→ continued from above
A lot of funny anecdotes exist about my great-aunts, with a patronising bias, rendering them slightly ridiculous, even tragic figures, partly because they were spinsters, partly because their peculiar habits and idiosyncrasies now seem odd, and very old-fashioned. The way I have them walk in and out of fairy tales isn’t much different. Time to picture them as competent, professional women: Tante Maja taught at primary school, having a way with young children; Tante Frieda taught teenage-boys, and had their respect. Both loved their work, thrived. I wished I could describe them better, do them justice, in real terms: When it counted they made courageous decisions, small ones in the greater scheme of things, maybe, but I admire them for the stand they took. They never worked again.
* * *
I have just listened for the third time to David Grossman talking about writing, listening, engaging, opening to an other. ‘This is what books are for, to unearth you all the time, the writer and hopefully also the reader, to take them to places where in your normal protected life you do not dare to go.’ And: ‘Art is the best way I know for us to scratch a little this hermeneutic exteriority of death. It is the only way we can feel things and their loss simultaneously.’
* * *
As you know several of my pieces are in the exhibition STRAND. Hair in contemporary art practice, at Oriel Wrecsham. For tomorrow, 19 March, a Creativity and mindfulness seminar has been organized, an event which will include talks and practical activities relating to how artists balance their practice with health and well-being. I will not be there in person, but my DVD Lying low and reaching high: On practising art and living with ME, made 2010, will be shown.
