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.
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.
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!
My husband is a dreamer,I think you have to be to create. However, he is the achiever dreamer, the dream is almost ambition rather than a lofty otherworldly dreamer which I would describe myself as. Perhaps this is again tied up with being Egyptian, his mind is always on the horizon always thinking, practically grounded. To me it is as though he dreams and makes his dreams become reality in both daily living and in creating. This sculpture is ‘The sleeper’ originally titled the dreamer but he changed the title. Why? Good question, there will be a philosophy behind it but he is not here to ask.
I am for the first time in a while having a little time to myself and in the child related sleep deprivation state I am currently in; not picking up the brush to sweep the crumbs off the floor or tidying the organised chaos that I am surrounded by…I just do not have the energy and am in an almost ‘dreamlike’ state. I am less in the lofty otherworldly dream mode than I used to be, not sure if that is due to age or children but I am the kind of person who can quite easily stare out the window watch the wind blowing the leaves on the trees and get lost (helped by listing to Debbie Wiseman’s Piano Story’s…I just got the CD for my Dad).
I sometime have those daydreams of a parallel life, so I will be wandering through the narrow streets of Paris and stumble into some cafe for hot chocolate and a croissant and sit and stare out the window there..(that makes me think about the film ‘Inception but I digress) and perhaps I continue with the next chapter of my book. Of course that is based upon some kind of past reality, my memory of something I have done, well except for the book writing bit, that’s the real dream! I find it harder to dream about something that I haven’t had the experience of or dream about where I want my life to go and then… go for it! My husband does that, I find it shocking and amazing…what so really you can have a dream and then achieve it!? then it’s no longer a dream!? As I learnt from my eldest child’s half term film treat ‘Tangled’, you move on to the next one, now there ‘s a novel idea (pardon the pun!)
So as I think my day dream is made up of some memory, Eugen Tarnow suggests that dreams are “ever-present excitations of long-term memory”, perhaps I am on to something here! Tarnow’s theory is a ‘reworking of Freud’s theory of dreams in which Freud’s unconscious is replaced with the long-term memory system’. Freud believed everything went back to our child hood. I wonder if the ‘Freudian’ way has slipped into our subconscious and we are guilt-ridden into believing that we have such a long term life long effect on our children. To use my husband as an example though, he is very much a product of his childhood but also the inverse that he has overcome or reached something way beyond what his childhood would perhaps have ‘normally’ dictated. For sure, to use a brilliant quote from yet another great cartoon movie, “Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere” and then to paraphrase, it is difficult to imagine more humble origins than that of my husband’s but nothing less than, in my opinion, and perhaps one day many, “one of the finest artists of this time”. Well, we can dream……..
Where to start? I have forced myself to sit down and spend some time doing this as I have got out of the routine. I also need to get a little more organised in getting images from my husband of his work so that I have more recent pieces. This piece is from 2006 and I wanted to put it in because I had written a verse that went with it for the exhibition. As I look at both the work and the words it doesn’t quite make sense. I am not even one hundred percent sure that this should be entitled ‘The game’…..
I partly wanted to speak about autumn as it feels finally autumnal today after a very odd but fantastic spell of sunshine. The shape of the wood in this piece made me think about the trees and how this year more than ever I feel more connected with nature…perhaps because of the sunshine. We have had a plethora of butterflies at the back of the house, I have collected more conkers and I am trying to spend more time looking at really seeing.
This piece also made me think about the positions we get ourselves into, mentally and physically. The game of life in a way. We can get ourselves stuck in certain habits and ways of seeing and thinking. We need to both physically stretch our bodies, make them work, oxygenate our muscles and stretch our minds expand our thoughts and ideas. It’s that time of year, seasonal change, the start of coming inside.
Having two young children and now doing the ‘school run’ I find it a bit of a challenge to remain flexible about the day but children demand a certain sense of routine so it’s getting the balance of both. As this season too, tries to find its own balance of sunny summer spurts, april showers and autumnal days, we will have to be flexible with each new day.
'Have a little Faith''Have a little Faith''Have a little Faith'
This image is a small machete for a larger sculpture that will be publicly displayed outside a local church next month. The outline of this sculpture represents an eye, the idea that God’s eye is upon us all. The figure represents the individual human, positioned within the form of the eye as the pupil. Upon the heart of the figure the shape of the cross is hollow so light will appear through it. This represents the light needed in the heart to find God. Also, physically the light being the shiny spot in the eye which we all have. Therefore, from afar the sculpture will represent God, symbolized by the eye and by the fish and on closer inspection, the figure representing each and every one of us.
In developing a small machete for the sculpture the idea of a book mark was reached and then the realisation that the image could be a new modern-day religious icon. By creating this, everyone can share the sculpture as my husband’s wish for each and everyone to ‘Have a little faith’. Please take a look at the website: http://www.havealittlefaith.co.uk
I personally feel we are living in society where there is no longer a focal point about and around faith. In the UK there is a real mix of religions and beliefs and it is fantastic that people can practise their faith without judgement, criticism and freedom. That is how it should be but I do think that in general there are so many people unsure, undecided or just unbelieving. We live in a society which is far removed from the spiritual realm. Our focus on material and worldly concerns has become obsessive.
