Air and Parchment

my life...

2012-02-29T15:56:00.001Z

"Here's my life, steel-hitched at one end into my mother's belly, then thrown out across nothing, like an Indian rope trick...I haul myself up, slither down...What is my life? Just a rope slung across space."

from Powerbook, by Jeanette Winterson

Moving with the Times

2012-02-23T12:57:00.000Z

Everything is underway for the Oxford Dance Festival platform - Moving with the Times.

I have been rehearsing in the wonderful Oxford-based studio space in the Pegasus theatre. I can barely describe how delicious it is to jump on my bike and pedel up to my rope, play, dance, condition and then nip home without a train in sight.
My lovely friend Charlie Henry - who trained in physical theatre and clowning - came to give me an outside eye a few days ago. It was so, so helpful! It really is not possible to work and create completely in isolation. Especially not performance work, and especially not if you've never actually had any in depth training on the subject.
What a learning curve!
I am intrigued to see how I will feel come the performance dates. So far I am oscillating between nervousness and nervous-excitement...and I am struck by how emotionally exhausting I find preparation for performing. I wonder if this gets easier with practise?
Looking around me at performers I know, I think this probably is not the case.

Still, it is gratifying to think that in only three-ish years of aerial training, on and off, I have got to the stage of having a full length piece of work to share. This is a major feat of will and bravery for me, who at one point was too shy to order my own cups of tea in cafes...

So, if you are in Oxford, come along!

And now I have to go to the local radio station to talk about ropes...very strange! And the tonight I am going to a shadow puppetry workshop in London. I'm still thinking about ways to fuse art and performance, and puppetry still makes me giddy with excitement when I see it done well.

Talking of art and performance - if you are in Brighton on the 3rd of March, DRAW and the Drawing Circus are venturing into the land of faery-tales...
Six hours of blissful drawing, interwoven with story, the best life models out there, theatre. beautiful costumes, circus (yours truly), music and you making art from it all!

Snow White

2012-01-31T23:21:00.000Z

January is already over...

Ground Effect

2012-01-27T23:41:00.001Z

Ground Effect, I discovered, is a term in aerodynamics which refers to increased lift and decreased drag experienced by light aircraft and birds when flying a wingspans distance from the ground. It is ground effect which causes the sensation of floating when a light aircraft comes in to land.

I thought this was an appropriate name for an aerial piece, especially as it also draws attention to the ground. The presence of the ground is what causes tension after all - as the dancer moves nearer or further from it, strong visual images are created.
I like the idea of trying to reach the ground from the air, of finding your way to it, with the rope as your path.

This piece will be extended for the Oxford Dance Festival in March. I'm currently playing around with clothing, looking at simple ways of expressing themes to do with gender. The scratch night where this film was taken was useful as the audience were able to give feedback around their responses.
I'm interested in how people respond to aerial imagery, especially where issues of gender are concerned.

If anyone would like to offer feedback here, please do!

Dance Event...

2012-01-17T23:07:00.000Z

To anyone reading this who is a French (or Cornish) dance fan - see flyer attached!

My husband and his band constellation WOD (Andy Letcher, Jane Griffiths and Jim Penny) are playing with a Cornish band in our adopted home town of Oxford.

Come and dance!

2012

2012-01-11T16:28:00.000Z

There are too many moleskine notebooks in this damned Oxford garret (in which I picture us starving together like Parisian bohemians, the only thing in our cupboard a bottle of absinthe, keeping each other warm by love making and furious painting/playing on bagpipes...Obviously things are not actually that bad. Although I can't currently afford any absinthe and the carpet has seen better days).
I just wasted several precious minutes opening and closing what felt like 50 before finding my sketch book.
Sadly, none contained anything alarming or exciting, though one was last years dates diary. It resembled a giant list of things to do. I must cultivate a more jolly attitude to life-tasks.

2012!
The End of the World (Dec 21st - I'll see you there), my Saturn Return (if you are into that sort of thing) and the last year of my masters. If it does turn out to be T.E.O.T.W then I don't need to trouble myself over this, however, if we all survive more or less unchanged after December, I shall have to do some fairly serious thinking over what my next steps on this planet should be.
My doctrine of 'going with the flow' (this makes me sound far less uptight than I really am) can only get one so far in the adult realm. What a drag.

Still, the year got off to an amazingly beautiful start involving myself, my husband, and several of the best people who have ever lived playing music/listening/singing inside a lighthouse on Lundy Island. I'll never tell it as he does, so please see my husbands account here.
It was such a magical experience, from communing with bold, curious seals (16 at close range! We would have eaten well that night...had our party included an adept Inuit hunter) to long, cliff walks. I did learn however, and much to my horror, that there are more than one kind of '-'. Why do they not teach this in schools? All that time wasted on 'algebra'.

Since being home the gods have seen fit to grant me a long held wish - I finally have somewhere to hang my rope in Oxford. The Pegasus Theatre's studio space, where I am taking part in a dance scratch night on Friday.
Coinciding with this frankly f**king fantastic event was the arrival of a photographer from the local paper, wanting shots to promote the Dance Festival and the Peg. Which is how I ended up on the front page.

I'm not totally sure how I feel about this. The caption especially. It makes me sound like an ambitious person who would use the word 'career'.
The picture is good though.

I have also been drawing in my new found free time (not being spent on trains to and from London).

Copy from a photograph in Pretty Litter Magazine

The Lotus Eater

The Lotus Eater is a drawing I did when I was about 12. I wanted to try it again, especially paying attention to the way in which James Jean uses colour. I'm trying to learn from his work and get my confidence up for some 2012 painting projects - I have to crack on before December after all...

I am working on this drawing, referencing by Snow White, having been inspired by the faery tales theme for Brighton DRAW this year.

A good start!

Rope Vampire

2011-12-17T18:01:00.001Z

Here are some pictures from the charity gig I did recently...I'm rather pleased with them. The first four are during rehearsal so without my vampiric make-up...:)

(These top four are by Tim Hilario)

(These last two appeared on facebook and I'm not totally sure who took them.)

No time to draw!

2011-12-12T20:02:00.000Z

I have felt like I've not had the time or, sometimes, the energy to do much art recently. Here are the sketches I've managed...This evening however my love is out playing music, it is stormy and raining, and I have no work to be getting on with...
I shall see if the muse is with me.

Witches and Vampires

2011-12-11T19:14:00.002Z

I have been extremely lax in writing these last few months, but in my defence I've been completing essay number 3/4 for my Masters, as well as preparing for a Christmas charity gig with 'My Aerial Home' - one of the places where I train in London.

I have been writing about witches from the early modern period.
It turns out that they had some truly bonkers beliefs back then concerning the body. It is hard to relate to their ideas as being precursors of our own, because they come so steeped in magical thinking.

For instance, in the course of my research I have learnt that (following Aristotle) it was commonly believed that menstruating women could stain mirrors by looking into them.
Devils gathered 'seed' from sleeping men and distributed it about to sleeping women - rather like demonic bees. Witches developed strange teats on their bodies from which to feed blood to their demonic, animal familiars. Women had 'colder' bodies than men, making them less energetically vital, weaker and unable to 'push out their genitals' (i.e. women are inverted men). The Devil himself was said to have a glacially cold penis. Too much pleasure for women during intercourse was suspected of deforming babies, although other thinkers held that no conception could occur without female orgasm, as this was required to release women's 'seed'. The very worst sin and crime was the rather unspecific crime of 'sodomy' which was so awful, that even the devils of hell would never commit it. Oh yes, and menstrual blood could be used in love potions - often by feeding it surreptitiously to men.

