How can I sum up my experience? It was huge and with so many intense layers. I am going to have to think about it.
The work. A lot of serious work got done and deeply explored. I was completely immersed in the paintings. It was exhilarating to be able to live with the works the whole time. It was such a rich stupendous, privilege to see and experience so much, such marvels. The people, the culture, the museums were amazingly stimulating. And so kind to me.
The fact that I was there for a finite time, four months, meant that each day, each person and experience was precious, to be grasped. For me and also for the people I met. So it was made the most of and valued.
There was also the tremendous experience of isolation, examining myself, loneliness, questioning, not always easy at all. An image of this could be that I was put into a black dark empty box. At first I could see nothing at all. Gradually I could sense something, and then I got some matches and was able to see glimpses. With the glimmerings I felt more at ease. Then I got a lighter, could see more, and began to make adjustments. With the help of the lighter I found a large bright candle that shone steadily lighting up much more and I began to settle in making a kind of nest. When I was then lent a halogen white light it illuminated brilliantly into many corners that had been unknown before. I became exhilarated and astonishingly happy. I felt I was at home. An exciting fertile interlude unfolded. Then the halogen light's plug was switched off, the candle blown out; I had to leave. My box, that ‘home' is still there, as is the candle and the electricity, but I am not.
I am here in London with the Berlin experience inside me, a high light vision. My perceptions, knowledge and prejudices altered, my vision enlarged. How precisely this will affect my future work I don't know but I shall continue to observe and cherish.
