COVID-19: Under Pressure

Street art by @hijackart

There are posts doing the rounds on social media of how this enforced isolation might be good for some of us. People are proposing that we could take this opportunity to create a new work or learn a new skill. I have seen suggestions that people could paint a picture, learn a language, master an instrument, take up horticulture, or improve their culinary skills. Several well-meaning people have asked if this is not the perfect time for me to write my second novel.

The short answer is 'no'.

My fist novel took me about 25 years to write. A lot of that was research, and a lot of it was reflection. To do this I need to feel safe and have a routine; an acknowledgment that if things don't go well, or if I unearth something painful (believe me, memories of death, bombs, muggings and other trauma are not things I deal with easily), I will be able to mentally and emotionally decompress in my chosen environment (a walk in the hills; a swim in the ocean; a pint or two in the pub with my friends). This is clearly not the case at present.

I cannot speak for everyone - there are far too many people purporting to do that at present for my liking - so I shall speak only for myself. The current situation is causing me extreme anxiety. I cannot sleep. I am having frequent panic attacks which cause shortness of breath and nausea. I have a constant headache and am permanently fatigued.  

I worry. I worry about my health and that of my husband (who, performing an essential service, must leave the house every day). I worry about my family - none of them live in the same country as me and I'm not sure when (and in some cases if) I will see them again. I worry about my friends, in different countries around the world with different governments taking different precautionary measures (or not, in some cases). I worry about my community - if I don't support it, will there be one when all this is over?  I worry about losing my job. If there is no community and there is no work for me to do, how can I continue; how can I support anyone else? I worry that I am not being a good enough wife, daughter, sister, friend, neighbour, citizen, employee... when did this turn into a competition?

I try not to think too deeply about anything because I will cry, so I am currently existing on a superficial level, or a submerged one. I do not feel safe. I do not feel secure. I know I am lucky to have a house with a garden and access to fresh air and open spaces. I know others are in a far worse position than me. Anyone who has ever suffered with depression will tell you that this doesn't necessarily help. It makes me feel selfish for having these concerns, and that makes me feel like a bad person. It's a very dark vortex into which I do not want to be drawn.

So, no, do not expect anything creative from me at this time. My imagination is not in a good space. There is too much pressure to perform - and no good performances come from fear. 

Walking in Circles: London Overground

London Overground by Iain Sinclair

Hamish Hamilton

Pp. 258

In 2012 Iain Sinclair and his walking companion, Andre Kötting (British artist, writer and film-maker b.1959) spent a day tramping around the London Overground circuit, and Sinclair recounts the journey by weaving in references to others who have come before. Processions and pilgrimages are evoked from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress, as the duo walk just for the sake of walking. He is at his best when describing the physical mechanics of motion. “Refuelling was a requirement, but sitting down would carry the risk of our not being able to rise again. Pints were delivered, swilled back, replenished, before a bowl of steaming fish pie made it from microwave to table.”

He likes to walk. He has walked around Hackney, the M25, and areas that have been cleared for the Olympics before, and written books about all of them.  Understanding the needs for a hook with which to draw in the reader, he chooses routes that are frequently travelled, but by different forms of transportation. Above all, he fears bland homogenisation and he despises shopping centres, such as Clapham Junction, in a sentiment familiar from Ghost Milk.

Sinclair writes with a sense of nostalgia, and is proud of his grumpy old man status: “This old-man sourness is addictive. Period pains from the inability to accommodate change. When nature pricks and the heart engages, people go on long pilgrimages”. Resistance to progress tends towards snobbish bigotry. He dislikes popular culture; he dislikes cyclists, mothers with pushchairs, and people on mobile phones; anyone, in fact, who enters ‘his’ space.

His references are deliberately esoteric but they are overwhelmingly white, middle-class, and decidedly male. The number of name drops becomes exhausting – there are 387 in 258 pages (I counted and catalogued them all, with their Wikipedia entries as interpretation). Of these 387 authors, artists, poets, politicians, film-makers, architects, actors, explorers, scientists and activists who people this particular landscape, only 43 are female: that’s fewer than 12%. Women may be mentioned as eye witnesses to events, nameless passers-by to whom he talks, or memories of previous lovers (again nameless), but they make no significant impression on this history of London.

Sinclair writes in truncated sentences, which can be punchy but soon grow tiresome: “He put his money where his mouth was. And his tongue was blistered with diamonds.” It can be difficult to tell whether the prose is clever or just obtuse: are these profound analogies or empty aphorisms?

One of Sinclair’s bugbears is the commercialisation of the environment. He notes the areas of desirable real estate: “Even a minor physical elevation comes with entitlement to upward social mobility.” He admits, “We would all live on the river if we could, waiting for the rains of Schadenfreude to wash us away. Climate is another word for conscience.” He shuns the wealthy and the nouveau riche. “Fundamentalism of every stamp, including the fundamental decencies of the old Surrey stockbroker belt (now given over to Russian oligarchs and Premier League footballers), is suspect. Bourgeois marriage is a lie. Property is debt.”

