.

Above is a collage that I made loosely to help me channel my idea of imaginary worlds, fictional personas and vicarious living.
Seeing the ballet made me realise we can construct a theatre set for ourselves in our minds, in which to rehearse for real life, or to act out fantastical scenarios and events that we hanker after, or that we would find too fearful in the real world.
This is exploring the idea of an outpost on the other side of our cerebral activity; the side that does not belong to the corporeal world but only exists (and flourishes, and is entirely necessary and essential) in our minds, for us to feel emotionally tranquil and psychologically exercised.. or even exorcised.

Below are some bits and pieces of recent studio/late night bedroom listening to Lana Del Rey and painting sessions times on the aforementioned themes:

I just love Lana's tats

Some of my fabric patches

Epic departure shot of Kyle leaving Summer Bay

Banana palm atop the endless stairs. Unfortunately I think this piece doesn't make the cut. It has been banished to the reject pile. But I shall sure miss this ol' piece of foward-thinking foliage, on it's architectural pedastal.

This has been a rushed post, but i'm madly organising for my eaarly morning departure tomorrow to the Pyrenees, walking for 6 days and camping out in the wilds of the mountains. Lorde protect me from the vultures and Lana & Patti inspire me to be inspired please. Amen, peace out, may the force we be with you... see you on 2nd October for another workshop in tattoo design, mono-printing and fabric printing.

Roll the window down : baby wave goodbye....

Another workshop at Mistress Axolotl's Imaginary Tattoo Parlour has come and gone.

I love having small, but informal groups. We have really amazing, in-depth conversations about all sorts of important things while we work away drawing and printing, and generally set the world to rights. You can see that some of these guys are really talented artists and chose really suitable designs to translate well into mono-print and tattoo work. 

During the workshop, when it was just two of us left, I was making a mono-print using a drawing I did a few weeks ago as a starting point. As I was drawing, I found myself adding bits of text in an automatic way, that were phrases, or words of symbolic meaning that were squirrelled away in my brain chambers, and I got a strange butterfly/adrenaline feeling, and felt this wave of resolution, like some incompatibilities and difficulties that go as far back at six years ago, suddenly settled and put themselves at ease together in my brain. It was mad, I've never felt so emotionally satisfied by making a piece of art before. I didn't plan the print much, and it didn't feel significant when I started it, nor did I intend it to be. But it sort of came out, and finished itself. So that was rad!! It may sound cheesy, but I guess that's how therapeutic art works. 

So it's now a finished piece, and one of my favourite. It might not be conceptually sound or a good composition but that aint the point; it did it's job. Happy with that!

But I won't display it here, i'll wait to show it at my exhibition at Free Space Gallery in November.

And now some recent goings on in the world of my inks and pens, threads and needles....

As I don't have a mirror in my studio, nor a phone that takes photos, I have to use my 'Photobooth' on my laptop to see how clothes are coming along when i'm making them. Sometimes they come out hilarious!!!

some ghostly ones with a nice glow, and me looking like a Feudal bruiser in a tight floral dress.

Red Sun Dress: I know this dress is currently white but..... it's under construction.

Pretty little redhead, southern belle in a red dress, she's got her hair pulled back... looking like a star from the 1980s.

I realise I just referred to myself in a grossly complimentary, self-satisfied way, but it's actually a lyric of a song i'm currently listening to and I do have red hair so it just seemed poetic, if rather inappropriate.

Studio tidy-up

Below are photos from the last Fossil Free Southwark meeting. Lamp-lit garden grassroots activism.

My new prison pants.

What is on the other side of the sparkly frontier

I wear this t-shirt a hell of a lot!

And again! This is the t-shirt that Mistress Axolotl wears.

Enchanting scan from an old copy of National Geographic (e.g back in the good old days when Rupert Murdoch didn't decide to hijack it)

Another NatGeo scan:  this lady just embodies the epitome of talismanic tattoo culture - she's a proud Detroit girl and has a tat saying Shy Town, and you can see her vest. She's fusing her spiritual identity with both her body and her surroundings. Now that is cool - that is ensuring that wherever you go, you've got your familiar and safe 'space' with you. 

