My Life Through Art at the Window

During lockdown I became very aware of my immediate environment, as did many. Curiosity outside of that seemed daring and something to look at from a distance.  As the world has ‘opened up’, where do we go first?

The life changing acute mental illness I suffered in my teens, triggered years of a process sometimes known as ‘recovery’.  As Helen Macdonald wrote about in ‘H is for Hawk’, as a human caring for an animal requires putting one foot in-front of the other with progression and growth.  Care and attention, body and closeness. And when a human cares for themselves, there are wonderful parallels. 

What puts one foot in-front of the another?  A new place to go? A new sight to see? A new feeling?

I started a lyrics discussion group some years ago, which took the form of a book group.  I felt that I lived the stories of my life in songs but there wasn’t always a conclusion.  Just exploration. 

I found that the succession of a story should be to put one foot in front of the other into a new part of the world.

Frida Khalo found her sense of self was rooted in Mexico.  For some, the identification of home is simple and obvious, and is perhaps is quite obviously about a feeling.  For others it can be fraught with concepts, conflict and confusion.

Visiting Italy growing up for me, was a different kind of experience than visiting other foreign countries.  How had the country my parents were from developed in me, as part of me, despite only visiting for a couple of weeks each year?

Feelings around family, connection with place, which links with what you know in your parents, generate the feeling of the familiar.

The idea of family being cultivated through sharing company, food, conversation and music, leads us to think, can we fabricate a home with these components? Can we make home?

I made up a story she talking to my infant nieces, where someone lost their voice, so they spoke with flowers.  The flower could describe how they were feeling-happy, sad, excited?

And when they presented bouquet of flowers with multiple emotions, that was a story.

Giorgia O’Keefe was famous for her depiction of flowers.  She said we don’t take the time to look at the flower- yet we have our ideas about it.  She made them big so people could take the time to see what she sees.

Sometimes we have to shock people into seeing out emotions.  Sometimes we have to see them in new ways.  Sometimes we need to take the time, which is reciprocal.  What do we give back to the artist who makes us see?

Dali’s social preference towards splendour reflected in his work as surrealism encompasses an element of splendour.  Do we create what we are drawn to, or look more closely at what we have through our creations.  Can we generate splendour like we generate feelings of home?  With food, conversation and also, art!

Surrealism describes what is not there and not possible, except in our imaginations.  The challenge to differentiate between our dreams which we can make happen, and those we can’t, seems to be based on confidence and tackling our endeavours, building up the proof and reputation that the dream is possible.  As Coco Chanel said, ‘my life didn't please me, so I created my life’.

The part of a dream which can’t come true, like a utopia,- it points out what is lacking.  If we are dreaming up a story which cultivates certain feelings, our life is most likely lacking those.  Does art answer those gaps? 

Yet splendour seems to thrive in solitude.  A woman with a serious expression, alone in a diamond dress rather than a group of women smiling-is distinct, alluring and unattainable.

Splendour is not tangible , so we wear the diamonds we are trying to distance ourselves from what we don’t want to be associated with.  The distinction between the splendour and the ‘other’, is the gap in-between.  

How do we separate-and why do we separate, society?

It makes those on top stronger and more able to order the masses.  So splendour in our authority highlights power.  Fashion can coat us with an appearance of what we can practically acquire or make and, the choices we make are the pivotal contribution to the mix.  Fashion skips formalities, systems, it is the cheat sheet to overcome the winning of the fittest.  It is stronger than the nature which tells us what is the best.