I saw a piece of dust land on my printer today while I was photocopying a poem to send to a friend. It was shaped like a U, except the upright bits had fallen outwards, as if the U was trying to steady itself. And I thought, I’ve never seen dust land before. So I named that piece of dust Dave and tried to take its photograph, except he’d gone. So here is a photograph of the other pieces of dust he briefly landed among.
Meditation retreat. Five days without TV or phones. Evenings spent in bed, with the curtains open, watching the rainbow on the horizon, flickering chains of lights on distant hills, bats twisting and flapping, mechanical dragons leaving trails of smoke, and a triangle of stars in the corner of the window waiting to appear when it had finally gone dark. (And yes, one photo.) Twas flippin' blissful, except for the arguments with myself :)
My second trip to the Playing with Fire exhibition at the Hepworth.
Axel Salto’s gloriously huge, lumpy pots. Each one like an alien landscape, as if the planet were made of volcanoes and some creature with asbestos fingers had shaped these beautiful forms from hot lava.
And the Hepworth itself, looking moody in the twilight.
My partner and I have been playing the pork chop game in bed, just before sleep. It goes a little like this:
Me: I want to play the pork chop game.
Him: Grumbled refusal.
Me (in the voice of a six year old): C’mon. I want to.
Him: Hello. My name is <insert silly name> and I’m your gameshow host this evening.
Me: Hello. My name is <insert silly name>.
Our sleepy and daft brains come up with random stuff. He’s been Jonny Biscuit. I’ve been Lady Clementine.
Him: Welcome to the pork chop game. Pick box A or box B.
Me: Box A.
Him: You’ve won <insert random object here>.
So far there’s been a gardening pamphlet, a 2x2 red Lego brick, an original Mattel Action Man and a sherbet Dib Dab.
Him: Now, you can gamble your prize to win a bonus prize.
Me (knowing full well what it’s going to be): What is it?
Him: Fifty seven pork chops.
Me: Hooray! Gamble!!
And I always gamble.
Full piece at The Inner Studio ... link in bio.
#play #creativity #noticing
Paper structures constructed from a book on flowers. These bits were offcuts and nearly got tossed. Then I put them side by side and now they're companions for their short (or long) life.
Things I think while making ...
Who am I kidding? This is craft. What's wrong with craft? I should start with something more ugly. Have I ruined it? Why does the back look better than the front? I want to go further, faster, bigger. What if I? Now I've ruined it. What are the ethical and legal considerations in using someone else's images? I don't know what this is. It's stupid. Gah. Gah. Ooh pretty.
For months I walked past the bag of turquoise nurdles in the corner of my office.
Some days I thought: I’ll make something with them.
Other days I thought: just throw them out before they become yet another thing I haven’t done.
Then one day I ordered two hundred 8cm-long cocktail sticks from Amazon.
It was time to begin.
I was thinking back to a mixed media course at City Lit. We’d be given a brief to make something. To play. Build a sculpture out of random objects: I chose penne pasta and coffee stirring sticks. Create something weathered: I wet a collage and sandpapered it. Draw a kitchen implement in motion: a pasta strainer sweeping through the air with a trail of inky splodges. These were the best projects: clear constraints and total freedom.
So I cleared my desk.
Snipped open the packet of cocktail sticks.
Took out a nurdle and squeezed it between my fingers.
It felt squeaky and squidgy when I squished all the air out of it.
Then I began to impale.
There was a sliding crunch as the cocktail stick punctured the foam. At first they gripped hard. But once the stick’s been moved a few times, the foam inside the nurdle got smooth and slippery. It doesn’t hold.
I built up and up, adding nurdles and sticks, giving it limbs and antennae, watching it get interesting, but then it tipped. Collapsed. Whatever shape that had been emerging disappeared.
It seemed that the trick to building nurdle structures was balance.
I began again.
I picked up the sections that had held their shape. Combined them with others, to see what they’d make. I didn’t worry about a firm base. Just stacked and balanced. It held for a moment, then toppled apart.
I began again.
I nudged the mat I was working on. Everything fell.
And I thought I’d had enough of this pointless task. So I dismantled the nurdles and sticks into two neat little piles.
Then I began again.
Eventually one structure held. Triple nurdle base. Counterbalancing legs spreading out. It looks off-kilter, but it’s not. It looks engineered at the bottom, creature-like at the top.
And now it sits by the side of my desk.
I write about noticing, playing, making on Substack - link in bio.
I've fallen in love with Elizabeth Fritsch's Otherworldly Vessels, on show at The Hepworth in Wakefield. The artist info said she works in “two and a half dimensions”, which felt wonderfully apt for her slender pots.
I also spent far too much time beside Mary Chadwick’s bubbling chocolate installation, sniffing the air like a child who wants to lick the spoon. Then lingered even longer by her compost tower, waiting for the next bubbles to race upward, in between all the rotting veg. Nose was less thrilled about this.
Meanwhile, Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures were all wrapped up for “essential maintenance” — but it looked more like the museum had trapped its ghosts. No wonder the Playmobil family were sleeping so well.
#thehepworthwakefield #museumvisit #thingsisawtoday #creativeescape
