Wheels -a peek at the little I know of death.

I have been cleaning up my studio, gathering papers to burn when I found a bit of my writing that caught my attention; 'We are very uncomfortale at the thought of dying,like all creatures on the planet we want to stay alive. We have relied on technology to make our niche, and kept socially adept to survive. In this development we have become more separate from our immediate environment which is percieved instead (not so sure about the instead)as threatening to our existence. Indeed, it is often challenging and ultimately kills us, as the act of breathing the air around us itself, causes oxidization. Our problem of anxiety around dying becomes a greater burden than dying itself, which we know is inevitable. Not accepting this causes estrangement (what do I mean?!!) from ourselves as physiological beings.' I wonder is it that we need to remember that not only does the environment sustain us, we are part of it? Yet we are quite reluctant to accept this obvious truth - think of all the age defying efforts, potions and myths that swarm around us leaving us confused and a little poorer in cash and time. Part of savouring life is acknowledging the connections as a felt, body based, experience in which we can relax and enjoy, revelling in the physical sensations, and positive thoughts and feelings. However, the flip side of this joyousness is quite overwhleming. There is no escaping dying and knowledge of disease, accident and violence are horrifying, adding to the terror of the ravages of aging in sags, wrinkles, aches, arthritic joints, milky eyes and so on. Being in this understandably anxious state about death we are less connected to physical sensations. But oddly there is reprieve as we life still hold gifts whether in sickness, pain or other less than perfect state; we realize it is not so bad, and there is in fact some freedoms. The point is we hang onto the life we have been given. This brings me to the question of being able to die - leaving our physical state, as present as possible rather than in anxiety. This must be the estrangement I wrote of. Can dying be likened to labour? During labour one stays as present as possible to the pain, to feel the effects of birthing for what they are worth, which can be alot. In the other option of panic, of deserting our body, we think we are going to die. To state the obvious our transition to death in the felt sense, is largely unknowable. Is there something greater birthing us into our death, a reverse as it were of our entry? There are such things as death doolahs, who act as midwives of dying making the soon to be corpse as comfortable as possible. Something I am sure about, is that death is messy, a deterioration, and it is the greatest personal mystery that happens to us. I sense the aura of uncanniness belonging to this final stage. We make places to hold a body, and acknowledge a life, even a child may want a grave for its dead guinea pig. Perhaps the grave is a place in which death's unknowableness for a particular sentient being can also dwell. This is what that dead being now holds. What can't be known outside us has a counterpart within us. I have always been curious that if there are things we do know in a rational way; what is the nature of non knowledge or death within us? Rilke sees death as being a fruit; "For we are only the leaf and the bark. The great death which each bears in himself is the fruit around which all revolves." Rilks suggests there is producuction, a fruition as it were, it is an unknown counterpart inside our bodies, not still, but moving in and out into the known, giving impetus to our choices. Or maybe it accompanies our choices like wheels.

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Ready to botch things up- what goes on in my thoughts and body while I paint.

July 11 The de-gluer I had put on ‘mezzanine’ took the paint off in different layers and I am heartened it is better. Before it was over painted. It had had a good moment way back when before now. My shoulders hunch. My mouth is set at the thought. Now the surface is open again and I flip it onto the table. Freedom back in my arms. I repaint the stairs lightly in blue. Keep it light. The railings are too high, but the green is good. I feel my lower back relax. Getting some of those rose tones again, and some white in the ceiling. It's good. My stomach, and below it feel bottomless. In a good way. I eye the far wall- it’s still too close. How can I adjust that? I push the ceiling back, and the gable gets flatter. Is it the wrong angle? I am unsettled. The angle needs to return. My elementary school classmate and doyenne Kelly Taylor’s upper middle class house (it had a powder room in the seventies) and Anselm Kiefer’s attic meet in my mind.

