Fortune’s Pawn

“Onion forced to cancel entire Michael Jackson parody issue!”

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Across the courtyard I spied her

Her red mane of hair falling

across broad shoulders

She stood before the stove

Her over-sized Tee shirt

slipping off her right shoulder

and riding, enticingly, up her left hip

She was oblivious to any onlooker

as she dipped her fingers into the pot

she pulled up a big bundle

of “straw and hay” as the

Italians would have it.

A great fistful of pasta,

and then threw her head back;

that great red mane of hers

flowing down

She dropped the pasta

into her mouth

I longed, in that moment,

to be that pasta

to have that final moment

to know where I would go

to go into her throat

I still miss that

now

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A trip to the Racine Art Museum last night provided insight into the monumental work required to exhibit monumental work.  In this case the program was the first 2009 installment of “Meet Me on the Patio,” a summer series of members and visitors events.  The subject of the program last night was Living Large - backstage at RAM, which focused, through the compelling tour discussion of David Zaleski, on the issues and labors involved with producing an exhibit like Bigger, Better More: The Art of Viola Frey, currently on display in RAM’s gallery 3.

Zaleski’s talk provided wonderful insight into the suffering of a curatorial assistant and great enlightenment as to the procedures, methods, and issues involved in dealing with any large exhibit, but especially in dealing with an exhibit of the large.  Some of Frey’s pieces are so large they may require 30 or 40 or more crates just to move.  Several semi-trailers were involved with this show, not to mention the flights back and forth for the specialists involved, the couriers, etc.

All in all a lovely evening at RAM|Art.  Programs like this are an invaluable part of the mission of any art museum, but especialy one which, like RAM, focuses on crafts and their more accessible nature.  It also engenders thoughtfulness on the part of the casual visitor when they know more of what goes on behind the scenes to get great art in front of them.

Hats off to RAM|Art and to David Zaleski for his great talk.

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Flying high above the western coast of Ireland seems as good a time as any to start to write the epilogue of my most recent pilgrimage to London; Succour to the soul.

In music a coda is a little slice of notes, typically central to a main or secondary thematic element, which you are informed will return, come back, later in the piece. The double dots, the colons, at each end of the phrase, warn the musician of this fact so that when the time comes she will know where to return. In the software world this is called a loop, a subroutine, a goto. A little bookmark which allows the interpreter or compiler to keep track of the various nested functions and operations which all play into the symphony, the programme, the life upon which the guiding hand of fate has fallen at this moment.

My life of late has been replete, resplendent with coda in all form. The rose garden, for the purposes of this essay, shall be our outermost coda. In programming terms it is our “main loop.” An “Object Oriented” programmer would refer to this as the “event loop.” (and aren’t we all a little object oriented these days?). In musical terms it is our over-arcing theme. Then there is the magical East End, its currents run strong in this musical programme which has accompanied my life these past four weeks; a life lived within the confines of that tempo of weeks; discrete units of life upon which the fates have chosen to act, separating each part and portion of my life from the next, so better to orchestrate the melodies and harmonies, the building crescendo and the diminishing decrescendo, which comprise our souvenir symphony in four movements this past month.

There are those galleries, theatres, neighbourhoods and parks to which I return, again and again, in little loop-de-loop flourishes within the greater piece, little musical cul-de-sac; programmatic tight loops which allow for some minor variable to be recalculated or some sum to be tallied. These are the elements which make the life interesting not just for the subject (or is it object) but for those who choose to look over the virtual shoulder and pour over the digital entrails left in documentary form upon the ether which now constitute such a large portion of our record.

But are there not some other, more subterranean coda? Have we not my return, again and again to the East End, site of my father’s upbringing? My incessant desire to revisit his formation, his formative era to find his epoch. Isn’t there, too, the repeated loop-de-loop of my own little operas, my own cycles of being. There are so many little loops and coda here that to draw a map wouldn’t we end up with the tracings upon my soul of so many curlicues we would have the psychic equivalent of a Dryden Goodwin photo?

Whilst one is within the score of this souvenir symphony, within the source code of this peripatetic programme, one quickly loses the perspective necessary to perceive the tight little nests or sprawling cloverleaf interchanges of cause and counter force, of motivation and reaction, of intent and sentiment which all either choreograph or dance to the music of the month gone by.

I, as the sole soul to have experienced this little portion of “reality” am left now, at the altitude of 30 thousand feet, to look back down through the mists and clouds of memory to the patchwork fragments left behind in act, deed and word, and try to reassemble and reassess what really happened over the past four weeks. More important, however, than what really happened is the question, thus far unasked, what does it mean?

There is, of course, much meaning within these coda, these loops, these cul-de-sac. The tea leaves, the rose petals, the leavings behind through which we must dredge. The rose garden, then, has many constructors, initiators, events, notes. We started our little trek in London with a visit to the rose garden, X and I. We marvelled in the rich blooms gracing that May Day, and admired even those bushes still in bud and not in bloom. In our repeat, A and I on that penultimate evening in London, visited a rose garden which was at once the same and different. Yes the bushes were the same, they were the same ones which captivated my father as a child and as a young man, for that matter, but the blooms were different, nearly four weeks later. We, I, saw two little snap shots in time as the swooping of this souvenir symphony took us around once again to the same garden but displaced enough along the time line, the Z axis, as to see an entirely different visual feast. To dine, as A might have it, on a different flavour of visual food.

The dance within that rose garden, the parrying and dodging, was not that too just another repeat, another coda? There is little in our modern lives which is truly new, so many variations on the themes that are our lives. Add a new ingredient, a new foil or foible, and we have a new circumstance but is it truly a new reality?

Nearly twenty years ago I penned a reflection on reflection. I documented my tendency to document. My “Letter to the reader” set forth my observation that my incessant observation of my own life, for the purposes of later writing it down, had lead to what I dubbed “Documentary Living.” Was I not now, in reflecting on that reflection, simply adding a new coda to the coda? Creating what in software parlance is called an infinite loop? Is this the classical snake eating its own tail, and will surely lead to no good end…or no end??? Or is this merely recursion, recursive - to write over…or to overwrite???

X was the original reader of that particular letter; X with whom I visited the rose garden on day 1. I discussed it on day 24 with A, who was intrigued by the epistemology of my record, and then returned to that same (or was it different) rose garden with her on day 27. Did I close a loop or create an echo, a reflection? I then wrote about that visit to the rose garden with A, thus creating another loop or another reflection? Has an error condition arisen? Must I abend? Is a reboot necessary? Or have I simply imposed a Fibonacci series upon the equation, turning the endless loop into a spiral? A golden section?

These currents are treacherous, are they not. In 1927 a young Alec Bernstein, whilst swimming in the waters off Dover was caught in treacherous currents and nearly swept out to sea. 82 years later his son returned to that place and while staying clear of the waters was caught in the currents of air and nearly blown off the pedestrian pier. Returning to London those spirals of fate, those echoes of history, those reflections and reverberations through the timeline continued into the galleries of Whitechapel where a young Alec had played as a boy, and learnt as a young man, surrounded by one of the most turbulent eras in art history as the modern age was born just down the street and to the right. What was the future for him is treated in historical retrospect for me. He looked forward and I look back along the same skein of historical yarn, each knot along that invisible thread representing for him a future possibility and for me an historical certainty.

“The theme of the trip seems to keep returning to migrations, minglings and explorations.” wrote X on Day 20, then stateside, upon reading another entry in the continual diary. Indeed, yet another set of loops and coda, as I migrate back, again, to my birthplace, and back to the rose garden, and back to the Up Market and back to mingling with new friends and new surrounds, old stomping grounds become newly familiar avenues as I explore those streets and mews that Alec once explored. I retell stories of family lore to a new audience, but are the stories made new when heard by new ears?

