ARTISTS TALKING

# 11 [27 July 2009]

Dear Alex,

Yes I can remember quite a few things but I hope they're not too personal...I liked the Hammer writing (the titles) -it reminded me of the First Reich typography-I wonder if that was intentional considering the era the film was made-I wonder if the First world war still represented the horror of the second...twice it happened it must have felt like it was going to happen forever.

I thought Christopher Lee was Peter Cushing and I was having little fantasies about him swimming in the sea and imagining his fangs taking in the North Sea...and then Doctor Van Helsing arrived and I realised I had got it wrong. I couldn't imagine what Dracula's body was like anyway, so it solved a problem for me-I thought maybe...My mother had an Edwardian Schoolmaster doll. She had patched his face up with plaster and watercolour and he looked like those WWI Pachendale victims that had their faces patched up-to be left with half of their face with an unnatural sheen. I always wanted to see what the Schoolmaster's body was like under his black gown and trousers-but his legs looked like matchsticks and didn't join up with his Edwardian spats. Maybe I am thinking of Mumra but that's what I thought Dracula's body might be like. I don't think he had need of a body did he? The women seemed delighted with his mouth. When did the acceptance of the clitoris as useful and important come about? I remember my aunt saying that for a woman to have sex on top of a man was seen as outrageously emasculating.

What else do I remember...that the unpleasant action occurred downstairs in the cellar. The glacial waters that flowed outside Dracula's castle reminded me of Switzerland.....The deep flowing water of Geneva was very exciting for me...I remember looking over a bridge at the cormorants underwater and wondering if I would ever come back and see it and if I would be married by then. I fell asleep in the park after that, setting my alarm clock, and was woken up often by annoying men trying to 'help' me. The students had gone to the United Nations and I had fainted so I was allowed to wander around on my own.

read the rest of this post at www.thepearlfisher.blogspot.com

# 12 [28 July 2009]

I heard an interesting tale last night from an Australian doctor. She told me a story of a friend who came from Transylvania. One evening he explained that his grandmother had asked that her head be cut of after she had died (not before). He also told of how the vampire myth came about during the plague. Apparently many victims (in the interests of hygiene and the common good) were buried before they had quite died, and some dug themselves out to walk the earth again. The good doctor told of his convincing Transylvanian accent and theories that Vampires had colonised every film genre. I realised I was being obtuse so I didn't bring up my theory that a Vampire would make a very poor cowboy, turning up at high noon only to disappear in a puff of smoke.

# 13 [29 July 2009]

Dear Alex,

Have you ‘found your practice’? What factors make this problematic? Are they external or internal? What is a ‘true practice’ any way..?

Sarah Rowles from Q-Art London, a new forum for open discussion, is going to be the Choice blogs guest editor for August. In her selection copy she talks about, “…insecurity and the lack of time to 'find oneself' as an artist because of the constant pressure to define ones practice in order to gain grants, exhibitions, funding...”.

This is a central issue for artists working today and in anticipation of Sarah’s choice hitting the homepage I am inviting you to contribute to this discussion by adding a specific post on your blog, which I can then link to from the homepage.

Any contributions to this will be gratefully received. Please let me know by email when you have made your post.

With kind regards,

Andrew


Like my imaginary Vampire cowboy (previous post) I often feel slightly uncomfortable when defining my practice. Explaining what I do doesn't come easily to me and I don't like the words that we are asked to use. 'Practice' seems poncey, 'work' a bit desperate. If pushed, like many artists I do like to hide in the third person and try to come up with a Blairian soundbite, something vaguely descriptive but which doesn't commit me to too much. Some years ago now I produced the tag-line "Alex Pearl makes things and then films them before they fall apart", (not exactly catchy I know) I had to leave it behind when I started to do more things and some of them didn't fall apart. Then I went with something along the lines of  "his work deals with chance and the things he doesn't do very well" I like not doing things very well, it seems to be the artist's prerogative and has allowed me to paint, dance, make sculpture, films, even write. I see that a bastardization of these phrases still head my writer description for this blog, though I have changed to a suggestion that things are beyond my control. Lack of control has become central to my practice (feel the quality of that phrase). Like an extremely unsexy Vicomte de Valmont I constantly excuse my actions by my inability or unwillingness to govern them. When I received Andrew's email asking me (and I assume many others) to respond to the questions: "Have you ‘found your practice’? What factors make this problematic? Are they external or internal? What is a ‘true practice’ any way..?" I began to think that my avoidance tactics were somehow born of the constant demands on artists to provide reasons for what they do.

