and the year ends

... with a movie that k and i designated for each other independently. only she had already found a screening for tonight. in halberstadt. the place where my granny moved to, aged 14, to start her apprenticeship, in 1934. never been there. so, it'll be soul kitchen in halberstadt tonight.

before: a bit of bruecke - erich heckler at the feininger gallery in quedlinburg.

and, for the road... this one, (and some bastardfairies, i predict).

have a very good year end and all good things for the new one. see you there.

if in doubt

... say nothing. or: take a field and a winter sky.

'innocent juxtapositions'

i'm thinking to myself as i go hunting for last week's viewing schedule on youtube...

(a) the repository of love (aka piles of chapati, lovingly baked by ones family to support ones career) from channel 4's school of saatchi

... a shame that the mould wasn't part of the design but evidence of uk privatisation and disinvestment in infrastructure...

(b) a uk arts programme some 15 years ago: anselm kiefer's operation sea lion. it comes in seven parts, just watch one after the other.



anselm kiefer: more... today, tomorrow, or the day after to get another spin for the fields of northern germany. so thoroughly german and somber. so material in space.

larchwood in high winds

disaster at sea. three plates. a rope. the christmas movie.

antisocial_notworking

i've been having a little debate with this project space by project.arnolfini... just in time for the holidays...

it landed on my desk thanks to variant's exchange with springerin and a recent article against social networking, here.

it resonates with my facebook wall, the information it pushes out to me to read of strangers and friends, the ones that i put into other people's faces and all social relations it generates, modifies and hides.

antisocial_notworking is also one of the coolest combinations of some of my own academic work on labour process, politics and moral panics over young people.

here's something for you:

Without politics, our friendships are empty of meaning and our exchanges lead to nothing but the commodification of life itself...

Furthermore, as labour time has become more difficult to measure and is less distinct from time outside work, much of it now practised as 'nonwork', outside of traditional production processes - 'notworking' as opposed to networking. The confusion over what constitutes work and non-work turns attention to situations where work takes the forms of nonwork. (Geoff Cox, 2008, Antisocial Applications: Notes in support of antisocial notworking)

now... where was the list of reference's, t told me about in september. immaterial labour etc...

now, ad 2, what does this mean for our social networking? signing up to hatebook? becoming invisible again? diverting, subverting, appropriating...

still debating...

The normality of space and time

i went to the office yesterday. i'm not there much anymore. i mostly work from home now or in coffeeshops. and it's very enjoyable this way. so, yesterday, i circulated between coffeeshop, office, different coffeeshop, office, coffeeshop 1 again, and then the office again.

michelle and i had been finalising an application to do with professional practice, concerns over who knows, who learns and who teaches. and what these in turn mean for us working as urban researchers and/or artists. we talked about methodology - about different ways of seeing, experiencing and thus learning.

so, later in the day i realised, after ordering coffee that i was without my money - must have left it in the office. j and i stayed for more coffee and some wine and i had to go and pick up my money. it wasn't late, but very dark. i went to my new office - which is shared now with two postgraduates. it was well past five o'clock, and there was light. one of my new office colleagues was working away - too much to do and too little time to finish it.

and it struck me: how quickly ways of doing become routine become normality. it is so long that i was in my office after 5.30 or indeed on the weekend. and yet both things were normality for all the time i was doing my phd. in fact, i remember fondly evenings spent in office, with breaks for coffees outside and ending in a late film at the gft with my office mates.

i've had this sense of estrangement a lot over the past two months. suddenly, my routines of being in glasgow's west end is thoroughly changing. i find myself in locations after midnight and am lost as to how to get home. stuff i knew six, seven years ago and seem to have forgotten. oh: this is what you can also do.

turning up in the office out-of-hours reminded me of some lushness of other times, other rythms. fair enough: some of these were utterly exhausting, they were marked by anxiety over whether my last 2000 words were any good, marked by no money for the film screening and much more.

learning: step outside, beside, below or next to whatever you're doing. do not take it for granted. watch, observe and listen carefully for all that seems so common. for it is not: common.

a bit of wonky moon in early evening by way of illustration, on way to coffee for free:

there are too few blogs around...

... and so I created two more.


1. Gesa Helms Art at http://gesahelms.blogspot.com

is just that... some of my art, for sale. Just in time for Christmas shopping I realised that I will be near all my prints, sketches and paintings, so I could put them up for sale. I've stuck with a fairly simple format - something which etsy to this date isn't. Blog posts link to flickr sets, currently of the plein air sketches and the monotypes with the offer of a paypal buy now button. There will be more additions.