While mourning the past, he invokes the present in poetic language, “The Thames riverbank would, in a few years, become a circus with a Ferris wheel, chair-lift rides, millennial (discon)tent on the East Greenwich swamps, and a shockheaded mayor as a public clown, swinging from wires or falling off a trick bicycle.” His associations with the city are intense, and he refutes any that don’t align with his emotions. “Maybe that’s it: the memory-place should remain fixed. The attitude to the great sprawl of the metropolis is verging on Oedipal.” London changes constantly, and while everyone is defensive of their own version, they should probably be more tolerant of the fact that there is room for many more.

COVID-19: Dreaming is Free

Stories are my saviour. Whether told on the page, stage, screen (large or small) or radio, they inspire, enlighten, challenge and comfort me. It may not be the best idea to be watching World on Fire at the moment, but last night we watched the final episode of the first series. The series is set during the Second World War in France, Germany, Poland and the U.K. and it follows several families and characters from 1939-1940. It's tough to watch at times (and there seem to be a few anachronisms in terms of speech and accent), but it is well acted and sufficiently tense and dramatic to keep me involved.

I am tempted to see parallels with our current global situation, and slightly reassured that I 'mustn't grumble: things could be worse'. No one is shooting at me, or trying to bomb me, or threatening to hang me because I am the 'wrong' race, colour, ability, sexuality or political persuasion. Not yet, anyway: I don't live in America - cheap jibe, sorry. But there is a preponderance of panic buying, propaganda, misinformation, uncertainty and an extremely rapid pace of change. Life (and death) goes on in altered circumstances; people still get born; get married; fall in love; fall out... not necessarily in that order. And like World War II, those in the midst of it have no idea of when and how it will finish. Trust me, I've just seen the last episode of World on Fire and there is no satisfying sense of closure - sorry if that's a spoiler.

Our COVID-19 situation also sees leadership, and the lack thereof. Boris has been chewing his way through speeches by Churchill and Plato and now emerges blinking from his shabby chrysalis as a somewhat unlikely statesman; Prince-Hal-like, the foppish fool has sobered up to face the future. Jacinda is calm and firm; just and fair, dealing with a hideous situation with sense and sensibility. Scotty is floundering about like a lumpfish in shallow water but out of its depth. Make some decisions; be bold and resolute; lead!

In Australia we are told that schools are 'pupil-free' but they remain open and no one is turned away. We are told that only essential services should remain open - yet many businesses have not been made to close, so people are still heading to the office, hoping for a gold star from the boss. We are not allowed to gather so theatres, cinemas, gyms, pubs, clubs and restaurants have been closed. Art galleries and museums are choosing to close. There is no statewide ban on beaches, although people are 'advised not go' - yep, we've all seen how well people are following those guidelines.

Hairdressers and beauty salons are still open - it's important to look good in your coffin, apparently - but no one will be there to see you. Churches and places of worship are closed except to very small gatherings; weddings and funerals are not allowed indoors except in small groups observing the one person per four square metres rule. I am a sporadic church-goer; my places of worship are hills and woods and the great outdoors. I worship a mixture of myth and religion - I would like to believe in a golden thread that we can follow out of this darkness into the light once more.

I do usually go to church at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun, however: they are the significant touchstones of my faith. This year, I will not be attending live services, but I will be commemorating the occasion in my way. Many people are suggesting ways to occupy their time in isolation (although Australia has not moved to this yet, and people are still congregating in entirely unnecessary groups); one of my pass-times is cross-stitch. I have been stitching little Easter designs of baskets and bunny rabbits, surrounded by eggs and flowers.

All this is probably what informed my dream last night in which I was trying to stitch together a Polish fabric that had been destroyed by Germany. It was my duty to reconnect the border by unpicking the existing stitches and working them back into an unbroken line with a golden thread. I believe our dreams are important - not in a Freudian way, but because they are a coping mechanism in which the brain shuffles events and tries to impart some meaning. My bible is the bard, and I find words to fit every event in his plays and poetry. And so it is with dreams, which come to us in sleep:

"Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

I know I have employed that quote before (it's one of my favourite, from one of my favourite plays), so here's something else that's been on my mind.

The 2018 Archibald Prize - Part One

Last year when I was in Orange, I went to the marvellous Orange Regional Art Gallery to see the touring Archibald Prize exhibition. The Archibald Prize is awarded annually to the best portrait 'preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics, painted by any artist resident in Australia.' Often I don't know the subject, so I really enjoy finding out about the people as much as I appreciate the artwork itself.

The Huxleys by Sally Ross

I like this painting because of the androgyny of expression and the converse ostentation of the muted colour palette. Garrett and Will Huxley are visual artists and performers, who form a band called SOS (Style over Substance) and have been known to dress as Bauhaus worms or inflatable balls. Apparently Sally Ross knew she had to paint them when she saw them in 2017 performing in Discordia; a show involving a 'prawn-worshipping, rose-beige-costumed cult'. As you do.