The past is a weird and wonderful place.
Yet, I did start to wonder about magical thinking in our own time.
I have heard the connection made between women's menstruation and the cycles of the moon so many times, that one would be forgiven in thinking that our culture credits a causal link between the heavens and our bodies.
It can be said that the world is made by the way we tell it. So, perhaps there are as many worlds as there are humans seeing, talking and writing. I know I stubbornly persist in many beliefs based on nothing except my feelings. But then, that is all that love is based on, and the capacity to experience that is one of humanity's major virtues...

As well as writing, I have been training as much as I can. My grip seems to be getting better - certain moves are becoming possible which were very much impossible a few months ago.
And I was very happy to be invited to perform on Saturday as part of a charity-raising showcase. The theme was 'A Night at the Movies' - I elected to be a vampire (predictable), Lucy Westenra to be exact. I did a short rope piece which went well - the only minor hitch being my missing certain musical cues (due to applause for some of my trix, which was a nice novelty!). Still, no harm done.

Significantly for me, this was the first of my performances where nervousness was at an all time low. I felt excited, eager almost, which for someone with my history of shyness and near hysterical collapse during performances of any kind is something akin to a Christmas miracle.

Perseverance and bravery can change ones whole world. Which just goes to show that a certain amount of magical thinking can be exactly what is required.

Aerial news

2011-11-15T16:27:00.000Z

Whilst the sensible trees and birds and so forth seem to be taking it down a level in preparation for winter, I seem to be busier than ever. Not that I'm complaining - I'd rather be busy than staring into space wondering what I'm doing with my life...
I have a cabaret charity gig in Bromley later in December. The cabaret is movie themed, and I have made a very short Bram Stokers Dracula inspired piece. I've always wanted to be a vampire...good times.

The video is me working on two moves I'm not quite ready to perform yet. But I'm getting very happy with my Flag - that's the first move I do. I've always found it rather tricky - I blame my tiny, tiny hands.

I also put in a proposal to Oxford Dance Festival for next March which has been accepted. I'm going to be making a 6-ish minute piece around the theme of gender. Creativity ahoy! Very thrilled and delighted and scared...!

Day of the Dead 2011

2011-11-07T20:55:00.000Z

White Night

2011-11-01T12:26:00.000Z

I was lucky enough to be a part of another event organised by Draw (headed by the generally marvellous Jake Spicer) in Brighton at the weekend.

The event, a night of drawing from the figure in St Paul's church on West Street, was part of White Night, which is a city-wide, night time arts festival. The theme this year was Utopia/Distopia.

I was initially going to be performing aerial for the night-time drawers, but sadly a last minute hiccup meant that this couldn't go ahead. As I tentatively enter the world of performance it didn't actually occur to me how much trouble health and safety causes when meeting with circus. Not really a surprise (!) but unexpected. I think aerial training involves so much time spent on considering ones strength, physical boundaries, safety etc, that once a routine is formalised not feeling safe in the air just is not an option. Which of course means other people's concerns almost feel misplaced...which of course, they aren't really.

Aerial no-go aside, the night was a beautiful one.
The church was a wonderful space for drawing - the entrance transformed into a distopic space by life-sized, dark puppetry - making the entrance into the open, white, space of the church even more of a relief!

Myself and lots of other people did some modelling -I worked from 8pm till 1030pm. The time passed quickly, partly thanks to live music being played, partly due to the church being full of interesting things to study.

The setting made us - the models, draped in white cloth - look somehow otherworldly. I was put in mind of the Vestal Virgins or the Oracle's at Delphi - or rather, my fantasy imaginings of them.

The very dapper looking Andy, and myself, ventured out later that night to walk the streets and see what White Night was all about...The change from inside the church fit too perfectly with the theme of the night! Outside was - to me - quite a distopic sight...Hordes and hordes of people, drunk, intoxicated and the rest, crawling the streets. The atmosphere was hectic, carnivalesque, and fierce. People were wearing incredible Halloween costumes, several of which I took careful mental note of.
As someone who spends most of her time drawing, reading in libraries, walking across hills, or hanging upside down far from anyone, it was all a bit much.
Eventually we retired from our wanderings back to Kemp Town where we were staying.

All in our another great event, my only sadness is that I never got around to having a draw myself!

Mermaid

2011-10-27T21:31:00.000+01:00

I have been experimenting with fimo...and wire...and beads...

Here is the fimo face, before I painted it.

I sculpted a body and tail about of wire, creating a frame, like a sketch of form from the wire. As ever it was economy which restricted my method - I couldn't afford enough fimo to cover the whole body, so I decided to sculpt a face and hands only.

(There was more detail in the body, not shown in this picture)

The face after painting - I used watercolours.

I made the hands last - here they are cooking in the oven...I eventually attached them using a much finer wire, which I threaded with beads and sequins.

Rotate your view - I forgot to rotate the photo...

I have created a...well, potentially a monster, though these things are of course subjective. I don't think these photos do my creature justice, but then parents never can see the flaws in their own children.

Watch this space for my next puppet/doll.

Birthday

2011-10-26T21:43:00.000+01:00

Today was my birthday, and we went to Savernake Forest for a walk and picnic.
The path was littered with chestnuts which we later made into stuffing for our dinner pumpkin. The woods looked beautiful, glowing in the sunlight, welcoming and creepy in equal turn (as forests often are).

I reflected that 27 years is a very short amount of time. I must be like a mayfly to the oaks of Savernake.
Though it is long enough to feel bewitched and addicted to life...

Strange mushrooms...

My 26th year contained - starting my Masters, performing my first aerial theatre gigs, working like a nutter, walking Oxfordshire's Ridgway, making some drawings I'm very happy with, making new exciting friends and the first year of my marriage....

'Owl' Routine Video

2011-10-18T21:34:00.001+01:00

Barney has just posted a video of our gig at the North Wall - taken on a iphone, amazing...

You can also see their beautiful songs performed on their video page here.

Phew.

Duotone Album launch - still landing...

2011-10-17T14:29:00.000+01:00

Saturday was the long-anticipated launch of Duotone's new album, Ropes. Go and have a look/learn/listen here.

The event was truly incredible - a wonderful thing to be a part of. Every performer was talented, inspiring and, most importantly, open-hearted and generous.

It was my third gig to date.
Warming up back-stage, hearing the audience coming in and taking their seats, seeing the house lights go down, the dust from my over-rosin'ed hands drifting in the air, my beating heart...What sensations!
And walking across the stage, hearing the strings for my piece begin, pushing my toes around my rope...catching glimpses of the sea of half-lit, upside down faces from my ankle hang...!

The music from everyone was just amazing - Wod, Jane Griffiths and Colin Fletcher (see Duotone website for their brand new CD) and Duotone themselves - Barney Morse-Brown and James Garrett - supported by a host of voices - I was stunned by Raevennan Husbandes, check out her and her voice!
And the lovely Charlie Henry, flitting about being beautiful, helpful and bringer of picnics...

