First week of March or thereabouts...
Nipped back to the Whitechapel and had a cappucinno with Bet after I took a really good second look at Henry Michaux. I say, Terry Frost, you are colour blind and why do you have to paint so big? It doesn't work, sweetie! But then if a man can't paint big well what does that say about the size of his paint brush !
Em is out of hospital and much better. She is really getting into her occupational therapy. Tons of wacky drawings and weird pots. I showed one to N.& D. He looked at it, then muttered something about taxpayer's money and the National Health Service. I didn't pursue it. All I care about is that she is getting better and she is the happiest I have seen her in years. She drops in once a week on her way home from occupational therapy and we have tea and cakes.
G. dropped around last night to watch some really really boring videos on artists' work. Apparently she is giving a lecture about them at the Photographers Gallery this weekend. She came to my house because she was up in town and the lecture was the next day AND she hadn't done a bit of work on the lecture yet. So we sat there and linked a few key phrases together. So much for critical art analysis !
March 17 or thereabouts
I am working on working drawings(?????) for a possible (!!!!) commission through my friend the gay vicar. It's for a glass screen that divides the sanctary from the rest of the building which will be multi-purpose. So I have borrowed various books on Christian mythology and symbols from him to help me with my research. My neighbour, the art historian, says its called a rood screen and that great dissertations have been writen on some more famous ones. I thought about that comment for a while and decided that it wasn't meant as a put down.
However, it would be great if it did come about but there are so many pitfalls involved with commissions that one could land up going completely and prematurely grey before one's alloted time.(Whenever that is???) So I am spending more time than usual researching and drawing before a priminary presentation to the Parish council of the church involved...I hate committees when it comes to making decisions about art...or any major decision for that matter. Except shopping.
I still like the idea that Saint Julian of Norwich had with her little consulting room attached to the church building. Sort of like Lucy in Peanuts. We shall see. Oh well I shall be even a more interesting bore at future dinner parties with all my new found knowledge about symbolism. Of course they are a bit thin on the ground these days ever since near and dear took up golfing. Talk about a killer as a conversation subject among the intelligentsia!
I often wonder what the artists in the Rennaissance went through with the Medicis. Somehow I think Cosimo Medici was a little bit better informed about symbolism and theological ideas than the average congregation in the East End of London. However, it could be a wonderful commission and as I pointed out to the vicar my work will increase the value of their property. He gave me a very long look before he walked away.
March 27
(Back to using real time for the present. Also known as two weeks before Easter).
Went to an Opening at the Royal College of Art last night with California Pearl. The big decision in her life at the moment is whether to rent out her daughter's bedroom now that she is at college. I did point out to her that my God daughter, her little sweet pea, is graduating this year and she is planning to go to graduate school in the States next fall. So it's not that she would feel pushed out of the nest. Besides Cal.Pearl needs the extra money.
"Yes,I know. I just don't want her to feel she is being rushed."
I said nothing as the empty nest syndrom can be a very dangerous thing if not handled properly.
At the show were all these graduates from the University of Alberta. Rooms full of my fellow country men and women have the tendency to make me go immediately anti-national. Luckily I spied my two friends from Cultural Affairs and after the customary muwph! muwph! on each cheek we got stuck into gossip. Not much really to talk about except compare our various bodily failings and different treatments. Which is very little as far as I am concerned but I am shocked to say that arthritus is a big problem among many of my aquaintances. Personally I don't have a problem but M.,who is very short and looks like a Jewish Mickey Mouse (HIS words not mine) has just had a hip replacement because of it. Well that sent Cal.Pearl off into a frenzy of medical advice and chit chat. I left and came back two drinks later to find them still wagging on, so I said, I was going. It's depressing enough that most of your contemporaries look like prunes because they never use enough moisturiser but to then have to listen to failing bodily functions and comparative notes on the best course of action at an opening is just too much. Take me shopping any day!!!
As far as the art goes well.....The RCA print students work looks like they are trying too hard to be interesting and witty and with it. It just doesn't work. The print dept hasn't been that great for years. The work from the University of Alberta students looked like it had a bit more intellectual integrity going on in it. But just a bit. It is difficult to find it in most art works these days mind you. I found the way back to the tube without getting lost this time. G. is coming over tonight to pick up her birthday present.
Last week of March
G. loved her birthday present of a very lovely lipstick in a flash case. She whizzed in for a few nano seconds before disappearing again. She is so busy these days between her job in outer suburbia, the newest boyfriend and writing for magazines. The last is one of her newest ploys to find work in central London. I fear the suburban mind set is not to her liking.
Bet, on the other hand, is wining and dining with the best of them. I am forever getting little droppings of gossip about the gliterati of the art world that she hobnobs with these days. Especially since she will be on the the panel to chose next year's Turner prize winner. Of course this means that she has to go to every show of any importance around the country and the dinners that follow. Life is so tough for some people !