"I saw the mysterious potential for art/ civilisation to be expressed within the handsome duo's magical physical presence. This portrait is a homage to the pure folie of the Huxleys' performances, as well as hairstyles found in the portraits of Otto Dix and Diego Velasquez. I wanted a deliberately distant, expressionless pose that transforms their glittery bodysuits and cheap, teased wigs into a portrait evoking the timeless silhouettes of antiquity and 'old paintings' I so admire."

Study for a self-portrait by Angela Tiatia

The unfinished quality of this painting is arresting. The subject has an urban skateboarder's stance, which is excessively contemporary, contrasting with the retro pattern on the floor. The face is fierce, while the body is sketchy - there is clearly a lot of attitude emanating from the canvas. The artist (who was born in New Zealand in 1973 to a Samoan mother and Australian father) writes,

"When I started painting, I wanted to portray myself as powerful and confident, but found the process produced the opposite feelings of vulnerability and fragility in anticipation of being looked at and judged. It's the friction between these two states of power and vulnerability that I am most interested in within my art practice.

Study for a self-portrait explores the tensions that exist within the historical and contemporary notions of the gaze. In European art-history the ever-recurring treatment of women as passive objects for the male gaze. This is complicated further by the treatment of women of colour as the 'exotic other', which is fetishised in works by artists such as Paul Gaugin."

Self: Past, Present and Future by Kathrin Longhurst

I like the clarity of the gaze of this portrait; the expression is candid and unflinching, but open to wonder and new experiences. The overlaid images of a disassembled tank and binary text add an industrial and militaristic feel, which is heightened by the muted colour palette. It is, apparently, a depiction of the artist's daughter, whose DNA will effectively create a self-portrait representing her past, present and future.

"Born in East Berlin in 1971, I grew up at the height of the Cold War. It was a time without the internet, surrounded by propaganda, and we constantly feared invasion from the 'imperialist West'... The tank alludes to our contemporary volatile environment: a new Cold War. But today's experiences are shaped and intertwined with social media. While this technology offers us a chance to seek the truth and understand our shared humanity, it is a double-edged sword spreading misinformation, extremism and conspiracy theories.

"My daughter represents my future. Her generation will inherit our planet. I am projecting my dreams and hopes onto her: she is part of me but also her own person inheriting the legacy we leave behind."

Abdul by Jonathan Dalton

The subject of this painting is Abdul Abdullah, a multi-disciplinary artist, whom Jonathan Dalton greatly admires. I like the casual, relaxed posture, and the feet beside the whisky decanter and glasses - it really does look as though the subject was pausing briefly in the middle of a story to check that the audience was paying attention. Dalton writes,

"Abdul has an infectious energy and easy affability that makes it impossible not to like him. But he has these moments of near laser-like focus and intensity when something catches his attention. I wanted to capture that penetrating intensity in his stare but juxtapose it against a delicate and pensive hand gesture. 

Abdul came to my studio for a sitting where I had carefully prepared a staged set. After making an initial sketch or two, I took approximately 250 photographs. But, despite the work appearing somewhat photorealistic, it has a false perspective that would be near impossible to reproduce in a conventional photograph. This was done to draw the eye to Abdul and artificially heighten his engagement with the viewer."

Lunch in the Outback by Dee Smart

The colours and composition of this one are just eye-popping. From the delicately held sandwich to the ridiculous underpants on the head; from the wry smile and twinkling eyes to the irritating presence of the fly; the whole things draws me in and makes me want to know more. I find this work thoroughly engaging in both its simplicity and complexity. 

The accompanying panel tells me that the subject of this painting is Meryl Tankard, a dancer, choreographer and director. 'After starting her career with the Australian Ballet, Tankard spent six years as a soloist with Tanztheatre Wuppertal, the legendary company of German choreographer, Pina Baush. Returning to Australia in 1984, she began creating unforgettable works that crossed dance, theatre and visual art. More recently, she has focused on screen and film culture.' Dee Smart explains,

"I have painted Meryl in her original cocktail dress she wore on stage during a performance with Pina Bausch, when she explained to the audience how she dealt with flies, then showed them by shimmying out of her undies, which she put on her head."

I'm not actually sure how this would help, and I don't want to think about it too much because it starts to get a little disturbing, but I like the bright humour of the picture nonetheless. 

Alison Whyte, a mother of the renaissance by Paul Jackson

This is another painting to which I'm drawn due to the colours - that deep decisive red matched with the confident lipstick, and the beautiful rich hue of her auburn hair - combined with the frank intensity and wry humour in the eyes. It's both soft and wavy due to the contours of her tresses, and spiky and angular, on account of the pointed ruff. It's very sensual and sensory. Artist, Paul Jackson, chose actor Alison Whyte as his subject.

"Alison is an actor I have admired since seeing her on Frontline. It was also helpful that her face has an Elizabethan feel - hence the ruff, a typical fashion item of the day both in the street and on the stage of the Globe Theatre. From a technical point of view, it allowed me to throw under-lighting on her very fair skin to create a luminosity typical of Tudor Renaissance painting."