This is the reason I pursued aerial - to share a stage and time with artists like these.

All images by Kate Raworth
http://www.kateraworth.com/

Following photos by Andy Letcher

Duotone Album launch

2011-10-11T16:10:00.001+01:00

I am currently rehearsing like a mad...gibbon (?) for the launch gig for 'Ropes' (great name) by Duotone.
The gig is happening at a very cool little arts center just around the corner from where I live, which is called The North Wall.

Tickets and info can be found by clicking here.

Come!

I am really excited, proud and nervous to be involved in this, as it also involves basically everyone from the Oxford art scene who inspired me to want to be a performer.

Pictures and video to follow after Saturday.

The Drawing Circus!

2011-10-04T17:01:00.000+01:00

My first Autumnal post, though is barely felt like it for the last few days...Forgive my Englishness in commenting on the weather, but for once I think it actually was note-worthy.

What is more note-worthy is the wonder that was the Drawing Circus in Brighton!
It was a fairy intensive day - I worked 9am till getting on the train home at 9pm, with six hours modelling in the middle. Interesting how 12 working hours can wizz by when your creative juices are flowing and you are surrounded by welcoming, creative types.
Not to mention half-clad/nude extremely beautiful women folk. I don't think they'll mind me saying so...

I took the part of the Aerialist in a crumbling circus...My new rope made a beautiful prop, although sadly I was banned from climbing it due to the theatres health and safety policy. I took this as a challenge, and tried to express on the ground the relationship of the equipment to my body. I hope I communicated something of the aerial to the sea of concentrated drawers I posed for.

Jake Spicer's vision of theatre meets tableau meets life drawings, combined with his aesthetic made for a beautifully inspiring setting. I was a little torn as to what was more fun - modelling as I was, or drawing the models.

More photos will emerge over the next few days and I will blog them. For now, here are some shots by Nick Caro of yours truly which I'm rather pleased with...:)
Find Nick's beautiful photographic work at nickcarophotography.co.uk

Some photos

2011-09-12T22:09:00.000+01:00

All photos by Grace Wong at www.gracewongphotography.co.uk

Cradle

2011-09-07T14:10:00.000+01:00

Detail


Hand detail

Preparations for the Drawing Circus begin...

2011-09-03T18:25:00.001+01:00

I am helping with one of Jake Spicer's upcoming projects!

Making a mermaids tale


Painting in bright, camp colours. (Can colours be camp? Hmm.)

I have also been working hard on my routine whilst attending an excellent aerial performance course with Amanda Miles and Clare Midgley at the helm. The course was really helpful, or rather the women there were - amazing, friendly and supportive. And I surprised myself by enjoying a clowning workshop which was run by a woman of seemingly boundless energy who had spent time working with Cirque Du Soleil.

Here is my routine before Amanda worked on it with me - after which it looked so much better! Sadly, my camera chose that time to develop some sort of self awareness, alongside a spiteful personality, and wouldn't record properly. Ho hum.

Forgive the background sounds which have a distinct swimming pool quality to them. I was listening to the music written for it at the time (I think at some point you can see me putting my headphones back in my ears) but it doesn't seem right to share the music before the gig in October...

Portrait, Brighton and Circus

2011-08-21T19:16:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, a very lovely friend of mine from the old Devon days (who now resides in Bristol), asked me to draw a portrait of her.

I worked from a photograph (sitting not really an option living in different towns) but added my own spin on what her earring should depict...I always think of ice creams now when I picture Roxy, though this is because of an anecdote I cannot relate...Suffice to say it involved youthful shenanigans and a giant ice cream (although even saying that may be too much for those in the know).

I am pleased with the final result, and was delighted with having a new face to legitimately draw from. I am slightly concerned that always drawing myself will result in me learning my own features very well, and then never being able to draw anyone else.

I had a very good time in Brighton attending the Aerial Dance Festival (doing silks with Fred Deb, an amazing teacher from France) and catching some of the Pride goings on. I walked to my course each day down by the sea, which was sparkling in bright sunshine all but one of the days.
Sadly I failed to bring my camera along to any of it!

I also met an artist with a circusy aesthetic - Jake Spicer, founder of the Brighton Drawing School. Check out his beautiful work, which partly reminds me of Austin Osmond Spare's.
There is no higher praise....

News Flash

2011-08-10T18:59:00.000+01:00

If you are unfamiliar with them, go and check out the artists Alex Ross and James Jean. There work is beautiful, full of narrative (obviously so in one case, as he is a graphic novel/comic book illustrator) and utterly amazing. I felt very grateful indeed to my still existing local library for stocking books about each of them.

As for creative thing - I have added some details to the odd green face I sculpted recently. I've been in contact with a local puppet maker and performer, and he has been kind enough to say I can visit his studio. Will blog about that soon...

I finished a portrait that I was commissioned to draw. I'm very happy with it and will put up pics once I've sent it. Doesn't seem right to post it before I've..er...posted it.

I've also finished the skeleton choreography for my new aerial routine which I'm showing in October. The musician I'm working with has finished the original music for the piece (!) and it is completely beautiful. Perfect for sky-dancing.

I'm sincerely hoping that the London rioting has calmed sufficiently by next week for me to go and start practising with my music. And in because that sounded horribly selfish (unintentionally!) I do, of course, hope that people's normality and safety is soon restored.
Strange times...surreal and, as several people have commented, oddly like the start of some science fiction novel.

Off to Brighton for four days for an aerial silks workshop (and hopefully a life drawing class).
Spoilt rotten!

Together

2011-07-27T19:53:00.001+01:00

So, it is still not as good as having a scanner, but I think my new photo editting software makes these uploads look a bit...brighter. Brighter, if nothing else. I am of course now getting strange shadow definition...Still, better than grey an flat!

An Adventure into the Third Dimension

2011-07-20T12:05:00.001+01:00

I've been in Cornwall for a while visiting my sister.

Whilst there we discovered that we have both recently developed an interest in puppets and dolls, with a view to making our own.
My sister discovered a whole scene of Ball Jointed Doll making (or painting), which is referred to as 'BJD'. The dolls all have a fairly manga-esque feel to them, with big eyes and tiny mouths and noses. They are extremely beautiful in some cases and unsettlingly realistic in others.

I also discovered several artists online who make dolls, puppets and sculptural figures. Most notably was the work in this online gallery by Pat Lillich. Amazing! And so inspiring...

Now I've never worked in 3D before so my efforts are...mixed.

We started trying on a very small scale in kids Plasticine:

Then progressed to trying a slightly larger scale with something called 'Sculpey' which is basically the same as Fimo:

We painted our creations with acrylic, which was not the best medium on this clay but it was all that was to hand...

I was struck by the puppet-potential of even a simple mask-face. Once put into motion with a human body, our little creatures had an unexpectedly strong character - even without a body of any kind!

So, there you have it. Another obsession to add to my collection. My only worry is where I am going to store all the thing I make...Our flat is already a living space and a library, and must now function as studio and store!

Bee Sting

2011-07-08T23:09:00.000+01:00

The bee that was initially going to be in this drawing seems to have flown off during the execution of it...

Fun at Circus Space, first video is of a new, very open, drop (!) and a climb hidered by my not knowing my left from my right - such things are important in rope placement!

Exhibition

2011-06-27T21:20:00.000+01:00

I was part of a small exhibition promoting young artists in Oxford as part of the Oxford Fringe.

It was a sweet evening with music and a great variety of art - it was very interesting to see all the pieces displayed together.

I sold one of my drawings, a piece called 'Bryony' which I did quite a while ago.
Three of the other drawings - 'Mugwort', 'Twins' and 'Trip' which are on the left hand side - are still for sale if anyone reading is interested in buying them. Just message me and we can arrange delivery etc.

I'm having an insect-inspiration at the moment. For quite a while it has been people with plants (which I'm sure will continue) but it seems now bugs have caught my attention.

The word for insect in Anglo-Saxon was 'Hond-Wyrm' which translates directly as 'Hand-Dragon', meaning small dragon. I was so excited when I found this out - it gives a beautiful insight into the culture and world-view of the Anglo-Saxon people.

From Sunrise to Slutwalk...to space....

2011-06-14T23:30:00.000+01:00

I had the great pleasure of being my beloveds plus one at the Sunrise Festival near Bruton.

He spoke about his book, Shroom, and I listened intently and tried to think of an intelligent and unexpected question to ask him.
Maybe it was the heat or the massive quantities of chai I had consumed, or maybe a little something altogether else, but I actually only managed the listening intently aspect of my plan.

Here he is talking in a tipi.

And here are some other sights from the festival...

It was a real pleasure to fall out of time in the way that festivals (or travelling) allow you to do.
After I purge a certain sense of anxiety, usually on the first day, I relax into the lovely routine of having very little to do.
My one regret was that I am not at the point of performing rope at festivals yet. But it can't be too far away I think...Until then.

I also attending the Slutwalk which took place in London recently.
Despite my not knowing many people in the London crowd (I was joined by two friends, one male, one female), there was an almost festival atmosphere.

Unfortunately it didn't come out - but this woman's sign read 'Buffy wouldn't stand for this shit'.

I was pleased to see that the walk had attracted a wide range of people.
To use somewhat clumsy group categories for a moment, just so you can visualise, there were straight looking women and men, men in women's clothing, women in men's clothing, Trans-women, femmes, butches and queers (I use the word queer to mean non-normative. I guess 'normative' in this case refers to people dressed conservatively who I assume to be heterosexual. I don't attach a judgement to this - I have nothing against straight looking straight people! And I apologise if my use of a reclaimed word - queer, slut etc - is offensive to anyone) of sorts of all shapes and sizes.

I'm pretty certain, despite my vaguely buffer arm muscles, vaguely unusual dress sense and shortish hair, that I'm 'read' as straight-femme by most people...Being suddenly surrounded by interesting people makes one consider how one appears...

It was interesting too to consider how frequently fear of sexual attack shapes the way I dress and behave in public.
I was particularly intrigued and moved by one trans woman talking about this - about how before she transitioned she (then he) really didn't understand how it is to be a woman in terms of social interaction - from walking down the road to everything else.
Of course, men get attacked and raped too - and women commit sexual assault. Rape is an attack about power, made by the physically powerful against those weaker than themselves.
I wonder how it must feel for men at events like this one to be constantly constructed as the more powerful, as the aggressors etc, when these discourses of masculinity and maleness do not fit with their experience of themselves at all.

In all, I feel it is an important movement, one which highlights the fallacy of victim-blaming culture (i.e. the 'they asked for it' mentality) whilst being pro-sex and pro-sexy - however one likes to manifest sexiness.

I wore my doc marten boots. They make me feel sexy.

Slutdog

After my adventure on the march, I had time to visit a science-fiction exhibition which is currently on at the British Library.
This was inspiring and disheartening in equal measure - there are so, so many books I've not read...

A beautiful sculpture, the reference for which I missed...But I liked the aerial imagery.

And finally, I went training at circus space.

Then I went home to bed.

More words

2011-06-06T20:59:00.000+01:00

I am feeling inclined to share another poem. It's rather like a drawing with words after all...

Conditioning

Many swallow their spit and shrink,

Parade their bones,

I am differently afflicted.

I watch men with the masked attention of a thief.

I covet their shapes.

Then steal home, to pit will against weakness

Finally, my flesh expands, begins

to harden.

For the second time, my body becomes unfamiliar.

This time, let curves of muscles be my armour,

repulse uninvited

grasping stares

and sublimate my fear.

Light Locked

2011-05-30T17:47:00.001+01:00

Have a look at this beautiful new art blog!

http://stingingsaltskin.blogspot.com/

words, for a change

2011-05-30T17:42:00.000+01:00

Saint Death

This is how I like to picture her,
as they do in Mexico; Santa Muerte,

who, with flowers as bright as fireworks
against the dark folds of her dress,

follows behind me
like Eurydice, just out of sight.

Although her naked skull is tongue-less,
she speaks insistently as I walk;

See the shape of the air
in the movement of the water,
and the light that glows through grass.
See sky, the colours of its vastness.
Hear a bird’s wings beating,
feel your lips parting as you breathe.
See
before you slow
and I reach you.

I am, of course, alone – it’s just a game -
but now nothing else matters:

green blades are luminous in sunlight,
my tongue is wet against my lips,

and in the sky,
a buzzard,
its eyes earth-locked,

the pitiless, focused silence.

The genesis of a drawing...

2011-05-25T20:53:00.002+01:00

I've been getting very interested in looking at graphic novelist blogs recently. I love the particular flavour of graphic novel art, yet all the artists have very distinct styles.

One of the things quite of few of the blogs showed, was the stages a drawing goes through before it ends up in a comic or graphic novel. I've decided to do the same, except that mine is a graphite drawing - no pen, no ink, no photoshop finishing - and so is rather less dramatic.
But interesting none the less I hope!

The idea for this drawing arrived in my mind after a visit to the Pitt Rivers museum (in the dark with little torches) which got me thinking about the various transformative magics and visions humans employ.

Here, the hands are supposed to look a little like antlers, the man imagining himself into the form of a stag.

Initially I was going to draw only the outlines of the hands, to create heightened visual confusion about what they were, i.e. hands or antlers.
However, when I tried this in my sketchbook using the reference photos I had taken, it didn't quite work. The outlines didn't look 'handy' enough or 'antlery' enough.

I didn't want to retake the photo - I wanted to stick to the model's (my beloved) initial physical expression after I described to him what I wanted him to do.

The next step was to start drawing. I chose to use an HB pencil for the initial outline, and some of the finer, lighter lines in the shading, and a 3B pencil for the main line work. I find softish pencils good for human flesh - it is easier to make marks which look dispersed, like shadow.

As I went along (I started with the hands as the face is my favourite thing to do - I do the same with food, eating the things I like the least on the plate and working up to my favourite) I decided I actually didn't want to add colour, which I had been considering in my sketchbook. I liked the simplicity of the graphite on the paper. I was unsure what further 'meaning' the colour would add, and was worried it might distract from my idea.