Last year the trip to London began with a painful memory, a memory with which I had lived for over thirty years without ever speaking or writing about, and not just writing about it but publishing it in a forum where it could be read by anyone. It ended with a frightening dream on my final night in the Big Smoke, which left me moving through the flight home like a zombie until I wrote it all out in the air over Nova Scotia and posted it, as I always do, to that great psychotherapist in the ether, my blog. Thus revealed, naked to the world, I hoped to cleanse myself of whatever guilt I felt over the emotions which had laid buried for so long.

This year, as the final day approached, I felt a building trepidation of that particular coda; I did not want to relive the psychic torment of that dream and the draining effect of writing it all down. That cathartic coup-de-gras never did come. I slept well last night. So was I free of the demons which led last year to such a painful disruption, a jarring of the snow globe, a skip in the record of my souvenir symphony? No, for in the absence of that loop, that coda, I was left to examine all those loops and coda still remaining. It is the exception, so it would seem, which proves the rule.

Batteries wane, and so do I. I shall set this aside, then, and put the computer back under the seat in front of me. When I am home again (another loop?) I will extract this little piece of the owners manual of my life and once again put it on display for you, the reader, to ponder, in yet another letter. Another coda. Another loop. But I do regress…

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Don’t have time for a long post, but just wanted to fill in the gaps of the last few days.  Went shopping with L during the day, then to the Ceremony Of The Keys at Tower of London Tuesday night with L and her brother and sister in-law.  Lovely time.  Some pictures here.

Yesterday had work to do, but then got together with A for another visit to the St. Pancras Church Crypt Gallery, and then a lovely long stroll through Regent’s Park where A played with the digital SLR and took gobs of photos of the flower gardens.  I took plenty as well.  They’re all here, not sufficiently edited for A’s taste, but that’s life.  I’ll get around to editing when I get back home.

Had nice dinner at Base, on Baker street, and then walked back east on Marylebone Road/Euston Road, viewing public art and public spaces along the way, to the British Library where we said our farewells.  It’s always nice to make a new friend while travelling.

This morning meant packing and tidying up, and then some errands.  First back to get some shots of some of the places A and I went last night, to get better shots in the daylight.  Then down to St. Pans Crypt again to settle the purchase of a print by Emma Gregory

Emma Gregory - Wish You Were Here (2008)

and a sculpture by Claire Plamfreyman.  There are some shots of Claire with her lovely piece, Short Story: Volume One, 2009 in today’s gallery here.

Clair Palfreyman with her piece Short Story: Volume One (2009)

Short Story: Volume One (2009)

Now off to meet L for some shopping at Harrod’s.  I’ve never been there.  Later dinner with L and her sibs, and a visit to Embassy Row to see the fancy homes.

Tomorrow I leave my Original Home Town, and my new friends, A and T & J behind again, hopefully not for too long this time.  I hope to be back in autumn…

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Nothing like a little light theatre to cap off an exceptional day of art in London.  Well, light theatre is not what the Old Vic had in store for L and I last night.  The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov is currently in repertory with The Winter’s Tale by Shakespeare as part of The Bridge Project put together by Sam Mendes, director, and Kevin Spacey, Artistic Director of The Old Vic, along with Brooklyn Academy of Music and Neal Street Productions.

The large international cast includes people Americans would find familiar, such as Ethan Hawke and Rebecca Hall, as well as those familiar to Brits, such as Simon Russell Beale and Sinéad Cusack.

The script, in a new version by Tom Stoppard, is accessible and fluid.  The acting is superb and top notch.  The costumes, by Catherine Zuber were an absolute delight.  Paul Pyant’s lighting lovely.  Anthony Ward’s set, however, left me cold.  The house at The Cherry Orchard, where all of the action takes place, is as much a character in the play as anyone on stage, and yet in Ward’s set it is cold and distant.  Why, I find myself wondering, are these people so in love with this house?  I would be glad to be done with it.  Oh well, write it off to the constraints of repertory, I suppose.

It was a brilliant night at the theatre, in any event, and well worth the price of admission.  We had tenth row seats, which were a great vantage point.