Meanwhile the 'ordinary' artist in her studio plods on without any heating as I am so broke. N and D will not help me with my studio rent. He says "Sink or swim " and goes on reading the paper.
Met Cal.Pearl again at the Patrick Caulfield show to which I took my mature students. Afterwards she and I went to the National Film Institute to see The Thin Man one of my favourite movies of all time. The spring night was so warm that we sat on the terrace overlooking the Thames and watched London at night while sipping our cappucinos.(which are cheaper than alcohol as we are both very broke) Just gosipping and discussing who was coming over to my house for Easter Sunday lunch made everything seem so wonderful. We both wished that we could win the lottery just to go wild shopping at Harvey Nichols once more, both of us having a self-imposed exile from this shop for five years now. We cannot be responsible adults with our credit cards and cheque books once we walk in the doors of that building !
Bank holiday Monday
Everything happens at once. War breaks out in Europe with the largest exercise in ethnic cleansing since the World War II and both my cats succumb to cat flu. I finally had a long and well over due phone call from Em's father. He was very upset that I hadn't telephoned him about the state his daughter had got herself into.
"Why didn't you phone me instead of some stranger called K?".
I groaned. K was an artist that I knew from years ago that worked with Em. He is a manic depressive and permanently on lithium but sometimes he takes himself off it. I just hoped he had been on it when he talked to her father. As to why she had asked him to break the news to her dear old dad and not me or even the new boyfriend, just goes to show what strange logic had been running through her mind. I had a good long talk with him, filling in all the details as far as I knew them. Explaining along the way that the whole episode had taken us by surprise as much as anybody. She had kept to herself in her depression and had not returned many of our telephone calls for several months before she finally committed herself. I tried to explain, in an attempt to clarify my lack of communication. I also realised he was not aware of the new boyfriend situation. "Let her do it !" I thought "She has been lying to everyone including herself for such a very long time that only she knows what reality she has created."
Last night after all our guests had gone after our huge Easter meal, nearest and I were walking to some friend's house two streets away for some after dinner drinks, when I burst into a little Cole Porter number filling in forgotten words with la,la,lally and more la,la and so forth. "You sing just like Babe the pig !" he said very solemnly. Well, how good can life get I ask you! The spring sky was filled with fresh stars, a human tragedy of biblical proportions unfolds in the Balkans and my dearest says I sing like a movie star who just happens to be an animated pig.
April 8th, I think
The war in the Balkans gets more mediaeval by the day. How do we human beings manage to be so crazy ? Makes one dread the next millennium! Bet has been faxing drafts of her introduction for a catalogue for me to comment on. So much so that I have had to replace one roll of fax paper already. For some strange reason she has lost her confidence lately. I wonder if it has anything to do with the man situation in her life? One can never be to sure of getting any information out of her about the men in her life. Its like prizing an oyster open. Tough going but well worth it!! So I press on with determination.
Spent a lovely day with my Godson, Dee Dee's little boy. She and I had disparaging talks about his father who never pays the maintenance money on time. On one hand, he declares that they are the most important things in his life and then, on the other hand, says he has no money to help pay for the mortgage or food. This is all said while he chainsmokes, stinks of drink and has all the latest magazines in front of him. I took over a bag of groceries when I went to visit as I was worried that she wasn't eating properly. This worry has been on my mind lately as she has lost a lot of weight and is always ravenously hungry. I have seen this phenomenon happen with another friend several years back who had so little money that she ate almost nothing just so her children ate properly. She also had been married to a man that left her for one of his students. Going to court everytime he fucked up with the money wore her out. It ate up her time and energy so that she had very little left for her own art. I somehow think that Picasso never had those problems with the upbringing of his children!!! No wonder it has been so difficult for women to attain such glorious reputations as artists.
On a more mundane level the Ingres exhibition was a real stunner. I adore the way he handles fabric. It's so sexual. The only problem is that I want to see it again and its too expensive at £6 a visit.
April 15.... I think
It's this menopausal thing and the memory.... especially the lack of it. I was talking away at a gallery opening (not even worth mentioning) and turned to introduce G. to my colleague and I couldn't remember G.'s name. My mind went blank. So I called her the great and holy art administrator which only earned me one of her laser glares and a ticking off later. I am investigating Ginko Biloba as a remedy to this affliction.
This is an awful month... I realise I have been going to therapy for three years now. Usually G. and I compare notes on how awful our therapists are or how badly they dress or what awful taste they have in pictures on their walls or even the state of our fluctuating depressions. But having exhausted myself on our mutual bete noir recently I feel a small break through stirring in my soul. Bet says it is probably just my sheer frustration at having lived with Near and Dear for so long that I am finally about to explode with boredom. She got a swift dirty look and I ate the last piece of cake without even offering it to her. However we both agree the best therapy for depression is either a session of cakes and tea at Maison Bertaux or shopping.