Colours, like everything else, come with meaning. If I used green, around the hands, on the beard etc, you would potentially think of 'nature'. If I used purple in the same way, you might quite possibly think of magic, wizards etc. Dark red reminds us of blood and in our culture has come to signify sexuality.
So, you see, I decided not to mess with the complex matter of colour here.

I never quite know how my hand will translate the vision in my mind onto the page, just as with some new moves on my rope, I'm not entirely sure how my body weight will move through space, if my hands will catch my weight...Obviously it would seem to matter less in a drawing than in a circus move, but I can assure you, the mental fall from not achieving that translation from imagination to paper is just as painful.

I am very happy with how this drawing and this character turned out.

May Day and the First Festival of Summer

2011-05-23T19:03:00.000+01:00

Pegasus routine

2011-05-11T13:35:00.000+01:00

Here is a video taken whilst I was trying to work out what to do routine-wise for the Pegasus gig. Riddled with errors but also with good moments which I'm happy with. Which I suppose is the nature of being a learner...

Pegasus

2011-05-10T16:00:00.001+01:00

I had my second aerial gig, this time at the Pegasus Theatre in Oxford.

I performed alongside Matt Sage and his band again, but this time we had smoke, lighting, and I had my rope rigged at a more interesting height!
The tech guys were really lovely, I felt very looked after.

It was an interesting experience, both emotionally and technically, as I had my first taste of a dressing room and backstage area in which to feel nervous...Thankfully, nerves only lasted about 60 seconds into my routine (which manifested as my feet shaking, something my partner could unfortunately see from where he was sitting) and then I actually rather enjoyed myself.

The audience seemed to enjoy it, and I had lots of positive comments from people afterwards.

I really hope I can repeat the performing experience in new ways and places - outside from trees, at festivals, in theatres with shows and puppets and storytelling....(cue dream sequence...)

Tonight I am going to have my first silks lesson in ages, as a sign of my commitment to trying to train twice a week. It is, as always, money not enthusiasm which holds me back, but hopefully with a little more life modelling work I will be able to start regularly studying silks.

Whilst in Ireland

2011-05-03T14:45:00.001+01:00

It has been a busy couple of weeks.
Before the buzz of May Day in Oxford, I went to Ireland to stay with my friend Nicola. Having been recently inspired to make some art using aerial, photography and video, Nicola was the obvious person to contact as a collaborator. Happily, she was equally eager which meant I packed up my (borrowed) rope and headed to Gatwick to fly out to Knock airport.

There was only one slight hitch getting through customs, which I was certain there would be, which meant I had to unpack my rope and explain to the bemused looked officer why I was travelling with it. Luckily for me he was a fan of circus and impressed by my hobby. He even helped me pack the rope away again - handy, as it can feel a bit like trying to get a python in a bag.

We only had three full days to work on the start of our project.

Day one was spent filming.
A friend of Nic's said we could use a tree on her farm. It wasn't massively high, but high enough to have a play about. The relatively lowness was probably a blessing, as I had to climb up thin blue twine to rig (after a hysterical ten minutes or so of us trying to get the twine over the branch by tying it to a stick and then chucking it) - a very odd feeling experience having been used to thick corde lisse ropes!

Whilst she was filming Nic also took some beautiful photos. I've played about with the contrast and the colours in order to try and get images which stand alone, and to see the different moods and meaning which fall out of using black and white or overly saturated pictures.

Day two was spent cycling around the countryside of county Leitrim, seeing peoples amazing straw bale-built houses, making fudge and chocolate mousse and editing photos and reviewing the film we had got. All film editing is in Nic's capable hands - not one of my skill areas...

Day three was our day of ground-photography.
We were both really pleased with how these came out.
Now all we need to save up some framing money in the hope that we could exhibit some as prints...

It was hard to leave a sunny, blue skied Ireland. Waking up to quiet, chickens to feed, coffee, fresh juice, talking and laughing with Nicola and slow breakfasts together was very good indeed.
As was having even a short time to devote to making things...I look forward to a time when I could spend the majority of my hours that way...For now, the little rock-pools of art-making time are wonderful.

Arriving back in London on Thursday afternoon felt rather abrupt and alien - almost as if someone had drained all the colour out of everything.
My first Circus Space class of term was very enjoyable however, if not rather daunting. Just when you think you are finally getting strong, a new set of conditioning exercises is introduced and...dear me.

Luckily Beltane eve and May Day were bright, colourful and glorious.
But I will save that for later.

Egg

2011-04-21T14:16:00.000+01:00

I have safely submitted this terms essay and I am now sitting back feeling simultaneously relaxed and excited.

The spring has already offered multiple treats, and I am looking forward to seeing what will grow in the summertime.
I plan on doing as much training as possible, as much art as I can squeeze from my fingertips and a good deal of adventuring.

For now, spot the golden egg of spring...(visual easter egg hunt...)

Work in Progress...

2011-04-19T10:34:00.000+01:00

Here is the hair finished..

HowlingArt

2011-04-18T13:21:00.001+01:00

A while ago I posed for some photos taken by my friend Roxy Butler (artist, photographer).

She used the pictures we created in an exhibition she had recently in Stokes Croft, Bristol.
Sadly I couldn't make the exhibition, but it looks amazing and was a great success. The other two artists are very inspiring too.

She has kindly said I can put some of the photos up here: (nudity ahoy...)

I'm really looking forward to working with her again soon. The next set will involve some aerialist skills...

New Colouring Pencils

2011-04-18T13:05:00.000+01:00

I'm having so much fun it is almost tempting to try finger painting again too...and play dough.

Here is a self portrait work in progress...(Not sure exactly where I'm going with it as it began as just a test piece for the delicious box of colouring pencils my friend Sue found for me in a charity shop.)

It might need a moth...most things do.

Line(s)

2011-04-16T00:10:00.000+01:00

I decided to try something new this week, inspired in part by the psychedelics conference (or rather, by my reflections on psychedelic imagery whilst at the conference) and in part by an artist called Dorothy who creates amazing, complex pattern drawings.

One line. I've lost my mind.

I'm now working on a drawing with the coloured pencils I used here. They are potentially going to be more portable than watercolour paint, and more simple to get out and use.
Which is important when one lives in two smallish rooms with another person...

I've also been rekindling my love of graphic novels and doing lots of eyeballing online. And experimenting in my sketch book. When I get paid I'm going to go to the comic book shop in Brighton and buy lots of 'reference' books...

If anyone knows of any graphic novels I must aquaint myself with, please let me know...

Museums and Magic

2011-04-13T12:46:00.000+01:00

Our friends Rima and Tom came to stay a few days ago.

It is a curious thing, but when friends stay I always start to see the place I live in afresh. A little bit like when one babysits small children and everything starts to look much taller and more riddled with dangers than it usually does...

Oxford however did not look full of lurking pitfalls, rather it was blossoming with spring and museum-held treasures.

Astrolabes, nitsuiki and various charms in the Science Museum...

Green men, hidden college gardens and eerie angelic figuers on the rooftops...

This visit to the Pitt Rivers revealed things I have never noticed before. I have never been to the Pitt without seeing something new. This time noh masks (read the labels of what they depict...) and a mole in a glass jar.

In the evening we went out onto the meadow.
There was a heroic gathering of wood and I decorated of the space with my wedding bunting and jam jar lanterns.
I wished my teenage self could stumble across us, as we sang together and played music, so she could have a little glimpse into the future and I how I (finally) found wonderful people to be with.

Wedding Bunting

Mead

Rima

Breaking Convention Psychedelics Conference and Canterbury

2011-04-06T16:56:00.000+01:00

The conference of psychedelic consciousness in Canterbury. The first conference I've ever been to where flowers were handed out at the start of the lectures...

The Gormenghast-esque Cathedral and creatures of Canterbury (hidden in wood and stone...)

Sauce

2011-04-06T16:29:00.000+01:00

Inspiration-fest

2011-04-01T12:47:00.001+01:00

This stern looking man was drawn from a painting in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

What started as a fairly distracted doodle took on a strange quality - I had a bizarre and unexpected sense of connection to the original artist. I imagined I could see this man, whoever he was, how he would have shifted as he sat. The dust which would have caught the light around him, the quality of his skin, the sound of him breathing.

It made me think how art can be like a diary in a way, an attempt to record our lives, to inscribe ourselves into time. Which is, in part, what this blog must be too.

Attending an aerial/mindfulness workshop last Sunday, seems to have unexpectedly unstuck something which was barring my creativity.
I woke this morning thinking about all my disparate creative pursuits - drawing, aerial, poetry/writing, my MA.

Browsing the Internet I found this website, where the artist is using her body, butoh dance, and her fine art skills to create a whole environment of impressions.

I am very excited about this use of multi-disciplines...I've been scribbling away in my diary and am full of direction.
Pity there is not the time right now to get on with it!

This picture can show some of the ideas I am thinking about...To show everything I want to will require photographs, nudity (of course...), film, drawings and paintings, and possibly some of the poems I have been working on.

Is there anything more pleasurable than creative endeavour?
Well, one or two things, but...

Spring

2011-03-23T21:44:00.000Z

The sun is giving off heat, the trees outside my flat have blossom on them and the sky has turned a funny blue colour...I'm feeling delirious with spring-buds of happiness and have been playing in the woods.

My essay on action heroines in science fiction film (god, I love my MA) is starting to flow a little and feel creative, I've got a couple of aerial workshops booked in the next few weeks and my partner is talking about travelling adventures to be had... All this and light in the sky after the hour of four!

I've also just discovered Amanda Palmer (musician and wife of Neil Gaiman) and Margaret Cho (openly bisexual comedian/performer/activist) and a skit they did at the expense of heteronormative, irritating pop music, attacking regressive right-wing American politics. Have a look...

Good times.

Stained Glass and Tai Chi

2011-03-10T14:43:00.001Z

I am having a few days in Cornwall with my family.

So far, I have been to a Tai Chi/Chi Gung lesson with my father, and my mother has shown me all about her stained glass. It's always really interesting to hear someone talk about something for which they have a real passion, and both my parents are passionate about movement/art respectively.

I'm clearly very much their child!

Tai Chi is beautiful - the cultivation of the practice leads to incredible movement, fluid and soft and strong all at once. Not to mention seeming to be about as close as one can get to being a Jedi, so I definitely want to sign up to that...

It's clearly going to be a long journey...

My mums stained glass is also beautiful.
Though it requires blood sacrifice and pain - her fingers are covered in little cuts, and the precision required for it to work sounds rather daunting.

Work in progress...The cat, sensing human attention focused onto something delicate, immediately appeared to walk her muddy feet over whatever it was.
(Note my mum's use of arcane symbols as well as numbers)

As you can see, she makes the whole house as colourful as stained glass, every spare surface sparkles with little shells, trinkets, beads, paintings, postcards......

More aerial sketches

2011-03-09T15:23:00.001Z

Training at Circus Space has been really good fun the last few weeks. Our teacher Tamzen has been pushing us with conditioning and it is really paying off. I've been bumped up to group two for the last part of this term, and have signed up for next term as well.

Our lessons consist of warm up (very important...) i.e. climbs of varying types, then onto practising moves and little sequences she calls out, then onto conditioning in the last 15 - 20 minutes - by which time I am always astounded my hands can bare my weight for another second.

I'm looking forward to trying some sequences to music again, like I used to do with my teacher and friend Tanya.

(Sorry about the music on the clips - I needed to replace the audio on youtube and it doesn't have any good options...)
The movement in these videos, although I'm having a beautiful time in the air, looks very functional. I am interested in taking the moves back into a place of emotional exploration, and greater heed placed on the quality of the movement.

Of course, to do that I need to get my muscles in working order, both in terms of strength and muscle memory...and keep working on fluidity.

2011-03-05T12:25:00.000Z

It seems I have become the face of spiritual tourism in Ireland. This is pleasing, not to mention amusing, on a number of levels, none of which need outlining here...

The picture was taken by the excellent, Nicola Brady (film maker, photographer, writer and massage therapist), at her home Ard Na Hoo in Ireland.

Have a look at Nic's sparkling new website.

Astrolabe

2011-03-01T20:55:00.000Z

For some words on the secrets of one man's creative process, go here to Andy Letcher's blog. At the end is a rough recording we made of one of his new songs, called Astrolabe.

It was lovely to be part of a different creative method, and to play about with how harmony works. I became very aware of the voice being a muscle, and mine not being a very developed one!

I am having better success with other muscle development, however.
This week at Circus Space we worked on Back Balance, which I find really tricky as I have a very immobile lower spine - apparently this runs in the family...
Conditioning has paid off though, and I can now transition through Back Balance using Flag - my new favourite move.

And now I must return to essay writing!

Aerial video sketches

2011-02-23T23:27:00.000Z

The other day, whilst taking a breather from body conditioning exercises, that my ipod nano records video of astoundingly high quality. I took some little clips of myself training, and I can see that the recent training at Circus Space has improved my precision.

There is still a long way to go, I need to translate the ballet class I've been taking into awareness of my floating, uncertain hands, but I'm quite pleased.

Practising flare to hiplock....

Swinging into front balance (sort of)

And proof that I can, finally, do flag.

Baby steps towards the edge of the nest...

Threads

2011-02-18T14:55:00.001Z

The themes of suspension, space, bodies and aerial have, as ever, been very evident in the drawings I have been making recently. I'm still largely drawing from photographs which, depending on who one talks to, is a great folly or a great idea. It definitely produces a different feeling to a drawing.

I have made good on my promise to myself, and this year is already seeing a new relationship between me and paint. After realising that I didn't really know how to us water colour, I watched some youtube footage posted by people who really do know what they are doing. Much like an ape-baby fumbling with a twig, I have had some success.

My discovery of the week, a discovery which has simultaneously excited artistic, aerialist, poet and academic leanings, is the Berlin-based performance artist Dasniya Sommer.
She enacts Shibari on herself, creating erotic, sculptural imagery with her body which is reminiscent of aerial dance.

Whilst making me wonder both about costumes made of rope for future aerial performances when I am more trained (though with under clothes too - I dare not image the horrific burns naked corde lisse would potentially produce), and a different aesthetic for aerial dance, photos of her work have left my pencil blunted with drawing.
A good way to start a new sketch book!

Coming to a screen near you...

2011-02-16T20:38:00.000Z

The full length trailer for the, as yet, unreleased film 'The Wicker Tree' directed Robin Hardy is up on the Internet. The film is being described as a 're-imagining' of his 1973 cult film 'The Wicker Man'.

In all honesty, I am not completely convinced by the story line of this follow up piece, but I must reserve judgement until I see the finished movie.

Good film or not, I have been awaiting the films release as I had a very small extra part in some pick-up shots. Being raised in a media-obsessed culture, not to mention a movie-loving household, the chance to see myself on the 'silver screen' in any capacity is entertaining.

The fact that I was naked and sprayed with fake (and real) blood has done nothing to detract from my (mild) anticipation.

Vanity, technological possibility and a love of the surreal will not allow me to pass up such an opportunity - so, here I am in the trailer:

My bare back is clearly visible middle of shot, identifiable by my tattoo.

Funny old world...

Kinky Sunday

2011-02-15T11:20:00.003Z

Last Sunday I had the good sense to book onto one of the School of Life's Sunday Sermons in London. The 'Sermon', given on a stage which appropriately bore the legend 'To Thine Own Self Be True', was titled Kinky Sex and was delivered by Grayson Perry.

Having just written a paper on transvestism ('Reimagining Transvestism through Queer Theory'), I was excited by the prospect of seeing Perry talk.

And seeing what he would wear.

As tribute to the darker sexual theme he spoke about, Perry wore an incredible leather dress with elaborate cuffs, high shoulders and two pendulous, pierced leather breasts dangling from the front. Happily, I have found a photo online, as it has to be seen to be fully comprehended. He looks rather sweet in the photo I've linked to - he wore it with rather more erotic menace in person.

Whilst Perry is not an academic, and does not claim to be, he comes across as a very likable and deeply thoughtful person. The talk was engaging, funny and moving. A highlight for me was his dismissal of the safe, middle-class commercialisation of fetish - embodied in the form of widely sold fluffy handcuffs (which, he pointed out, don't even lock properly) - something which has always irritated me immensely.

Perry spent some time tracing the origins of fetish - why a person develops such a strong 'atypical' erotic response, whilst many do not. There was talk of certain 'trauma' in childhood (not necessarily parental or abusive) leading onto an arousal response in later life - i.e. the classic transvestite tale of being forced to dress in girls clothes as a child, and subsequently finding feelings of humiliation stimulating.

Whilst finding this all interesting speculation, I still resist the inherently pathologising language found in causation-seeking...It implies something is 'wrong' in a slightly unhelpful way. Heterosexual, vanilla folk don't spend a great deal of energy meticulously tracing the reasons for their orientation, and I don't see why kinky types should tie themselves in a knot doing so.

Still, Perry was not apologetic, and oozed kinky sensuality from the stage.

Whilst chatting to my Dad about the talk (he's an open minded lefty), he questioned weather Perry was actually a transvestite seeing as he often dresses like a doll/little girl rather than an adult woman. Perry explained this, describing those dresses (sissy dresses to all you not aware of the subculture) as the 'crack cocaine of femininity' which I loved!

I also loved Perry revealing that all of us in the audience were in a sense part of, or feeding, his fetish. We were all part of his transvestism as we were the eyes, the gaze on his femininity.

As everyone absorbed this information there was a definite ripple through the crowd...a little Sunday, kinky frisson.

An insignificant brush with the media

2011-02-02T20:15:00.000Z

I have found my way into the Oxford Mail, albeit in an extremely tiny photo. I was doing some conditioning in the background whilst the photo was being taken...You can just make out the blue of my top.

The struggle to find somewhere decent (which means ceiling height, warmth and space to store a crash mat) to rig in Oxford continues. The Circus Space evening course is going really well. Our teacher is pushing up hard which is fantastic - my strength is improving from week to week. I shall soon have the Popeye forearms I've craved since childhood. To anyone reading with aerial knowledge I am pleased to announce that I can (finally!) do Flag.

In other news, I have finally allowed myself to start playing with watercolours again. After realising I didn't really know how to use them, I watched some sped up footage of people painting on youtube. This seems to have helped enourmously, even though at the time I wasn't especially aware of learning anything. I shall upload my effort as soon as I find my battery re-charger...

Rosie...

2011-01-12T22:27:00.000Z

Drawing frenzy...Wish I could hide on an island somewhere for a week (or 12) and keep going without interruption. Except for rope practise and walks...sigh...;)

2011-01-12T13:14:00.000Z

Tarn

Air doodles

2011-01-11T20:34:00.000Z

Since the new year started, I've been thinking about trying to paint again. About a year ago I decided not to paint anymore until I felt my drawing skills were more accurate. They are definately better now (after much practise, many life drawing classes and hours spent looking at other peoples work) and so I got my watercolours out yesterday. I remembered immediately that I really don't get on with watercolour - it feels very fixed. I have preferred using oils in the past, not just for the feel of them, but the results I got as well.
Still, here are some doodles of aerial figuers. It's an image theme I want to stay with...But I clearly need to spend this year learning how to use paint!

First Gig Photos

2010-12-21T11:08:00.003Z

Photos by the lovely Rosie Caldecott

'Don't Let the World Go By'

2010-12-16T16:49:00.000Z

On the 10th of December I performed my first public aerial rope, whilst Matt Sage (founder of Catweazle Club) and his band played 'Don't let the world go by'.
Matt seems to be a gatekeeper to the stage for many people in Oxford and beyond.

Unfortunately there was no footage taken, which is a shame, as, after viewing the video in my last blog, I practised rather a lot and think I made a fair bit of progress...The performance felt much tighter, more fluid, and most importantly, very enjoyable.

I'm looking forward to doing more performances - ! - and am now full of ideas for new routines, costumes, music, lighting...A significant personal victory considering a lifetime spent feeling very hindered by severe stagefright.
There is always the possiblity of slaying demons, even ones which seem insurmountably strong.

Oxford Bookbinders

2010-12-06T21:09:00.000Z

My prayers have been answered! I have found a space in Oxford where I can rig the rope I've burrowed from my teacher. It is called The Old Bookbinders, just off the cowley road, and is currently inhabited by Inevents.

Initially I thought the height was going to render it far from ideal, but the lowness of the beams have two advantages; firstly, that I can train alone(ish) without too much fear for my safety, and secondly, that it means I have to think creatively about routines, moves, etc. This creative need has meant that I discovered a new move - new to me at least - which you can see in my training video at about 2.43...

There is also the possibility of a gig, space logistics allowing. Even if it does not come to pass this time, I am pleased by how my excitement has outweighed my nervousness. Aerial has been quite a solitary thing for me, but I find I am increasingly eager to share it.
The rest of the week has been dominated by essay writing and Christmas present drawing. I am very pleased with the results of both and so am feeling in an all round triumphant mood, however small (or low) the triumphs.

Perfection

2010-11-27T10:24:00.000Z

This image came from a conversation with a friend about striving for perfection, and the multiple ways in which that can be a trap...Striving is a powerful thing, but a fixed notion of perfection, being the best (rather than the best you can be), seems to me a good way to loose the joy one had in any craft to begin with.
My friend compared it to collecting butterflies; catching something, presenting it, preserving it, only to see, with dismay, how one has destroyed the thing which made it beautiful.

