There's a hand that lives inside

These are still working drawings inspired directly from the poems, but I'm beginning to play with adding other imagery and thinking about increasing the sense of depth without making them too weighty. Here's the poem.

The Hand Thinks

There’s a hand that thinks, that lies inside, that lines the hand that moves

and it thinks: “While tying a knot, you can utterly forget, you can think
(can be thinking of something else at the time)
that muscles have a memory all their own
that lives again a braided time
alive
I tie.

Watch
what without you lives. The life of fingers
harbours
mutiny that doesn’t even bother. The hand, ever prior
avatar of architecture: archlessly, each one
is a frame.
There’s an empty frame on the wall and the hand is the sky
that opens the wall.

Cole Swensen

So what next?

As of this month I have new studio, (and it feels like another beginning) and some new ideas bubbling up.
It's exciting, and I'm enjoying getting my teeth into a whole new concept.

Firstly, I'm living in a garret now (well, working - but I'm here A LOT) - really, it is ! My room is at the top of the stairs, in the attic space on top of an old Cuba St building which I share with two art galleries, another painter, and two designers. But my garret is all mine!! I look east onto roofs and west onto more roofs and a peek of the street. It's sunny and warm...and I love it !

After the show people said I'd feel flat, maybe even a bit down. I guess I did, but moving here helped sort that pretty quickly.

So what's next ?
I'm picking up on some of the ideas from folks who responded to the work in our show.
The drawings, the movement, the relationships between people...

And I'm planning a body of work that may be drawings, based on the idea of communication. Specifically, about modes of communication that're not dependent on spoken language. So the language of hands, of touch, gesture, texture, (maybe braille), body language (the language of space and intimacy) and of dance (especially polynesian dance where the hands are an important part of telling the story).

I want to make some large drawings that describe the dance of communication and movement through the qualities of line and tone.

So far I have a huge mind map, a collection of amazing poems, some great quotes...

Here's a few of them, and a couple of drawings from the series I've made this week. One focusses on the idea of caressing, and the other is titled 'snap!' ... I'm loving this new beginning !!!!


"We don't just think with our brains. We think with our bodies." ..." our bodies are a result of our ongoing experience and involvement with the world, which is always specific"...

"Communication is an embodied act. Researchers believe it has been so from the beginning. In fact gesture is believed to be the original form of human communication. Before writing and even speaking, our ancestors gestured" - Jürgen Streek

And a beautiful poem of Cole Swensen's titled:

The Hand That Caresses
after Alphonso Lingis

Glean sheet
that's soft and flees
gliding just above the surface
constructs a second skin of close attention.
The hand cannot tire in the face
of another, a hand hovers or floats
detached from the wrist, my hand fits your face precisely What recognises the suffering of the other is a movement in one's hand. He points to the plane, which is landing, which is the same.

(Her line phrasing is spacious and pretty, but it doesn't work on Blogger,sorry)

If you click on the photos they'll enlarge.

The Show

Look at the date of the last post !

Before I can begin to describe what I'm up to next, here's some pics from the show and a bit of an update.

As you can see we had our exhibition last month. It was very cool and we had a good time. What more can you ask for really .... ? (don't we look pleased with ourselves - that's before we got flashed up for the opening or sold any of our work too!)

Our work looked beautiful together - it gelled and the pieces spoke to each other as we'd hoped. AND it was so cool to see it all together for the first time.

We had...
a gallery packed with a big buzz of enthusiastic guests and friends for the opening
some good sales
and a fine week in a friendly little light filled gallery space.

The week 'personing' the gallery flew by and we met all sorts of weird and wonderful folks who happened by, came in to shelter or bend an ear, to talk about the work, our practice, our ideas behind it all - or just to gaze. I think for me the biggest thing was having people 'get' the ideas and appreciate the journey as it was described by us. Especially the civic planner who yarned to me about the 'talking campi' in Venice and the way that people use social spaces globally.

I had no idea that the drawings would illicit such a positive response - I needn't have worried about my work looking cohesive - in fact, I needn't have worried full stop!

Here's a few pics of the inside of Thistle Hall, they give you some idea of how the work looked together.