April 18th
Made the mistake of doing some art slutting with G. Not the best of people to go with these days. Usually I enjoy it on a rather perverse level in that I get to see a lot of galleries and artists that I wouldn't have on my own but end up being worn out by the sheer land speed record at which it has been achieved. For example, yesterday we managed to pack in seven galleries and revisit the Ingres show as well as buying a £200 suit in the last ten minutes of Jigsaw being open. Then we topped it off by having an argument over which tube to catch home. Which was a non-argument as I live the opposite end of London from her AND she takes the main line suburban line anyway.
We did manage to see a lovely film/installation on Passolini just after we checked out Nicola Farhi's new interior design shop which had G salivating at the mouth. When I pointed out that the table she so coveted was exactly like the one I found in a junk shop and now have in my kitchen, she snapped back that she hadn't noticed because all the clutter obscures it. "Your house needs emptying." She then went on to say
"You have so much clutter I don't know how you live in it."
"Well you don't !! Do you. You live on your own."
I didn't bother to hear her retort as I feigned recognition of some one and walked off. I am really sorry that my house does not have that wonderful clean look of the single dweller. For better or for worse I share it with someone else and several cats as well as a lodger these past few days. This last person is some thing of a necessity to supplement my income. Near & Dear takes to it with great amusement, as she is Japanese and very strange. Not that the two automatically go together but she just happens to be both at the same time. It has proven rather difficult.
The other day I had a neighbour over and was explaining the circumstances behind a mutual friend's husband's breakdown. I had to explain to her that he spent his first five years of his live in a prisoner of war camp. "Well " she said most perplexed. "A prisoner of war camp in Germany. Don't you mean a concentration camp?"
"No, in the far east."
Trying very hard to gestulate behind my lodger's back that she was Japanese by making my eyes stretch upwards with my fingers.
"But " she brayed on "the only camps for civilians in the far East were Ja...", and she suddenly got it. "JJJJ...ust very not well known. Were they?" And then VERY quickly excused herself to the toilet. It is not a well known fact but there are a lot of English families that lost not just men in Japanese camps, but many women and children as well. These were those whose husbands, parents and children who were stationed out in the far East as well and were also taken as prisoners of war. So it was a bit difficult. As this poor man, who is having the breakdown, is well known as well as the current subject of concern and gossip. It only makes me think that the wretched children caught up in the current Kosovo conflict will reap the consequences for years after and perhaps like our neighbour will suffer for many, many years after.
But to go on with the tale of my art travels with G....we stopped off at White Cube, where a very strange show was up. The artist, a man who was into female impersonation to such an extent that he portrayed himself as the pregnant Mona Lisa. The give away was his hands and arms that with no matter how much photo manipulation looked like a bloke's arms stuck onto a woman's body. Talk about jealousy.... the one thing they can't have they envy us for being able to do. As I later said to the B. the transvestite..."Being a woman isn't just dressing like one. It also is a body that has cycles and blood and PMT and occasionally fucks up with miscarriages and pain." It was actually quite revolting to look at. Needless to say after G. started talking shop with the curator on duty, we quickly got out of there. It gave us the shivers. But at the pace we were keeping they didn't last long as we sped towards Frith Street gallery and the Dumas show. Now that is art. The woman can draw like an angel. I would buy one if I had the money!
May 9th
More arguments with Near and Dear. I am, after 50 years on this earth and haven grown up with four brothers, completely convinced that most men want mum back and will take any substitution in any form be it wife, girlfriend or long term partner. Needless to say our current batch of disputes are about this recurring theme of support and sharing household resposibilities. Basically I am too worn out to try and run the house on my own, with all my four part time jobs, as well as trying to sit on the board of management of an artists' organisation that is undergoing crises and trying to be an artist. If N & D is not working all hours, he is in the pub or he is golfing. Anyway you put it, he is terribly busy doing such terribly important things that he can not help in any way and is too tired to have sex. And the little bugger snores! As you can guess, things aren't going too well at the moment.
I had a long conversation about this with K. who has a married boyfriend because she says all the others are wimps. She suggested that I get a sugar daddy. Nice idea, but I am 50 and they may not like one so old. Anyway, my criteria for any lover, fictitious or not is that he's got to be a good kisser. Ahhh! the days of snogging for hours because sex was too difficult in your parent's front room or just too problematic in the backseat of his car at twenty blow zero. There is nothing like a good kisser. I have been thinking of possible candidates since that conversation.
I continued to think about it every time I get a chance and was doing so yesterday waiting for an old friend on the steps of the Tate when I noticed this rather good looking young man waving to me and suddenly realised it was R who I was supposed to meet...He's in town for the weekend and is sleeping on the camp bed in my front room. He has lost weight and has a new hair cut. My heart went all a flutter as I thought wow! It would be great to be seen with him! But he's just an old wonderful friend who is recovering from a disastrous marriage. We had an in-depth gossip after the show in the coffee shop.
