Waking up to Shirley Bassey singing Diamonds are forever in my head, was spooky enough. To hear myself think I don’t know if I want to be an artist anymore made me sit up sharp. My months of insomnia were deeply disorienting, almost a form of undoing. Surfacing from this wide-eyed swoon I meet this ‘I’ anew.
Three artists visited this week, chose work for exhibition. Boxes of crochet were unpacked; fingers retraced, recalled their efforts. For a few hours I felt alive, bubbly, on the brink of competence. I had notions.
The next day fatigue was so profound desire and vitality seemed otherworldly. Limbs, jaws, skull, the hair on my head hurt, my hands had been stamped on, and something pounded my ribs and stole my air. Half a week later I am still returning.
Our identities are always in flow, and that’s as it should be. Fatigue crushes. One moment you are bobbing happily in quiet waters (with a selection of pewter jugs tied to wrists and ankles, but you’re used to it), next a giant wave pulls you under, and doesn’t release you for a long tenebrous while. And again. And over.
Pen, book, crochet hook (the wind whistles paint brush now) – the stuff of in-house drive and reverie. Hooks sunk into the world. Dear hands, … — …