Day six
A thinking day, I spent the morning following different leads, the Second Life attempt failed after several attempts to download the new version. One of my ‘avatars’ waits patiently in Help Island, her hair and skirt blowing in the virtual breeze.I have refined my questions to the visitors.
Do you think the people have a voice? Now that you have been elevated to the level of God what would you like to say firstly to me, secondly to me as the artist making this work.There is a pattern forming to the answers.
One of the visitors says to me “If it doesn’t feel right don’t do it”.I paint a little, it feels right. I am learning to use the medium again for the first time in many years. As I do this I can still hear the voice of Gordon Law my first painting tutor he says “plenty more gravy Mary”. I did bring the sketch book from 1979, I did it because it was the first record of me ‘living’ in a gallery as part of the Innsbruck Performance Art Festival with the group Reindeer Werk. I am surprised by the level of thinking and the same struggle is there at the beginning of the process. By the end of it, learning to be aware of living was the resolve. I heard only recently that one of the other young artists on that project committed suicide after it.
This creative life is never one of ease.
There are patterns in the letters in my writing exercises. I am following my instincts, reacting to the rules. It is probably a little too obvious a connection but at this moment it feels right. I have a jotter, I somatically remember to draw my guide lines, one for the base of the letter, one for the height of it, half way up. I didn’t know I had remembered this. Vox Populi, vox dei. It is a command. As I write the command over and over I meditate upon the words. I struggle to write well. I break the words up into letters, there are patterns in the letters, like stitches.
