Still on this planet

Was feeling a bit woozy today so didn’t make it up to The Bargehouse. Fellow student Le sent me some pics though of my work installed. Other people helped hang it and also provided some lighting.

1st chemo yesterday and I’m feeling fine. I can’t quite believe it but there we are. I’ve been up in the office cum studio and working on some small pieces. I never know what titles to give, if at all, and have been toying with the idea of text in some form or other. Also the idea of how text can pick up undrawable narrative.

My partner is fast asleep having promised to walk the dog. The dog has given up thoughts of a walk for now and is lying under my feet asleep. The cats are sleeping. I am the only one awake.

That’s it – date for chemo to start is 28th Jan. I was expecting to feel relieved when I got the date but actually felt anxious, which I suppose shouldn’t have been the surprise it was.

My partner has been great and measured my head for a hat yesterday. Today I’m getting my hair cut short.

I’ve been getting my work ready for the CSM interim show and annoyingly the opening is on 28th so I can’t be there. However, I am going to try to get to The Bargehouse during the week.

My latest drawings continue to some extent with the food theme in that they combine prints using food, e.g. noodles, with drawn lines. The food theme seems quite important somehow though I am only inching towards an understanding of why. One thing I read recently explores the political importance of food.

“As a ritual of integration, the meal, far from being a simple mechanism of automatic consensus, is an instance of negotiation… It can function as a procedure of mobilisaton, allegiance, or reconciliation. … it offers of course a marvelous opportunity for treachery …

Thus eating together is a recurrent means of political participation in all its dynamism, complexity, and even conflctuality.” (from The Illusion of Cultural Identity, Jean-Francois Bayart)

So, no operation next week: chemo first, after a couple more scans. Sigh.

I have done my journal pages for the Alturnertive 100 journals project, which is based on the 1000 journals project in the States. The outcome of the 100 journals project is going to be exhibited at UCA Canterbury from 16 – 20 February.

It has prompted me into thinking I should do a sketchbook again really. I always mean to keep one but abandon efforts after a a very short time. So perhaps a public statement of intent will help.