I must mention the creative use of an “Aluminium Harp” by the musical team.  This instrument is basically a selection of aluminium rods of varied length and is played by the harpist sliding their resined finger tips up and down along the lengh of the rods.  This produces a ghostly continuous tone, used to great effect within the soundscape of the production.

Homeward after the show, stopped for a quick pint at the Lord John Russell before last call.

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A gallery favourite of mine is the Wellcome Collection. They have opened some new galleries and expanded others. Last year featured an extensive exhibition on the science and social norms of sleep. This year brings us madness, specifically Madness & Modernity: Mental illness and the visual arts in Vienna 1900 as well as Bobby Baker’s Diary Drawings: Mental illness and me, 1997-2008.

Madness & Modernity examines the role that mental illness had in the arts and architecture associated with the Secessionist movement in Austrian arts arising in Vienna at the turn of the last century.  I really took to this exhibit, which included some wonderful examples of the architecture of Otto Wagner, specifically St. Leopold’s Church:

The final church was not quite to this spec, but quite impressive.

Also featured were some of the furniture, fixtures, equipment and textiles.  I love this textile by Joseph Hoffman, called Sehnsocht or “Longing”

Here is some of the therapy equipment:

There is also a large selection of artwork by patients and of patients, in The Pathological Artist and The Pathological Patron sections of the exhibit.  Here is a sample, Portrait of Lotte Franzos by Oskar Kokoschka:

Next door is the Bobby Baker diary drawings, and they are something else!  This is an exhibit that X would have loved to see, and I wish they had an exhibit catalogue that I could bring back, but alas there is none.

Bobby Baker is a performance artist, and quite a successful one.  Over about a decade, from 1997 to 2008, however, she battled mental illness.  During this time she filled dozens of sketch books with daily drawings and paintings as a sort of therapy.  About one or two hundred of these are on display in this exhibit, and they provide a chilling and yet affirming window into the soul of someone sick.  Here is a small sample.  I really recommend checking out the rest of the images online:

Ta!

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“The Best Art Exhibition in London” is what I enthusiastically wrote in the guest register at Tales From The Electric Forest in the Saint Pancras Crypt Gallery. On display only until May 31^st, this is a must see exhibit for anyone within the 30 boroughs. Please check out the website as well.

I visited St. Pan’s crypt last year and quite enjoyed both the space and the art. Black Apple and Cactus Productions have teamed up with 15 artists to present an exhibition of painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media, prints, etc. which embrace and embellish the special venue the crypt provides.

I knew from the first, when I saw one of Clare Palfreyman’s pieces in a small alcove in the crypt entryway

I next encountered the works of sisters Claire Benson and Amy Nightingale:

“These winged spirits seize the jewellery of human adulteresses, and leave their prizes in the bedrooms of those who have been deceived” says a small plaque. We see several more of the sisters mythical beings trapped under glass throughout the crypt. Check out their website.

There are large grey plants growing out of the rubble in another small alcove in the crypt entry, sculpture by Lizzie Cannon which looks for all the world like it is, or recently was, a living plant.

Other pieces by her are spread about the exhibit space.

Emma Gregory offers up a selection of screen prints including Wish You Were Here

Katharine Fry produced a live performance for the opening, which I unfortunately missed, but left behind a mystery of flower petals graffiti and a birdcage in one of the inner crypt chambers. The graffiti, especially, caught my eye. On each of the three walls of the small central chamber the same phrase would be repeatedly scrawled. One wall read, “Every day I write your name on a piece of paper and eat it.” The next read, “One day I’ll be a murderess” and the last reads, “I count to a thousand but think of you again.”

Tom G Adriani presents us with paintings and small etchings accompanied by verse. I was particularly touched by this one, The Cat Hag:

The bedraggled form of the old cat hag

in her tattered dreaded locks

A blackened crumbling wedding dress

in a washed out Tiffany’s box

We see her every now and then

with flowers in her hair

A flash beside the motorway

or spiralling subway stairs

Pushing her shopping cart

gazing at the stars

Weaving slowly and gingerly

through lines of smoking cars

I wonder why cats follow her
I wonder where she sleeps
I wonder why when she smiles

it looks as though she weeps

Tom G Adriani - The Cat Hag

He has many other pieces up, including several large narrative pieces.

