Nightmares and anxiety vs. safe spaces: the test!

Last night I had multiple nightmares about coming across a murdered dog in a stream, acid baths, and devastating car crashes. I had wierd vibes all day, and felt incredibly anxious for the first time in almost a year - too anxious to eat, talk, drink water.. I don't know where this all came from, but I just couldn't concentrate all day and didn't feel up to much, so I did chores until 5pm. All day i'd had a strange attraction to the idea of going to the duckpond in Peckham Rye Park all day - it was kind of calling to me. So I went and 5pm, and walked really slowly and sat about for ages doing absolutely nothing and thinking about nothing. Then I wandered about a bit in the Sexby Garden in the park which is landscaped and densely planted, with a pergola and lots of secluded benches. It was 6:30 and almost dark when I left, and I felt really content and peaceful, and i didn't have the usual sense of place that I do - one that is linked with people, activity, culture etc. Instead I had a kind of sense of place that was totally based on the light, temperature, sounds, colours and trees etc. I just enjoyed it without noticing, rather than my usual approach of noticing things to enjoy!
And then I realised i'd found a safe space! And it improved my anxiety so much!
So that's a nice little thing to know for myself - that the idea of a safe space (place/shelter/your own body all intertwined) is a legitimate thing to be pursuing and promoting during my residency at Free Space Gallery.
Peace out. x

preparing for the great weekend bamboo party

This may seem a cryptic collection of images, but I am being coy on purpose - I want it to be a surprise; It's all sketches and preparation for my space-maker for Mistress Axolotl's Imaginary Tattoo Parlour: a bamboo screen. The bamboo arrived yesterday, it's dyed really dark brown and it's so gorgeous and lightweight and makes a pleasing sound when you tap it. I'm gonna get down to some serious bamboo work in the studio on the weekend. Can't wait.

Dark flicks as do dance from the eyes of ruthless queens, serve the determined girl with a certain command and self-belief.

Sparkling metal globes hang from her ears, depicting the poetry of a man who never stopped and understood the need to run, but also the quiet obligation to return.

Jazzy magic powers for performance spring from two round gems beneath her eyes, on painted blue cheeks.

Blue is her colour.

Blue and orange.

Then she has her denim vest. It is sleeveless so as to free her weighted shoulders, and well fitted so she always knows she is a girl. Sometimes this is a reassuring thing in itself. Initially she stencilled environmental slogans on the back of her denim, to try and impair the carelessness of the local council. Now it bears the stitched name of her tattoo parlour; Her desired character - to remind her that her work is not done.

Honey put on your red dress, and your diamond soled shoes.

Climb on outta your window, climb on outta your room.

And i've been spending time, as usual, as Lone Cowgirl...

She sat with her back to the encroaching dusk and placed her white leather to one side. The great straw sun was flinging its low, early autumn light across the crop fields. A sheet grey cloud followed it down; intimidating in it's purpose but comforting; as if she could reach her static hands into its gently swirling body and feel fresh, lukewarm droplets of precipitation enliven her hesitant fingers, and get under the filthy nails and wash them clean. With every passing thought of hers, the grey grew greyer and the night drew closer. A few gnarled sparked trees stood silhouetted, magnifying the last of the day’s rays. The scene appeared as a cross section of an R.B.Kitaj painting, as if coloured partially by nature, and partially by tears of his malcontent, from his sad large eyes. 

She did feel his malaise; a certain trepidation, perhaps induced by the dulling effect of alcoholic nights and too little exercise. What worried her most was the possible inexistence of all the worlds and provinces she imagined, and that others had imagined which her imagination has entered so readily into.

It was Open Studios last weekend as part of Art Licks, and we had a good time welcoming everyone and seeing other people in the area's studios. I love the work of South London Saddles who I share a corridor with. Look her up - beautiful! And... by sweet coincidence, she is from the same weeny hillside town where I went to school!

Here's some photos of my newly tidied studio space for the event. I sold three pieces of clothing from my SWAG line ;) May pay for my tattoo.

Guiding ladies

And in the spirit of Patti Smith's M Train, I will inform you of a dream I had. The book came out two days ago, but as Mama works in an indie bookshop, I had the giant smug privilege of reading the uncorrected publishes proof two months ago and been bursting to talk about it since. So i've been ruminating for weeks on coffee, travel, Mexico, sleeping in Diego Rivera's bed, cafes and going to Tangier, cradling my copy of the book. I'm going to her book tour at the end of this month; cannot wait! It's so informative of what i'm doing with Mistress Axolotl, and Lone Cowgirl. Even Patti's imaginary dream spirit guide is a Cowboy too! Anyway, here's my dream: 
...The other night I dreamt of a big, pink, fading magnolia tree growing out of an old glasshouse that looked like Le Louvre, it was smashing it as it wilted. Turns out, it was an outpost of Mount Fuji?

Then last night, I dreamt that my old school handed me a beautiful record sleeve, and offered to take me on a trip to visit a recording studio in Fresno, California. But I realised I didn't want to go because Fresno has a high rate of addiction to crystal meth, and this trip might be a ploy to get money out of me for the school.

Mistress Axolotl needs a space-maker screen

Making your own safe space.

Mistress Axolotl needs a safe space in which to offer her tattooing/talisman/adornment/therapeutic service.

Designing for Mistress Axolotl's bamboo screen / space maker / room divider




Mr Van Gogh was right - Japanese art, their use of lines and limited colour in an image, is incredibly steadying.

Concept for screen designs: those small rituals that keep you grounded or refresh your soul, body & mind.

Mistress Axolotl sits at her cafe table and works and thinks.
Based on the E Tutto Qua cafe, Broadway, San Francisco.
I used to sit at this cafe every afternoon for a week and have a coffee when I was alone in San Fran and feeling sad after a friend of mine had died accidentally. On the last day the waiter brought me a whole three course meal for free. People are nice!

And this is what Patti Smith thinks of the value of lounging in a cafe chair day after day... right on P-Dawg!

*

I've been ruminating on how adopting certain characteristics, behaviours or looks of people (or an abstracted notion of a person) that appear as iconic and guiding to you, can help you channel or explore your desires and intentions for the type of person you want to be, or even don't want to be.

Below is something from the final pages of Patti Smith's new book M Train.

She explains why she does her art; her writing, poetry, photography and also why she carries out her small ritualistic journeys and routines.

She's lost three important people in her life; her husband, brother and best mate, all too young.

I think she's trying to summon something of their spirit, presence or memory through her actions.

This is for sure what I do.

reverie: a state of being pleasantly lost in one's thoughts; a daydream.

In the bottom quote she mentions the way in which a longing for and indulging in something unreal, or no longer real, will not bring about a truth, but that's ok and as long as you realise that you can just live in the dream.

*
Below.... working on customised folk dress in homage to four of my favourite musicians

M Train is like a portal to my own other world....

Patti's spiritual dream guide is a cowboy! Mine is a cowgirl! (Lone Cowgirl)

She conjures the spirit of dead loved ones through visiting places, taking trips, experiencing certain weather/landscapes etc, and carrying out rituals, and of course in her art/writing. So do I.

She finds sitting the same cafe at the same seat, alone, morning after morning, drinking the same coffee, to be productive for her imagination even though it appears as wasting time. She just loves cafes. Me too, and me too.

The whole book is a safe space for me.

She describes a reading room she arranges next to her bedroom.

So now I may make the Spirit Shed black!

Sometimes some words emit a strong symbolic or hypnotic pulse.

Sentences don't have to make sense. They can just be an abstract compilation of words that have good rhythm or individually transporting connotations.

That can be enough to set a scene into which you can retreat or explode, or through which you can wander.

As below...

This is a plan, based on the words idea above, for a sort of way-marker/totemic stake/flag, that hints at movement based on one's emotional state.


And you can use the scenes and words from varying cerebral and real places to write cringey but relaxing stories.


Now you have to endure my holiday snaps from the French Pyrenees last week.

Below: Mine

Below: My French mountain tribute to Georgie O'Keefe: May your soul live on Georgia!

Below: Papa with his collected firewood

Les bananes!

Below: Shepherd's hut we stayed in

Madame Martine's weeny cat Arthur

Mountain tea hut

Perfect place to write

Hello donkey