Which of these do you prefer? Why? Any adjustments, criticisms, changes, things you like or don’t like in particular?
Thank you for taking the time to help me with this. More on this project soon.
You are currently browsing the archive for the Art category.
The thing I miss the most, no question, is community. My friends who support me and my work in very integral ways (and whose work I can support–which gives its own energy–and whose projects inspire me), I miss them. They live so far away. Their community is particular. Without competition to it. I’ve never felt the discomfort of oneupmanship happen with them. My family, obviously, in ways I don’t think I could realise until I was suddenly gone for five years and have no idea what goes on on a day-to-day basis with any of them, and that has just happened somehow. I even miss the people whose work I’ve followed, via the internet, for years now, because most of them are in the US–and we’re on such different schedules that, although I see the conversations taking place, I really don’t feel like I’m still part of them. I love where I am in my work, my life is good. I love living in these places (although I find England difficult, too). I feel visceral ties to places I never imagined going, really, as a kid or young adult in Minneapolis (Paris is an easy one…but I never imagined going to Belgium; I don’t think I even thought about it as really existing until I met Jonathan) and if I were to go back to Minneapolis, that wouldn’t solve this feeling of perpetual (emotional/intellectual) homelessness. Novalis wrote that philosophy “is really homesickness, an urge to be at home everywhere”. I feel the truth of that. The farther I’ve gone from home (whatever that is, now), the more I’ve needed, even without articulating it or thinking it out loud or in writing, to think myself into that space. These drawings are certainly part of that thinking, its most recent form. How do I belong or not belong where I am? What does it mean that I’m here (and not back there, where I remember myself being)?
Caveat to all this: I have had wonderful, supportive friendships here and in France, met many special people, enjoyed myself. I’m talking about the rare, deep bond you sometimes have with a few people with whom you live closely for a period and with whom you share certain experiences, outlooks, and priorities.
Fragments express the simultaneous impossibility of and desire for completion: to know everything, to do everything, to feel everything. Fragments are a physical representation of the subjective. They demonstrate the ways that representation is arbitrary; as with any collection, what is included and what is left out is what creates meaning. Fragments point beyond themselves to a more unbroken past (which may or may not have existed; in any case, we can’t tell). They evoke a feeling of melancholy. But they are also plucky and radical, revising the present through their time-traveling and their endurance.
In London this weekend it was mostly quiet. There are things I like very much about that city even though it’s never gotten under my skin like Paris (I never crave to go there). I like the Georgian doors like this one, so delicate, in Islington. I like the way you can walk a block off the busiest street in some places and hardly hear a thing. I like the combination of grey-yellow bricks and white trim, and bright orange bricks and white trim. I like the uniformity of houses built in rows here.
We got to London at noon on Friday and spent the afternoon walking around Fitzrovia (my favorite part). We went to the Wellcome Collection. Benito’s Hat for dinner. I would recommend both wholeheartedly. The Wellcome is my favorite museum in London–its permanent collections are incredible; they were Henry Wellcome’s and he was, incidentally, from Minnesota! The exhibition on now, DIRT, is fascinating. There were a set of Delft tiles from the 1600s–unbelievable to see them. We ended up walking through the Mesopotamian and Prints/Drawings rooms at the British Museum after dinner as well–it was open late.
My favorite things of all were the two visits we paid to the Rebecca Hossack Gallery on Charlotte Street (we went on Friday just as they were closing, and then went back on Saturday so I could see everything more closely). I love that gallery so much–they always have beautiful, whimsical, intelligent work. And I love that they have poems on their website. Ideal. We went there after breakfast at Lantana, which set the day up well (I had brioche French toast with cherry coulis and ricotta).
Best of everything was that these parts of London were quiet, almost deserted. It felt like a much smaller city. No tourists. No waits for anything. No pushiness on the street. Really the most pleasant time I’ve spent there.