Lucy Harvey has made an installation in one of the inner chambers, The Backstreet Dentist and Other Stories

which is a little frightening, if you ask me, but captivating as well. I had the pleasure of meeting Ms Harvey during my visit, and purchased one of her booklets featuring her work.

Nazir Tanbouli has a wide selection of paintings up, including some large cubistic wall hangings in the final chambers of the crypt, which are quite stunning (I know, I know, I was saying some anti-cubism things just days ago).

Okay, I’ll stop. I just had to share my joy at having seen this show. I will be watching some of these young artists as their careers develop.

Ta!

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Okay, this is The hot ticket right now, Sir Ian McKellen as Estragon and Patrick Stewart as Vladimir in the Samuel Becket classic, Waiting For Godot.

I managed to capture a returned ticket to the Sunday matinée performance, and dutifully trudged across from Covent Garden station to the Haymarket in ample time for 3:00 curtain.  I even purchased a programme, which I only rarely do.

It didn’t help.

Not much.

My review?  WTF!?

It was a brilliant performance, but I would be lying if I claimed I understood it all.  This was not a uviversal reaction.  My seatmate was in rapture throughout the piece, and explained that having read the script several times, and seeing other performances and a film version, with this staging it finally all made sense to her.

Lucky duck.

The staging was beautiful; set, lights, soundscape, all spot on.  The individual performances were all top notch.  Simon Callow brings a special brilliance to Pozzo and Ronald Pickup tackles the most difficult role of Lucky with applaum.  I must say that McKellen & Stewart’s chemistry was a special delight.

I will have to think more about this show before it all really sinks in.

Home again to a mindless night of telly.  “Britain’s Got Talent” indeed.

Ta!

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My favourite black jacket ruined at Parliament Square, I repaired to Up Market to see if I could find a replacement. Last week I met Anne here, and in addition to buying some shirts from her I saw some very clever men’s jackets with screen printing on them. The artist is Gerry Buxton, a friend of Anne’s who makes tee shirts and other menswear with the prints. He also screen prints clothing for other designers. In the case of the jackets, he does the screen printing for Reg, who re-tailors the jackets to his own design.

On way to Up Market I went one stop further than necessary so I could take a stroll through Whitechapel. Took some nice snaps along the way:

At the market, I found Gerry’s pitch soon enough, and quickly met Gerry, himself. We had a nice chat and he found some good shirts for me, proper size and all. Unfortunately, Reg wasn’t around. Must have taken off for Bank Holiday weekend. Drats!

Went and queued for a Paul Smith warehouse blow-out sale next to the market. Had to ask what the folks were queuing for, Brit’s will queue for anything. It’s a bit of a national joke, celebrated here in The Waiting, a Singled Out Experimental Winner at the 2009 Signature Photography Awards show:

Tim Bowditch - The Waiting

Nothing at Paul Smith for me, so back into the market and a nice visit with Anne, who suggests that I take up salsa dance.  Salsa seems to be all the rage here, Anne is not the first enthusiast I have encountered.  Must consider this.

Leaving the market I strolled back down to Fourneir Street and over to Spitalfields Market to see if I could find a jacket there. Didn’t find one, but did find this nice still life:

Still life with typewriter and accordian

I saw a gentleman in the crowd wearing a perfect jacket, but couldn’t get cose enough to ask him where he got it. After a thorough examination of the offerings at Spitalfields I grabbed a slice of pizza from a market vendor and stepped out of the market to the street. Ah, here is the gent with the perfect jacket. I clear my throat, excuse myself and ask him where he got it. He smiles a broad smile and in heavily accented English says, “Italy, very far from here.” Double drats.

I thanked him and returned to the tube and home again. Must get ready for theatre, Waiting For Godot with Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewert.

On the way back up Marchmont street to the flat I take this snap:

Dress Dummy and Seamstress in Window on Marchmont Street

Ta!

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