I squint. The rose is still there, that white needs to tone down, a bit of ochre on the stairs to give them solidity, but not too much, so they still float, ooh, but that side aisle is wonky. Use the right colour when you fix it, I coach myself, or you will get side tracked. Maybe the stairs were better ghostly, but the tone was too dark. Damn the ochre has to go. It's not a bloody rainbow. My hand aches a little. I am tired. Time for a cup of tea. I have come back to it after many days. A quiet in September is settling in. I scratch at what remains on my palette. Quite dried up, but the white still lives. The corridor is good, more white right to the back window and some on the wall, plus some sap green. The balustrade looks somewhat attached to the floor, the corner is hard to make sharp. I put a bit of dark at the foot, then the wall goes wonky. Cobalt blue verticals upright it. The paint does not seem to want to stick to my brush. The magenta stairs need to be that blue green. I centre them better and add ochre where the foot goes. The face outward is now blue. I have lost track of the colours from before…. . Below the floor the lower walls recede. Oh, they are too short. Now off kilter. Sam told me about her daughter today, that she has disordered eating. I had just mentioned how I was doing personal boundary exercises with my child who suffers in a similar way. I rage, what is being put upon our girls? Oh, yeah, also Jane at work told me about her daughter….is it fashionable? It is, but us moms talking about it feels more helpful. We are not giving it shock and awe. The truth is sad and too common. Jane shared her challenges as a teen; her mom was critical of her body. Things like this run in the family. That sank into me, as I take in Jane's muscular body and recall how much physical appearance had mattered in my family. I am very grateful of her bravery to talk of this which feels so shameful. There is a lot of green now. I keep using the same brush, enjoying the grab and give, but different colours are needed. White on the one upper vault, on the side windows, and at the bottom is ok. I jiggle a bit. I yawn fiercely several times. It was a long day. Now I am here and am happy, but too tired. Typical. The stairs are angling up weirdly. I block them in with the green. Bring in white to take down the sides. Now it is ok. They are more integrated. I wanted them to float, but this is better. They zig up convincingly. I won’t be on them but something will be. They are perfect, if I can keep the background behaving. My brush feels careless at times, dangerous. Ready to botch things up. The fun is irresistible, but on the whole not worth it, and I have to keep the galloping to small doses. My body tingles at resisting. But any thoughts of following a less precise path feels like mud in my head. I look again, the whole thing is too green now. Hah. I scrub at the hardened acid yellow on my plastic palette. It gives way and now it leads me to the furthest back corridor. It may need a wall to be convincing enough. Not another wall! My shoulders hunch. There is an open basement door to the left, and the outdoors can be seen, without a horizon. Ahhh. My eyes are itchy. I rub them, making it worse. Probably a bit of paint on my fingers.

Further bits on being social

I keep my lines open to my children, absorbing their latest activites; dreams, losses, successes and dilemmas. I hope my hold is light, and they will continue blessing me with their sharing. When I am not at work, I organize connecting with freinds and acquaintances; walks, coffee, a meal or phone conversations. I seem to need these ongoing dialogues to glean the various angles of situations, trying to understand through the reflections of others how life events are being felt, how they are being assessed and what kind of ripples they might have. It appears my focus is getting pulled away by social activities, but they also keep me alert. They feel more like life lines that I depend on to understand my place in daily life. In my younger years I found it hard to stomach the roving needs, and opinions, the smell of others too strong. I had freinds, and I had getaway plans. Since then my fascination for human behaviour has become more acute, and I am not only finding meaning I am also uplifted by exchanges, and in the ambiance found in the details of time and place. I have become less afraid and more open and able to take steps I dreamed of when I was younger- a dream of a loving community. Though my seemingly reverse trajectory is not ideal for study and many hours of uninterrupted focus, it is providing me with inspiration. Still there is no solution to the limits of time, and I am taken back to my experience of being a mother with its profound and consuming intimacy. Having children was an intense and terrifying experience. Deeply in love with the little beings I was boggled at how I would maintain my drive for creative impulses, which required time and energy, and was directly at odds with the almighty demands of a child. I plotted, I did not sleep, I tried to do work while with them, which did have some success in creating shared creative environments, or at least a desire for that. All tricky. Below, is a portrait of myself pregnant with our third child in 1997. Knowing how much energy a child takes, that I was possessive and that we lived on an obscure island, adding up to poor odds for an artist. Continuing studio work was mad, and I desperately wondered how I was going to cope and keep any of my dreams and goals in sight. I felt rent between my ambitions and love for my children. I was frozen by my circumstances. But the enclosing basket is opening and there is pepper in my expression.

Paula Becker Modersohn (1875-1907), an exceptional artist, divided by the demands of being a wife and mother, and facilitating her artistic ambitions, was someone clearly aware of the cost of personal expression. She died shortly after giving birth to her first child in 1907. I shudder. The demands of being a mother are hardly as dire or life threatening today, with less rigid roles rewarding both parents, but career and family needs still present a challenging balance. Modersohn's self portrait is full of courage, and painting herself nude and pregnant was an act of celebration of her motherhood and artistic depth. The two are intertwined.

On being defiant

I entered my zoom session with my supervisors in the midst of my work day, semi prepared, pleased and nervous to see them. I had got some reading, some writing and some organizing done though the heaps that I am needing to do beyond that look like a big wiry mess impossible for me to untangle. Near the end of our time my document on 'felt sense in the studio' was brought up, and the fact that it was far more interesting to hear about what was actially happening in my painting and how it might reflect my inner felt sense more than I had anticipated. Whether I had made the read more interesting, or that what I had written before was too obscure, I said I'd not initially thought anyone would want to read about what I was painting. This sentiment is however not quite accurate; what I wanted was not to write about what was in the painting but have people look at it to figure it out, instead of reading about it. Then I realized my writing was not about what was in the painting either, rather it showed a relationship between my bodily sensations and emotions therein and the activity of the work. This is interesting. I have read a bit of Maurice Blanchot, and his study of the dynamism between creator and creation. I noted that he was indignant about something I take as a given; that we only know our work when we are in it. I in turn was indignant at his expectations that it should be any different! Truth is I am jealous that he allows that we do want to know our work. My supervisors noticed I was angry, resentful even, that Blanchot swims into expectations of impossible connections, whereas I have kept myself dutifully away from any unrealistic dreams, even ones that a boy might have. I was suprised to hear my anger was noticeable. I, the therapist of equanimity and calm, have another side, hidden mainly from myself. I chuckle inwardly; I have been called defiant before, which at the time, deeply puzzled me. Now I can be grateful to Blanchot for revealing my anger. I hope to be in my defiance when it happens.

the thought of an alcove

This came together over a longer period. I would come back to the collection on my studio floor day after day and it was never quite right. I would leave it, change it, and then see I had returned to what I had done before! I knew the parts could work, but it was not forseeable how. The bit with the metal handle was integral, but where ever I put it, the nails poked out too significantly, or made the whole thing become ungainly, and the addition itself was lost. I feared altering the parts, as they lose their sense of self with too much tampering. Eventually though, and I could not believe it, placing it on top of the board I was sure I'd keep clear, worked. I had the thought of an alcove in the middle of it all, and I think this is what convinced me I could find more than just enough wriggle room.

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Noli me legere and 'the errant intimacy of the outside from which he could not make an abode'

I have dipped into Maurice Blanchot's 'Writing of Disaster', 1980, and reading about him and his ideas has provided a crutch as I struggle to follow his words, which feel more like solid corpusules not able to enter my head, or vapours that slip past my nose unidentifiable. Maybe that is the point. Because I believe that words do not, can not describe what life is, and apparently this is Blanchot's gig. For me words have given parts of my brain something useful to do, which if those parts are not engaged, gets sad. Likewise words are a speaking aspect of communicating, and communicating is something my whole self likes doing, and I am uplifted by the activity. Perhaps I have resisted embodying words. As it is, communicating is done in numerous ways; by being present, listening, responding physically with actions, vocalizing, and, besides speaking with words, writing. It seems when you are not present, or words do not match actions, the experience can veer into being draining. Other things make communicating onerous, that have more to do with the nature of the exchange, such as power imbalances, mood, willingness, the content- meaningfulness and urgency. For more satisfying communication an agreement on exchange needs to occur, setting the tone of the relationship. Blanchot touches on this in regards to the relationship between the creator and creation in 'The Space of literature, 1955, where he observes 'For the work is the very decision which dismisses him, cuts him off, makes of him a survivor, without work. He becomes the inert idler upon whom art does not depend. ' p. 24. This could describe how my art as a painter appears to me. But I don't take umbrage, I do not expect anything different. I am often closed out as Blanchot's writers are from their work, though I do enjoy some appreciation when the work is going well. Ultimately the painting does not care who makes it, just that it is made, and I benefit from its presence. Is making an artwork similar to being a parent, with all its hurdles of accepting, letting go, being available and then most ideally left behind? Reading further on the same page, I could relate to 'The writer cannot abide near the work. He can only write it; he can, once it is written, only discern its approach in the abrupt Noli me legere which moves him away, which sets him apart or which obliges him to go back to that "separation" which he first entered in order to become attuned to what he had to write. So that now he finds himself as if at the beginning of his task again and discovers again the proximity, the errant intimacy of the outside from which he could not make an abode." 'Noli me legere', latin literally means 'do not read me'.To be read is to be touched. I have been kept at bay with Blanchot's words. I was further intriqued by his reference to an abode, as I look for ways in which to 'dwell' somewhere as a matter of survival. This does imply a separation, a sheltering from the world, but this offers a way to be in the world, where I would otherwise die. Making an abode has parallels to develping intimacy which requires differentiating. In psychological terms, healthy relations demand boundaries(walls) in order for people or groups to become closer in respectful manners. There are many ways in which this evolves and gives expression, and is significantly felt culturally.

'Diamond with Entry', oil on small drawer facing. Maurice Blanchot did alot of writing, and when he kept himself separate for health reasons, he wrote to his freinds. It was no doubt beneficial to keep in contact, and the physical action therapeutic. I would suggest the act of writing itself had a positive effect on his body, as his mind and heart agonized over the effects of the war. In this regard his presentation of the content mirrors his relationship to the movement of hand and pen. I sense ambivalence and passion.