blog…

In the time I have been offline some exciting projects have begun to line up for the year. Since September I have been very engaged with ‘Pistols and Pollinators’ – a 26 artist poet collaboration organised by Accident and Emergence.

Excerpts from my diary of the project so far……….

22 November 2009. Irritated. I should be at the inaugural meeting of a collaborative art project but am instead taking down an exhibition. It is always thus- too much scheduled for the same day. One of my friends, a printer, has agreed to go in my place. She is interested to meet the poets and will ‘play’ me in the joint activities that are to be held prior to pairing up poet and artist for the project. 23 November. Accident and Emergence- the artists group who are organising the collaboration – send a list of the participants and their websites.Spend hours trawling through them. This should be very special. Some really interesting work here. 1^st December. Accident and Emergence send us the pairings. Having not been at the first meeting I hadn’t realised that those who were had asked to be paired with others. Maybe this is better. No expectations left unmet. No rejection either. So there it is – ‘Rowyda Amin & Franny Swann’

I send her an e-mail:

Hi Rowyda
We are a couple!!!!!!!!!!!
What a fascinating name. I am up to my ears at the moment. This is normal- I can never say no. I want to do everything the world has to offer and then I run out of time and my hair falls out…..I attach a clip from our local newspaper of my trip to Germany – in November. Am now busy running a two week empty shop gallery in Sevenoaks. We only knew we were going to get it last Wednesday; so all a bit full on. Flyer attached.
I am involved in a collaborative book with other artists at the moment and having a crisis about which way to take my work next year……..
Maybe we need to chat on the phone/meet up?
I am out of London but can train it up no problem.
Some of my work is on www.re-title .com…………………
Must go……am going to an artist’s forum tonight.
How exciting.

5th December. An e-mail! She apologises for not being able to get in touch sooner and tells me she is up to her ears doing a PhD. Suggests meeting up and coming up with some ideas. We speak to each other on the phone; non –stop! Rowyda’s PHD is on the Arabic Diaspora. I am thrilled. Much of my work is underpinned by my Jewish heritage, memory, loss and secrets. We talk about our families and secret keeping, about Diaspora and about our work. 19^th December. In our telephone conversation I mentioned an Arabic poem that I love. I send R. the poem: I apologise…… Unaware and unintentionally, my breezes shook your branches and dropped the only flower you’d ever bloomed. HARIM AL- MASSRI.

Well its 2010 and here I am again. I have just re-read my blog. What a strange feeling – mine but not mine, and somehow it all seems such a while ago.

I hadn’t really intended to restart the blog now but a recent interview as the retiring chairman for the South East Open Studios newsletter came out entitled ‘Franny Swann – Artist, aged 56 and a half ’ and then gave the blog address! So now I feel duty bound to re-present myself.

The blog was very much meant to be my tracks in the mud- for me to be able to retrace; the flour in the bag principle.

Well, the big painting got to Berlin and so did I, together with my elderly disabled mother and her carer. We sat together in the front of an audience far larger than I had expected and listened to my Jewish grandfather’s name being recited and his life recounted and I felt humbled. Humbled by those who had lost so much and had turned out on a cold night in old age to see the painting installed and also by all those who have taken on a burden of guilt for a time when they were not even born.

After so much organisation I returned home feeling as though I had lost something, or maybe left something behind – the painting? I don’t know.

The studio was certainly emptier and I celebrated by moving things around. I have hardly been in since. It has been so cold that I have worked from home. Warm, cosy, TV, food, coffee …..but space limited as far as the work goes.

Being cosy seems to affect the work; I get cosy work! Better that I am in the studio slumming it and concentrating on the job in hand. Time to go back; but maybe after the next snows.