view complete post at www.thepearlfisher.blogspot.com

# 14 [5 August 2009]

03/08/09

The Train to Leicester was very full. I had had to delay my journey a couple of days due to industrial action and was beginning to wonder if many of my fellow passengers would have preferred to have been on that canceled train. To make us feel sympathetic to the rail workers cause we were subjected to a two carriage train with no working toilets and a haphazard reservation system which meant that more than once new passengers had to  negotiate to attain their allotted seats. After a bad tempered journey I was met by Eric who hefted my bags into his estate with preternatural strength. I was in Leicester to make a film for the opening of Eric's new gallery and studios The Great Central. The idea was that I would document the space using my Automatic film kit prior to its destruction and rebirth as a gallery. I didn't realise how pressing the refit was until I announced I had finished filming. With a large sledgehammer and a manic gleam Eric and  Steve (who had seemed very calm and gentle up to this point) attacked a dividing wall with great gusto. Within five minutes the whole gallery space was opened up and the floor looked surprisingly like an installation I had seen in San Francisco early this year.

I am home now mulling over two hours of video that i must somehow craft into three short films. Whitstable must, temporarily, be pushed to the back of my mind although some ideas to do with performing women, vampiric control and magic are beginning to fester there.

# 15 [6 August 2009]

Thwarted by the train strikes I will not be attending For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn at g39 in Cardiff. (www.g39.org) This is rather disappointing as I was quite looking forward to spending an evening in the binge drinking capital of Europe. However I have been invited to be in conversation with someone (as yet unconfirmed) at Axis' Café Artistique in that very same city in September. I am perturbed at the number of 'in conversations' I have to do in the next few months as I am not sure I have that much conversation to go around.

# 16 [13 August 2009]

Email received while in Cornwall:

Dear Alex,
Upon my return from the Basque country to the Island of Great Britain, I stumbled across something that you may or may not have heard
about. It was through researching my current fixation of bodily hair and fur that I read with much excitement about the Greek Isalnd of
Santorini. In reading this information I thought of you and your current obsession with Vampires. I do hope this will enlighten you.

An interesting description of the process by which a victim of vampire becomes a vrykolakas from a priest on the island of Crete was
published in 1898 :

"It is a popular belief that most of the dead, those who have lived bad lives or who have been excommunicated....become vrykolakes; that
is to say, after the separation of the soul from the body there enters into the latter an evil spirit which takes the place of the soul....
it keeps the body as its dwelling place, and it runs swift as lightning wherever it lists....And the trouble is that it does not remain
solitary, but makes everyone, who dies while it is about, like to itself, so that in a short space of time it gets together a large train
of followers. The common practice of the vrykolakes is to seat themselves upon those who are still asleep and by their great weight to
create an agonizing sense of oppression. There is great danger that the sufferer might himself expire, and himself too be turned into a
vrykolakas....This monster, as time goes on, becomes more audacious and blood-thirsty, so that it is able to devastate whole villages."
This quote is found in "Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion" by John Lawson, and in "The Vampire in Europe" by Montague
Summers.
I particularly enjoyed the idea of the Vrykolakes using their body weight to sit upon their victim until they too became a vampire. There
is alot of information to be had about them.
I do hope you and your companion are enjoying Cornwall.
Much Love to you both, Hayley xx

# 17 [17 August 2009]

Whilst holidaying in Cornwall, between large meals and some desultory swimming, I set about organising my affairs. We had planned a sort of Hammer Horror tour; apparently a Zombie film had been made in one of the local quarries. But apart from an overwhelming feeling of death at Mousehole  and an extremely bizarre dog show there were no signs of the living dead anywhere. I soon became distracted by other things, mainly trying not to make a noise while going to the toilet. Normally this is not a huge problem but the B&B where we stayed had little soundproofing and our toilet was directly above the breakfast table.

I have been “organising my affairs” largely by making lists and then remaking them adding new things each time, it is an endless task as more items are added before the list is ever cleared.

Transcribed from notebook (16/08/09)
Edit films for The Great Central – make three? Triptych?
Do drawings + invoice
Choose film for Cell outside screening, automatic??? Stars???
Bath Show, do plan, DO PLAN, edit writing, new film?? “in conversation” – look up JJ
Cardiff in conversation look up Plowman? Talk about what??
Write blog
Invoice Leicester
Invoice Bedford
Ideas for Whitstable??
Instructing assistant to fly planes, sing, do magic
Pebbles film - ? made -  any good?
Pepper’s ghost
The Bingo Caller
Display locations – seaside telescope (ebay?) – pub?, Theatre? Need another visit?