On a clear , cloudless night if you look at the stars so far away, perhaps not even actually existing any longer do you not stop to wonder what is out there? How this was all created? Not forgetting that what you see isn’t actually all that is there. I remember, being fortunate to have been camping out in the Serengeti in Tanzania and seeing the night sky like I have never seen it before, the sky was littered with twinkling maps of stars. When I now put the milk bottles at the front door I look up at the sky to see what is being revealed at that time and remembering that there is actually so much more than what the eye can see.
For me my journey of faith has taken me on a road of discovery; new friendships, new countries and crossing boundaries and perceptions. It challenges me every day, inspires me to improve, allows me to remain content and thankful, gives me purpose and happiness. Al HamduAllah! Eid Mubarak.
It is hard to fit all this blogging in now it’s the summer months and we are out and about. Lots of birthday parties and school visits has meant I haven’t had much spare time. So for the moment I will just put these small little ‘bite size’ bits in. The philosophy of this piece is about all that time we spend worrying about what others think instead of just ‘getting on’ with things.
I used to spend so much time worrying…worry worry worry. I have with the help of three things been able to stop that ‘worry’ and be much more proactive in my thought process. I feel i now have a clear head instead of wandering around in a cloud of fog. I wish sometimes i had mastered this skill much earlier in life….who knows what use I could have put my mind to! At the end of the day what will be will be. Maktub!
I have been thinking a lot about women and their roles in the home recently, perhaps because we just watched two films recently which made me realise how much things have changed in my own lifetime regarding a woman’s role in the home and at work. It is hard to comprehend fully what it was like to not have choice and options available to you when we have it all now. The woman who fought for the right to vote, equal pay, and working jobs and at home to make ends meet had a cause, determination and made history. So have things really changed? Have we not made life more difficult for ourselves?
When washing machines, fridges and household machinery became available to woman in the home was it not to make life easier? Did we really need to make it our mission to go out into the workplace and compete in the arena with men to give ourselves more jobs to do? I know there is often not the choice , that needs must and it isn’t that I am anti feminism, I think every woman has the right to have the choice to work if she wants to and the problem in today’s society is woman need to, or so we say. Now we have to do it all. As a consequence, we expect men to do more around the house and roles are shared and split throughout. I read an article in ‘Good Housekeeping GH’ (obviously a magazine aimed at woman may I add). It was highlighting the issues that men face as a result of woman now ‘stamping in men’s stomping ground’.
It is true, we don’t really want to imagine men wearing an apron pushing a hoover, do we? it is not after all what defines masculinity. But so many women speak of how they do all the work around the house and their partners don’t lift a finger. Perhaps they take out the rubbish, although according to GH when doing this they are actually thinking about is “chopping wood to build a shelter or herding bison.” Anyway, I am diverting from the role of woman here.
Why do woman struggle with staying at home, looking after the kids, cleaning and cooking. The beauty of today’s world is that doesn’t mean we can no longer be intellectually inferior or not participate in society. Surely if there was more of a shift to woman being more home based ( that could mean working from home, more part-time and flexible working, involvement in community service) we would solve so many antisocial problems. The secret, I guess lies in finding beauty in the mundane, the repetition, the knowledge that a stable and ‘a good meal on the table’ prepares your children for their future.
Perhaps I am being to radical and idealist but what is wrong with a woman wearing an apron, baking and generally being queen of her domain. If we are to be home based then men need to respect that it is still a job. The job at home is after all management,, teacher, cleaner, conflict manager, gardener, office organiser, shopper, counsellor, nutrition and dietician, finance planner, secretary and general dogsbody and there are no holidays or time off. Why have woman shunned this work and clambered to be in the work place? I think of the books like Reveloutionary road depicting a woman struggling with the life of a
I suppose the real point is that all of this is ok when and if your partner is able to support you emotionally, financially and intellectually. So as my husband hands me my ‘pocket money’ I am thankful for the unique position of being able to be at ‘home’ and more importantly happy to be so.
Exhibition fever has died down a little but I haven’t yet shown you all the pieces that were in the show. This one then, is a most recent piece and is both the outline of a face and an upright figure standing with arms up in the air. I have to blow my own trumpet for once and speak of my contribution to this piece.
My husband was sketching and had come up with an idea for a new steel figure with arms outstretched. He had placed it on the kitchen table, I could see the figure but I also saw a profile of a face. Excited by this he quickly did a few more sketches altering the shapes slightly and here we are.
It has just reminded me of those clever pschological test where there is an image of something but can also be something else, an old lady and a young woman in one, a vase or two people, you know the ones I mean?
It’s know as the Gestalt effect and is the “form-generating capability of our senses” more often with the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves. The other thing it makes me think about is that sometimes we can see things one way and it may work out in another. My husband was just telling me a story about that very same idea this evening. Forgive me, I will paraphrase and hope it still has the same effect:
A woman makes her income from knitting to support her young family. One day on the way to market a bird pinches her knitting and flies off with it. The woman is beside herself so she goes to see a wise and learned man. She tells him how God is unfair and of her story.
At the same moment there is a knock on the door. A man enters, apologies for the interruption but insists that he has money from him and his men that needs to be distributed to the poor. He explains that they were out at sea and their boat had a hole. They had tried every way of filling it but to no avail, when a bird flew over head and dropped a pile of knitting in the boat. The men managed to block their hole in the boat with this knitting and so out of thankfulness each man wanted to donate some money to those who needed it more than they.
I feel I need not add the punch line. Sometimes things happen to us, we may see it one way but in reality it is meant for us in another.
THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE 