today

This might be one of those 'o my god it's been ages since I've written anything on my blog' type of occasions, but, never mind. It was always (was it always?) imagined (not planned) that this writing would have periods of inactivity, periods in which I was actively thinking of nothing in particular.

I have been gardening. And I have been doing a little work between bouts of a fiercesome head-cold for an artist friend. And I have been kindly invited to resume facilitating some feedback sessions for ClubsProject. And I have been talking about ideas to people.

We moved into a house with a sizeable back-yard. The garden beds were pretty overgrown, but we thought that it would be nice to have some vegetables growing. So I have been clearing the weeds and digging some lucerne and some sheep poo and some compost into the soil. There are 6 fruit trees too, so I am gradually clearing the weeds away from around them and putting down lots of mulch around their roots. [Apart from the apple tree, which has wooly aphid, and I'm told that these pests can be encouraged by an excess of nitrogen - so, no mulch for the apple tree...]. It's a relaxing/ exhausting/ calming type of thing to do. Some plants had established themselves happily here, so I'm trying to work around them - there's some rocket, parsley and nettles growing here, loving the sun and not minding the clayey soil.

Today in the garden, as I was crouched under the plum tree digging out the grass, I noticed that my fingers had a distinctively different way of feeling about them. As the soil and the compost cakes around them and works its way under my nails and into my finger prints the way of feeling becomes - I don't know if I can describe it - less like me and more like an experience that someone is describing to me. What I love about it is that I feel that I am thinking of everything and nothing at the same time.

It feels like the right thing to do, a way of letting experience settle and become thought. My work as a studio assistant has been to paint in large flat areas around a detailed drawing. My friend H remarked that I must go into something like a 'beta-state' when I am doing this, as I must also do when I am working in the garden. This would explain the particularly vivid memories and imaginings that have been rising up in my mind over the last fortnight.

I will always find it hard to leave the thinking-time and move into the process of production. My practice might be described as trying to find a means of making this thought space accessible. It's been confirmed that I will be traveling to Santiago, Chile later this year to take part in an exhibition for the South Project - which you can find out about, if you like, here.