# 18 [17 August 2009]

After Cornwall I had planned to travel north to visit my parents. My journey began badly as I lost a day stranded in a small village in Suffolk. Buses failed to turn up and trains were cancelled due to industrial action. Despite leaving at five I was still without transport by ten and gave up. It seems the further east I go the worse public transport becomes. The following day I did finally manage to catch a train north. My itinerary was to take me via Peterborough, Doncaster and Stoke on Trent. However, it soon became apparent that Doncaster was closed to me and I would instead be going to Nuneaton. It was while waiting in one such station that I received the news that my mother had taken ill and been rushed to hospital.

# 19 [18 August 2009]

My mother sits next to her bed relatively hale and hearty next to her cadaverous roommates. They seem paler every time I visit. She delightedly told me that the “vampires” had visited earlier but had passed her by; I hope they continue to do so.

Letter received Monday 17th August

Dearest Alex

I lived with three people in Newcastle for a while in a place called Fenham. It’s the place I told you about-I wanted to live there-there were pretty Victorian villas with names such as Sydney Grove and a shop that sold beadies (Indian twig cigarettes-that I had first tried in New York) and it seemed exciting to me. The first time we went there to look at the house-I looked out of a bedroom window and saw a man running down the back street holding a TV.

Anyway two of my flatmates came very close to one another and I with the other-we sort of split off maybe because of the dynamic of living with three others that’s the natural way it works out. The two who worked together adopted the sort of parent role and bought proper food from Marks & Spencer and my friend (Peta) and I where the sort of annoying naughty irresponsible scatty ones that got on the others tits.

One time when Jamie my then boyfriend was staying with me the tow other flatmates (who I will call the parents from now on) claimed that they had both felt a terrible spirit in the form of a heavy weight on their chests just as they woke up.

A hippy meeting of the type I had come to loathe after my brief stay in a commune in France, ensued where we had to touch a papier-mâché chilli pepper when we wanted to talk as no ‘talking stick’ was available. It was decided by the parents that we would have a ‘cleansing ritual’ and that as Jamie had brought the bad spirit it he had to carry the ‘smudge stick’ as you are not and have never been a hippy I will have to explain that this is a bundle of rosemary and cleanses bad energy.

This all makes me sound very cynical-but as you know I am the most credulous person alive.

Here are some accounts of the ghostly feeling of pressure on the chest I found when I looked on the web…

“I went to bed with a good book and eventually drifted off to sleep. Some hours later I awoke unable to breathe. I could see that a ghostly figure was sitting on my chest! There was an immense weight pinning me to the bed. I thought I was dying by having the breath squeezed out of my body. Somehow I managed to throw myself out of bed and staggered downstairs gulping in air as I went. I never slept there again...

read the full post at: www.thepearlfisher.blogspot.com

# 20 [20 August 2009]

Last night a bird flew into my window. It was some sort of dove or pigeon or something very like, I think, because it left a perfect greasy imprint of its body on the glass. One wing was outstretched in full flight and its head turned sharply to the left on impact. I asked my assistant to hold a piece of black card outside in order that I could record the pitiful pattern of feathers on my phone. It looked like a ghost, which proved to be accurate as we later found its body in the grounds.

While away I have received a number of messages from my companion. It seems that she has been suffering from a number of fainting fits, I fear anaemia and have asked her to see the doctor. She also sent me a strange Vampire story set in a hospital, it was written by an old friend of hers.

It occurred to me that most Vampire films feature a book, which the hero reads to explain what is going on. Usually after an extremely stupid phase our hero realises that the sudden deaths due to exsanguination are somehow linked to the tall pale man with blood on his chin. That is one of the reasons I like the films they have a built in inevitability that reminds me of the everyday. The book also (usually) contains further information as to how the fiend may be despatched. It’s all quite straightforward really.

The books I am currently reading include Graham Greene’s Travels with my Aunt and The Third Man. The first was recommended, perhaps for obvious reasons, the second I’ve wanted to read for a long time. I saw the film many years ago after a trip to Vienna with my parents. It was a good film but recently the book has come to interest me more as: “it was never written to be read but only to be seen”. It is a secret, phantom novel, an eminence grise for the film, or at least it was for a little while, my copy was published in 1950.