*

As well as becoming obsessed with tattoos and personal spiritual places, i've become obsessed with personal rituals. I've been reading Patti Smith's new book M Train, which isn't out till next month, but Mama's bookshop got an uncorrected proof copy, so i'm reading it. It's fantastic. I've got one chapter left. I love it so much I don't want to finish it, and I want to read the last chapter in a perfect place at the perfect time. I've considered reading it three times but decided against it as the times wasn't right. 

The book is a rumination on coffee, travel, grief and dreams. 

Patti recounts conversations with a recurring character that she meets with in her dreams, whom she refers to as the Cowpoke. In her waking life she knows she can return to him for clarity or cryptic advice on indecipherable or transitory matters. 

I LOVE THIS! Partly because my own imaginary spirit guide is a cowgirl, and partly because I do use these invented characters (Lone Cowgirl, Mistress Axolotl), scenarios and places (my own inventions mostly, but sometimes other peoples' inventions - such as characters from songs or places from films) to exercise my mind and work out problems in my head, and for general fun. It all sounds mad, and my long-suffering boyfriend may feel like he is in a relationship with me, a cowgirl and a tattoo artist, as well as a few characters from rock songs and soap operas, but it's fun! 

Anyway.... I was going to talk about personal rituals. Patti goes to the same cafe near her home in New York each morning, sits in the same table, orders the same bread with olive oil and black coffee, and writes, thinks, or ponders. sometimes she writes poetic masterpieces, but much of the time she is in a creative slump, only capable of reading others' works, rather than writing her own. She calls this her 'malaise'. But her ritual allows her to compartmentalise this slumping malaise to a certain portion of the day, and not let it completely overcome her entire day. Her time in the cafe allowed her the human shortcomings that our spiritual beliefs often guilt trip us for. Her ritual became a story to her in itself, and the worlds of other peoples' inventions that she entered whilst sitting at that table were instrumental to her future writing.

I won't give away the story, but she says this of the cafe;

"I reflected on how my mornings at Cafe Ino had not only prolonged but also afforded my malaise with a small amount of grandeur. 'Thank you', I said. 'I have lived in my own book.'"

There's something nice about the idea of not actually completing a personal task or journey; not actually going to the destination you intended nor along the route you designed, maybe because you become stuck, or distracted, or forget why you started. Even if you feel inert, you can still gain great insight from your immobility/creative slump/lack of focus. Like Patti did. 

She did go somewhere and experience many things in her slump, just none of it was real life. 

I think it's really important to not try and quantify success by only examining your real life achievements and activities. Cerebral activity and day dreaming and imaginary lives are just as important for personal satisfaction and spiritual wellbeing, if not more. 

It's also interesting to think about gaining just as much satisfaction by entering others' imagined places as your own, as Patti did when she read Murakami's books, Jean Genet and others.

This is a work in progress, detailing one of my imaginary counterparts Lone Cowgirl. She is the proprietor and sole occupier of an open air cinema and outpost in the Outback of a place called the Swaglands. She is very serene and likes to be alone. I think she has a dog. She likes kangaroos because they can't go backwards. She watches Home & Away on her cinema screen, and other important environmental and escapist films such as Beast of The Southern Wild and the video for Grimes's song Realiti.

In her book, Patti also buys a house on the beach which is run-down bungalow which she calls My Alamo. It is the only building in the town to survive Hurricane Sandy, and it is her private retreat. She knows exactly what she will do there, down to every last details, and exactly how it will enrich her life. This is a safe space in truly elemental form.

she considers the bungalow almost too dreamlike to be real;

"I sat in the corner table and dreamed of the bungalow."

And....As above, so below:

And a parting thought; a resolution if you will, that came from my perfect soothing mono-print:

Roll the window down : baby wave goodbye....

Got my hands on the wheel of a getaway car.