To follow-up Monday’s interview and my french translation entry on Debut, ‘Euphoria’ comes from Ancient Greek. Technically, euphoria is an affect, but the term is often used to define an emotion as, an ‘intense state of transcendent happiness combined with an overwhelming sense of contentment’. It has also been defined as an “affective state of exaggerated well-being or elation.” (Wikipedia).I have just jumped up and down for 10 minutes making a strange kind of squeaking noise I didn’t know I had inside me, whilst my husband rang me to tell me that he had been SELECTED!!!! We are both in a Euphoric state. My husband said he wanted to leave everything at the shop and literally run home. His euphoric energy would probably only get him a few yards before his body told him the reality. However, he had to stay and see a customer. The word derives from Greek εὐφορία, “power of enduring easily, fertility”. So this sketch embodies exactly that.
Also, in Egypt they celebrate a year on from the revolution. My sister-in-law seems quite euphoric about the future for her children. I must find out more from friends and family over there. It is also a close friends birthday. Happy Day! Euphoric Day in fact.
The word ‘debut’ comes from French début, meaning a performer’s first-time performance to the public.
It always makes me think of ballet. I saw Degas’ ballerina statue in Paris many years ago, was one of those pieces of art that you see images of but seeing the real thing was something again! I refer to that because my husband made a few wire sculptures, one of which was a ballet dancer. It was more like a 3D sketch really and one that got skipped. Funnily we then saw it placed on a rock a gate post in a field near our house. How it got there and why I have no idea. As I write, in that very strange ‘real time’ my husband is walking into a gallery in Notting Hill called Debut Contemporary. I, myself am a little anxious in anticipation. I am almost baffled as to how to describe my husbands anxiety over the last week. We are unsure what will come of it. He isn’t doing a performance but it is his first ever interview.
Debut is also a derivative of débuter (“to move, begin”). We are hoping it may be a new beginning of something.
I guess the target or aim is for a platform for my husbands work to be ‘noticed’ for him to make connections and get more gallery space. We are very much of the mind-set what will be will be (maktub) but I am nervously waiting for a phone call later on to find out what will happen next…..
This week we are ‘Seeing Red’………My husband has returned from Switzerland but not without hiccup. He rang me from the airport on Sunday, I anticipated to tell me he would be seeing us soon. Shocked he told me, that he had discovered when asking a lady at a desk where his flight was, that it was the day before. It was going to cost a good £1000 to fly via Amsterdam that day. So he (still at cost) had managed to get one for the following day. Don’t ask! The good news, however was that the gallery owner he met really liked the ‘Red Man’ so a proposed series for an exhibition is being put together…shame he can’t get on with the ‘making’, money went on flights instead! The gallery, ‘Gallerie Life in Art’ seems an apt title for my blog too!
Conceptual pieces sometimes panic people ,not always sure what to think, how to react, or conscious that they are supposed to do so in a certain way. Personally the point is just to ‘think, what comes to mind?, what ideas, what emotions does a piece evoke/….so on and so on… So without telling you about this piece, (apart from the fact it does reference another Artist, Marcel Duchamp) I will write about a little thought process I went on whilst thinking about this piece.
How do we bring up this new generation of babes into the world without exposing them to too much and without depriving them of tools they may need in order to ‘survive’ this modern-day jungle. Did my own sheltered childhood prepare me for the world and to what gain and to what disadvantage?
I had a sheltered upbringing mainly due to the fact that we grew up in a little village in Yorkshire, pretty idyllic really. We were brought up in an environment of peace, love and tranquility. A strong emphasis on education and family. However, is being protected and ‘perfected’ the very best way of living. Even the very phrase a ‘sheltered upbringing’ has a negative connotation. Definition one “to have a life in which you are protected too much and experience very little danger, excitement or change” and definition two, “someone who has had a sheltered life has not had the usual unpleasant experiences that most people have in their lives”.
For me, my upbringing seems perfectly normal, most people around me had a similar one and friends and family were all doing the same. I travelled but always in a ‘safe’ way. We did have a big change when we moved house from one county to another, and sure there is always excitement when you are a kid. I was, therefore, interested in these definitions as it seems to suggest that ‘most people’ have unpleasant experiences, and that it is usual to experience ‘danger, excitement and change’. I guess there are many ways of defining these later descriptions.
So when thinking about raising children now I can understand the need to avoid danger… but excitement and change is important to really appreciate life is it not? When I think about what I want my children to be exposed to, I do think I err on the side of extreme caution. They do watch TV (quite a bit) but if i had it my way we would perhaps have no TV! I wonder about future internet access and video games. Will I let them go out by themselves, how old should they be? I think this is accentuated because my husband is almost opposite on these ‘worldly’ issues. In my opinion he has led an exciting, adventures life so he will give my boys that balance.