The show at the Tate was a knock out. Having spent years looking at Pollock in books, to see such a great selection of his work from dreary beginnings to his wonderful maturity, one just drooled. Definitely worth going back a second time and I will buy the catalogue next pay day.
Oh yeah! The opening at the Whitechapel I went too was fantastic. G's old boss is the new girl on the block there and it was her first show - all about painting. Very tasty indeed!!! Had a wonderful time flirting with a man who I didn't even know his name. I was told I had met him before and in fact I had worked with him on some art committee??? I can not remember that but apparently he does. How strange!!! Will go back this week to look again as the show was rather good. Saw Nick S. from the Tate. He wiggled his eyebrows at me which is always a good sign that he is pleased with the show.
May 20th
Oh happy days! I went to the Luce Irigaray lecture at the Royal College of Art. D actually got me a ticket. They were like gold dust. However the whole episode proved to be a bit of an anti-climax. I should have read up on her latest works just to refresh the old memory on how obscure she can be even to the initiated! Well with bated breath (OPERATIVE WORD THERE - BREATH!) we settled in for the experience of a lifetime. Her text was first in French then a translation in English followed. At first I was convinced that my French wasn't up to scratch but when I listened to the translation I realised that I couldn't follow her argument anyway. In fact by the looks and frowns on everyone else's face nobody else was getting it as well. Then I started to get the giggles. Here was THE most popular and cutting edge philosopher, for not only feminism but philosophy as a whole today, and nobody could understand a word of what she was on about. All I knew was that it had something to do with breath, breathing and trees.???
After she finished her text and questions were asked for from the floor, there was a deathly still silence. D. asked a question on the reason why the masculine gender was used through out. She got a strange answer followed by the traditional Gallic shrug of the shoulders. Most questions that Luce didn't feel like answering or thought too obvious for greater details were met in the same manner and followed by a traditional "c'est pas." It all made me giggle even more. S. who sat beside me and who is a "DR." poked me every time I started. Then she turned to me after another one of the shrugs that followed an even more inexplicable answer and we both mouthed "Hippy Shit!" at each other; which sent me into greater giggles. Of course I was trying to smother all this giggling so as not to appear rude and the only way I could do it was to sink and slump lower into my seat. I finally fell out just at the end as everyone broke up.
Afterwards on the tube home I couldn't stop giggling. Here she was, Luce Irigaray, SPEAKING IN PERSON. Her talk was so opaque that nobody knew what the hell she was talking about. The more I thought about it and all the people who had fought to get tickets, the more I giggled. I think I have a bad attitude problem when it comes to the intellectual pretentiousness of the art world.
Saturday May 22
Horrors of horrors! I went to an opening at the Lux Gallery for the Ulay Vision award for women artists. God, was it bad!!! I should have my mouth washed out for thinking such thoughts but talk about mediocrity. If I see another installation or video that trys to be art and is not as entertaining as a second rate Television advert I shall scream. It was so depressing that I only lasted long enough to tour the show at a very fast gallop and head for the party afterwards. Here I could not find anyone I knew and was about to leave when I heard my name called out.
It was M. who I normally drink with at the Delfina gallery. He handed me a Becks and launched into a moan about the work. Then S. the American curator, grabbed my arm and introduced me to another curator and someone else brushed by and said "Remember me ." And although I didn't, I grinned at the nice young man anyway. Meanwhile M. was chatting me up really seriously and insisting that I bring my evening students to the opening tomorrow night at Delfina as Susan Hiller's show was opening and the drinks and munchies were always great. I was hemmed in from all sides. M was getting really serious about my coming to the Hiller show and was about only twelve inches away and getting closer to me. I was caught in a crosstalk between S. and her friend and the young man, who assumed I knew him, who started asking me about people I didn't know and not waiting for the answers before asking another question. Suddenly I had to get out and tried to excuse myself but I couldn't move and no one could hear me. So I dropped my bag and disappeared after it on all fours. I crawled out between everyone's legs and through the club's doors, past the bouncers and up the stairs.
When I got to the outside doors I straightened up and high-tailed it to the bus stop. As luck would have it, the right bus was pulling up. I raced upstairs and breathed a deep sigh of relief as I sank into a seat.
The next day I wondered about what had happened. Would I have reacted so badly to all those people if I had just seen a wonderful show that had some glimmer of intelligence in it?
Whatever it was, I did not take my students to the Susan Hiller opening, good drinks and munchies or not.
I need a change in my life. A BIG change soon !
Copyright © : n.paradoxa, June, 1999
N.Paradoxa : Issue No. 10, 1999