(Once again, I'm sorry about the dark of my uploads, I don't have a scanner and have to use a rather arcane camera!)
In other news; I've been working on a rope routine I can do from a rather low beam in the space I've found in Oxford. It still strike me as silly that in such a city of vaulted ceilings I cannot find a higher space willing to let me rig...But it is a start! I've been really enjoying training in Brighton with Hazel (in between lectures) and her class. I am delighted to report that I can now do four long arm straddle climbs - that may not mean much to most of you, but if I tell you that I kissed my own biceps when I landed, you'll understand how happy I was. I'll try and get a video up to demonstrate...

Looking Glass

2010-11-11T11:25:00.000Z

Tarn is off on an adventure to find Kangaroos and sunshine, but luckily for me I was able to see her before she leaves and have some time rope-dancing. So here is a video of the routine I've called Looking Glass, unfortunately without the skip drop which finishes it. I had an attack of air-born self-doubt demons which meant I had to come back to earth, ponder and share a few tears. Fate has blessed me with the perfect teacher and after some kind words I found my wings, muscles and confidence again and practiced some delightful swinging movements.
I feel that any art form which steals your heart opens up the way for great growth and self knowledge. This means that all ones shadows also wake up, come crawling and clawing to have their say. They will all be there, the shadow-audience, and it takes faith and strength to keep going, to send them packing with a stern word.
I have yet to work out how to lay the music over the video, but I want to use a Satie piano piece for this routine...

Day of the Dead

2010-11-03T21:32:00.000Z

Tuesday night was the second Oxford Day of the Dead. The idea to have our own Day of the Dead came from my partners celebration of May Day, (every year at 6am on the steps of the Bodleian Library) which I thought could do with its counterpoint at the opposite side of the year. On May Day we all don green clothes, bring our instuments and dancing shoes to the steps and the Hurly Burly Whirly Band play in the Spring with folks tunes, old and new.
Day of the Dead sees us don black, bring our instruments and dancing shoes to the steps at 6pm in the evening and a far more somber incarnation of the Whirly Band play out the Summer...

For me this time is to remember Death, the one certainty of existence. A time to remember our ancestors, near and far, and any who have died.
In honouring Death, we remember that we are alive. The dancing is therefore of sorrow and fear, but also of a deep, burning exstacy.

All photos by Kate Raworth

Oddities

2010-10-31T17:54:00.001Z

I've been very busy these last few weeks, reading lots of exciting books on gender, sexuality, desire and all for the Masters, investigating the possibility of a space to train in Oxford (also very exciting, watch this space for pictures of a delighted me dangling in my own home town!) and being an extra in a new film by Robin Hardy of The Wicker Man fame. Not to give away too much plot, this involved outdoor Autumnal nudity and being covered in fake (and real) blood. I am hopeful that my naked self might make it into the final edit...

I did find the time to do a strange drawing which I then painted in watercolour. It was definately ill-advised to paint by the orange glow of a single lamp, but I blame the influence of the season for how oddly the thing turned out. Not sure where this character and her rabbits came from...

I also noticed this little collection of objects on our mantle, framing a rather beautiful photograph of a gargoyle, and felt pleased that I still have time to peer closely at things...and find unplanned and unexpected pockets of art.

Portraits

2010-10-18T22:56:00.000+01:00

Drawing people

Not as they are...

As they are...

And as they appear in daydreams...

Silks, trees and longing

2010-10-12T00:16:00.001+01:00

In August, Brighton was host to the first European Aerial Dance Forum in England. This was an amazing opportunity to train all day in various disciplines, several of which (harness and cocoon) I had never tried before as my focus has been on corde lisse. The teachers were fantastic, encouraging and clear, and my strength was at an all time high by the end.
The most satisfying part for me was improvising (French teacher and perforer Fred Deb had us imagine we were surrounded by mosquitoes) on the rope during create lab sessions. Often confidence is just as important as muscle and technical ability. Feeling free enough in the air to begin to create...what a gift!

Later, in the Lake District, I was able to practice some cocoon moves on my straps (which are actually for rigging, but prove a useful, if slightly painful, training tool as well) which I looped over a tree branch. Oh, to have a tree outside my flat! (the sound half way through is my husband nearly slipping into a brook...)

It is strange where the paths of life take us - we choose them from a mere glimpse, from a small longing in the heart which whispers and will not be silenced...No matter where this path leads, the path itself is strewn with remarkable things - dreams realised, amazement at ones-self, transformation - however tiny - and the dappled happiness which comes from knowing we listened to the longing.

Wedding

2010-10-09T12:04:00.001+01:00

The invitation which I drew and designed

Wire wool and feather necklace which was made by Facets of Avalon in Glastonbury.

Photos by Raworth and Raworth

Aerial

2010-10-08T13:10:00.001+01:00

My interest in aerial circus (or aerial dance) was from the first about its potential as a form of moving sculpture. I became very excited about the possible images, moods and stories which could be created by using my whole body in a new way. To claim the air as a new space in which to explore is not a quick process - much like drawing and painting it takes a great deal of time, patience and hard, hard work. I have been incredibly lucky to find just the right woman to train me, someone who inhabits her body with a depth of grace which still astounds me. I only hope that one day I can find that fluidity in myself!
Until then, here is what I have been working on this week.
I see myself in the air here as a fledgling, a creature still very much in the process of finding its place, but filled with excitement and amazement at what its body can do.

Kit Williams and herb paris

2010-10-07T19:42:00.004+01:00

Some months ago I met the artist Kit Williams ( who made and buried a golden hare then created a painting puzzle book which was a key to finding it) who asked me to model for Titania in one of his paintings. I said yes, of course, Kit having been an artist who inspired me as a child and Midsummer Nights Dream being my favourite Shakespeare play.
The experience was a very delightful one as Kit is full of stories; myths meeting memories, ancient characters re-imagined, the collision of disparate tales and characters forming something new and wonderful in his work.
After I had moddled the BBC made a documentary retrospective about Kit, which he asked me to be in. Filming is a strange process, very repetative, but fun nonetheless.

One of the stories Kit told to the filmmakers involved his decision during an early stage of the Titania (and Bottom) painting to use herb paris as the plant used to bewitch Bottom. He had always hoped to find it growing in the wild and in true Kit-style found it for the first time shortly after his decision to include it.
After this I began exploring the relationship between people and plants in my drawing, our preferences for certain ones, the magic stories surrounding others, the effects they have on us...

Our (mine and my partner's) involvement with the documentary also granted us a childhood wish when, whilst at the London exhibition of Kit's recent work, the BBC team unexpectedly unveiled the long-vanished Golden Hare. Through our adventure of meeting Kit we had found it! Well, sort of...

Honeymoon

2010-10-04T23:10:00.001+01:00

This Autumn brings many new beginnings for me; attending Circus Space classes, the starting of a Masters Degree on Wednesday, my marriage on the 24th of September and now beginning this travelogue.
It is my and my new husbands (!) honeymoon which is at the front of my mind this evening.
I am already missing the Lake District - the deep quiet, the lack of people, the lack of anything to do except walk, climb and scramble up mountains, eat good food, play in trees, drink fine mead and other traditional Honeymoon activities...

What will become the wedding thank you card..

Aerial practice in the cottage garden

Buttermere

The cottage we rented