To contradict a little,I am not all caution and in fact more so than my husband not so worried about letting them ‘learn through play’ themselves. After school this week as I was letting my boys climb the most brilliant climbing tree in the school grounds with their friend; an elderly lady came up and told the friends Mother and I that the other week a boy had got stuck and so it was very dangerous! I gathered from these ‘wise words’ that the boy must have been much older and on his own. After the elder lady had left us with the boys still in the tree, in an attempt to make sure we were responsible parents the mother and I agreed with each other… it is very necessary that boys do climb trees, we can’t say ‘No’ all the time! After all a bit of danger and excitement will help not be so sheltered?!
We can shelter our emotions, my own observation is that we British are terrible at masking our real feelings out of so-called politeness and this causes us to live in a shadow of our real selves. We lack a human connection which I have seen in other ‘warmer’ climates. Will save that discussion for another post…
Of course, the piece itself is of an umbrella and the history of the umbrella is a fascinating one and can actually be found ” sculptured on the monuments of Egypt”. The story behind the making of this was that after ordering and buying several umbrellas thinking they would be the right shape, give the right look, the one used here was a gift to me from mu husband from Denmark and was a beautiful white unusually shape. It had got damaged though so I wasn’t too disappointed in the dismantling of it. The stool however, to cut a long story short was a gift to my husband from myself. Being very difficult to buy for, I stumbled into an antique oriental shop thinking I would surely find something beautiful. Surrounded by a number of stunningly coloured items and huge piece of furniture I couldn’t decide. This stood out? (Perhaps, now I realise for the wrong reasons). Driving home with this ‘ancient chinese stool’ in my boot I suddenly had this realisation that in the shop it may have looked fairly impressive but perhaps it wasn’t going to look so authentic in our house and I may have found the simplicity and humbleness of this old stool to be appealing but would my husband?. No. Indeed, as he pointed out he could find it in any shop in Egypt or could throw one together with a few bits of wood. Where was the chinese mark? Did I really pay that much for it???? I had been conned! We debated about whether to take it back or not and then mainly for humour’s sake kept it. Well at least it has now found a good home.
Home. One of the main ideas that ‘shelter’ conjures up, a place where we can rest, stay dry, stay safe. Often with a temporary time frame associated with it and yet so many people in the world live in something that is simply a shelter. For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:
640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3).
So I should be worrying less about the future of my own children with all their comforts and privileges and thinking more about those children that don’t have the basic requirements, safe water, health and a shelter.
One happy little boy took his ‘Solar system’ sculpture into school this morning. The perks of having Baba as a Sculptor is that Mummy’s more primary school approach to making planets got taken over into a more ‘professional’ approach. Fun was had in trying to find the right size balls. Makes a good guessing game as to what we have used! Result : rather impressive looking planet model and a 4-year-old who knows the planet order by heart. One anxious husband preparing for some gallery visits and interviews. First stop, Switzerland.
With the exhibition over and the work back in store, we have had various conversations and discussions about how it went. There was an air of disappointment because nothing was sold but more so because there seemed to be a lack of publicity and the concerns we had had about the space after the first show were not improved on a second visit. However things were learnt, website to improve, a stronger sense of identity in terms of what work really represents ‘the sculptor’ and a realisation that we had to TRY a little harder.
In that vain, I am celebrating that I have actually kept blogging for a year and have just had my ‘first year blog evaluation’. I started writing with caution and almost with a secrecy which one year on has turned into my usual critical inner voice of, why can’t I write better? why can’t I get more style? How do I get more readers?, How do I get more comments?, How do I…etcetc. Over the New Year period I always find I become a bit melancholic coupled with the fact that it has rained almost constantly so my mood is permanently dampened. I start over analysing the past and then get a little bit fearful of the future. In a rather negative stance it does seem a bit more doom and gloom this year, the situation in Egypt is looking a bit dark, financially things don’t look great and hey ho we are another year older and I am still no further on choosing my own direction.
Following the exhibition we were a bit disheartened as to how to proceed into 2012 with enthusiasm. However, a promising opportunity has appeared and we are hopefully that something may come of it to push my husbands work in a better direction and gain more connections. It is amazing how something small can lift the spirits and we do have to start small sometimes (better diet, more exercise..starting very small at the moment), a walk with a friend, finishing a ‘first small novel’ with my son, baking a cake. Which, by the way to evaluate Herman was a delicious success until I then messed up my final mixture and lost the thread of continuing to have him permanently in the house. Good job really, would not have helped my new healthy diet to begin. So I will sign off and have a cup of tea and a chocolate bar!
THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE 