to close a door behind me
the whole of night opens before me
- W.S. Merwin
A new artwork to share - finally! I created this tree for a very special exhibition titled Ten Years, Ten Trees, Ten Artists for the Jumpers and Jazz in July festival in Warwick. Ten artists have each taken one of the festival's well-known silhouette trees and turned it into their own unique artwork. You can see the exhibition at the Warwick Town Hall until July 28.
It hasn't been a great year for me in terms of productivity in my art practice, so it was a good thing to have a deadline for this piece. 2013 has been an interesting year so far... lots of family things to focus on, a little unwellness that got in the way, a few epiphanies and some changes in the wind - all the usual stuff, really. It's all gone too fast, and has been a bit confusing and unsatisfactory... so to mark the middle of the year, I'm beginning again, and thinking of new adventures, of making changes, of focussing my time on the people and pastimes that nurture my spirit... and looking forward to a much better second half of the year.
Murmuration is the title of my tree, as it includes starlings created from vintage star maps and astronomy books, and was very much inspired by this video and this poem.
Starlings in Winter
Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly
they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,
dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,
then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine
how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,
this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.
