picasa features!

This new picasa stuff, which probably isn't new at all but I've only just noticed, really seems to have some potential...




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strange and funky stuff...

...going on over on the other blog.....  http://tamsinhaggis.blogspot.co.uk/



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who is it for?

I remember in the early days of writing this blog being very perplexed about who creativity, particularly making paintings, was for. I had a strong instinct that there was something wrong with making paintings with an audience in mind, in the sense of half-consciously trying to please that audience, trying to second-guess what it might like (and buy? and praise you for?). Somehow it seemed imperative that I found my own wind, set my own sail, without looking around me.

This attitude led to people saying, 'Well,  it's the process that's important, isn't it, not the product?' This seemed right in a way, in that there was certainly something important about the doing of it, the act; the texture of paint, the responding in the moment to the marks that appeared. But it also seemed to imply that you'd be quite happy to make a painting and then put it in the bin. And that didn't seem so right.

Another comment was, 'Oh, so you're doing it for yourself, so you don't care if no-one ever sees it. You'd do it anyway'. Well, yes, and no. You do it because somehow you have to, you need to. Not doing it makes your life into a shadow. You're doing it from yourself, to your own vision. But now I see that there's a difference between trying to second-guess or please people, and wanting to share what you do.

On the whole, I don't want to put what I do into the bin. And I don't want to have a workroom getting fuller and fuller of paintings that no-one has ever seen until the teetering pile hits the ceiling. I've witnessed the occurrence of something quiet and strange coming through me, and I want to share it. Creativity seems to me to be a kind of miracle.

don't think about it!

inhibiting the body

Watching a singer on TV this evening, I'm suddenly struck by something obvious which suddenly seems new. I notice how she moves her hand, her expressions, how, despite the fact that she's performing and no doubt has made some conscious decisions about how she may think she wants to look, you can still see that quite a bit of what she does is not manufactured.

And then I see it, clear as day - that the whole body is an integral part of your singing voice. And it knows exactly what it wants to do; how it wants to sway, or move its hand, or raise an eyebrow. That knowing doesn't have to be studied, or learnt, or practised. In the same way that people who are not dancers dance beautifully and perfectly when they think no-one is looking, the knowledge is already there, innate. We're born with bodies primed to move and sing and dance. And then we block it all off, stuff it all up, with culturally learned self-consciousness. And then we try to 'learn to sing' or 'learn to dance', focussing on exercises and techniques, trying, trying, trying, forever pushing with the mind.

I suddenly saw that I know this. That I've watched my hand move out as I sing, and that I wouldn't let it move out if I was singing with someone else in the room. Never mind singing lessons, or looking up technique on the internet - how do I get myself, mentally and emotionally, into that place of knowing? How do I stop  self-consciousness from stopping my body from doing its natural thing?

Earlier in the day, I'd noticed that because I was a) tired, and b) sure that no-one could hear me and judge me, my voice had been completely clear and strong, as I'd noticed it hadn't been when we had someone staying in the house (even though I knew rationally that they weren't actually listening at all). I realised that my friend Lorna Penney's idea of 'the push' was much more subtle than I'd previously understood. The push, in this situation, is perhaps an unconscious desire to 'sound good', or 'hear improvement', and it subtly tightens up the whole body. Desire and striving tighten up the vocal chords in some subtle way, at the same time as inhibiting the body's natural movements stops an overall bodily flow.....


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the body adorned

As I suspected, rather wonderfully, really, actually doing the work is taking over from thinking about the process. Another post on the Indian project today at http://tamsinhaggis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-body-adorned.html



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what to do...

Not sure how best to link between my two blogs now. I think I'm likely to be writing about the Indian Art project for a while. You can join that site as a follower if you want, or I'll just post a link to it here from time to time.


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