holding down the muse by her tail…

The absence of private working space is slowing me down enormously. But then I am in India… I sense the envy accross the readership,… and it is hard to explain the frustration of the almost non-existent working progress, due to Indian "professionalism"… and absence of suitable working spaces.

The monsoon rain just started up again a couple of minutes ago and it is starting to dribble water through the roof into the internet cafe… So it is time to shut the laptop lid and come back another time..

…negotiations with the carpenter… …searching for locations……finding out logistical things……little opportunity to write on this blog, but now that I am actively starting work one of the installations this wednesday I will try and communicate a little more…

The artist in India…

So far I seem to have spent most of my time getting over the jet lag, then the airconditioning induced cold, then getting over getting over and then relaxing after all that…

But it is not like I really didn’t do anything at all.I have taken several trips around the city centre back alley ways, around the inside and outside of the fresh produce market, around the pultry section (which nearly made me faint) and have drawn a man I believe may have been dead.. It’s hard to say with the alcohol induced stupor with which people just lay by the side of the road, and look quite dead, unmoving, eyes wide open… And India being as it is, death and life always to be expected in immediate proximity to each other, well it wouldn’t surprise me if the man was actually dead… So anyway: as I made one of the worst drawings I attracted an audience of about 20.. It is not exactly what they expect of me, the very white woman, top sit on a curb stone and draw in amidst the madness that is India.

I have started to scout around for possible materials to work with and collect the first quotes on prices. Drove around some parts of the nearby countryside to look for some locations for some of my work and this evening finally had a meeting with Tina and her husband, who run a local business and who are going to help me locate some people to work with. (i.e. carpenters, tradesmen, ..etc)

So I don’t even know what timescale I am operating on, it would be great to get most of this work realized within the next 3 weeks. As I have a mad urge to take photographs in Varanassi or around Ladakh.. (Two absolutely opposite kind of places, from the descriptions I hear..)

First:tomorrow I will meet the carpenters and see what comes of the encounter. Hopefully it will be stupidly easy and everything will fall into place. But after the show in the Anglican Cathedral I will never again be so naive as to be unprepared for a hard uphill, swimming against the stream struggle…

Salmon-esque….

And now I am 2 days away from the journey to India, where I will make art work… in the monsoon rain….

Next monday I will already go out and commission my mobile gallery and start working on a series of installations.

Internet connections in Mysore / India are reasonably good, so I will post images as I go along.

There isn't a project title, as I am working on 4 projects simultaneously.

I will give everything descriptions and titles throughout the following 4-5 weeks..