Simple? I hope. Persuasive? I hope so too.

2. New blog number 2 is my learning blog at http://gesah-study.blogspot.com

Well, it's for learning - more specifically it is going to be my learning log for the OCA courses I am doing. As you may know, I've been printmaking 1 for a while and earlier this month I signed up to the drawing 1 course. The learning log for printmaking is mainly kept offline, which has proven more tedious and less enjoyable than I hoped. So - paint and pastel: study will try out learning as voyeuristic online experience. It's going to be a bit tedious - with specific assignments etc, so I decided to keep most of the OCA material away from this blog. It seems that I'm never really short of material to write about, so a separate blog for learning may work best.

So, he took the time with him

... but before that, he told me, some fifteen years ago that I would go and publish books. I just laughed: 'dream on!' But he should be right. He never published a book of his own. I think he should have one, and so he now has one - as My ghost of time.

Two weeks ago, when I was clearing my office I came across a lot of his writings though. Pieces about the Yugoslav war, the politics of education, the need to organise. Along with some grainy photos of him, H., and several others staging the occupation of university buildings in 1993.

I realised that I am now the age he was when I left him to go to Glasgow. The 13 years that happened since are such a long time. It's so much that happened inbetween to make me the person I am now. So, he lost me to Glasgow and I would lose him to the sea - a week before I had to defend my PhD in 2003.

That's all a long time ago. And I learned a lot:

• to look and observe carefully
• the importance of ordinariness
• that one can know things without having to discuss these; but one must never stop
  
• asking questions; and
• the believe in all of the above and thus in people

Now, I've been trying to figure what he may have learned from me. Well, I think I, in my youthful optimism, frustrated him often and with no end. If I can't help myself, I turn to superficiality, and I turned to it very often in those days. But I think he may have learned that optimism can apply to oneself and one's past, too.

That's my ghost of time.

Now: this little piece of performance art was a fascinating experience. And a completely unanticipated one. I let Blogger autopost something that was written one evening (31 July 2009) while sitting in the White Room in Berlin and despairing over the loss of time. So, it was me and it wasn't.

As it was unfolding, I was getting the sense of separation/mediation/transformation of something that was done and that happened a while (and a long time) ago. All the time, it was happening 'live' to all of you.

Intriguing...

There's also much more alongside this, which became a bit clearer to me:

Much of what I make art of is concerned with loss and memory - the Fields and the Sea. And all the same, they become something else in the process; they aren't melancholy pieces, by any means; while only I. had read My ghost of time at the time I - eh, Merle - wrote it - and I for some time wasn't sure if it would see the light of day by any means, watching it unfold from behind my laptop felt very good and necessary.

And then there's something about people that matter: it's a bit vague at this stage, but has to do with 'doing the things that are important with the people that are important' - it's really basic, isn't it? To have the best kind of relationship with the people that matter; and it's only of partial importance whether they are alive or dead.

Back to the performance art: while Blogger was doing its thing, I begun to soak up contemporary art, in the space that is now open and in front of me. I got to think back at the Note to future self; asking what kind of art may I make in future. Oh: and that is sooo open, I love it. I don't have a clue what I may make. How fabulous is that!

Do you want to read/see My ghost of time in its entirety: on the sidebar is now a link to a full preview of the book on Blurb.

... and with all this, I've clawed some time back.

Time I never own; time which may be short.

But that is never a good enough reason not to.

I'm very sure of that.

so little

when there was time

[placeholder + image]

i thought i'd spare you the whimsical one aka My Ghost of time [6] - rhyming time with mine, involving travel and slowness.

you'll get the picture for it though. and there'll be two more to come [i think]

time there was not

T I M E

Without time

A moment in time

A moment in time and all folds inward

Suddenly it's time

 

He took the time with him

That moment in the stormy sea,

and all time disappeared.

Time for the future                                                                            

time for the past

Simply being in time

with no need for it

no urgency.

That all went with him

Since then there was never any time left.

mist on the river

mist on the river.

on the meadow. trees floating

& an almost full moon.

Aberfeldy to Pitlochry.

"I gonna show you paradise"
says the spider

to the fly.
"I want to make you stay".
Cerys Matthews.

in stillness

a bit of clarity and reflection on the loch's surface

just a moment long

the few seconds before the rain begins

(untitled)

... not really in the habit of doing that, but let's try.

I'm off for the weekend. A long overdue one with plenty of coffee with M. One of the other Ms said: what is it you want to do before you're off? I had been to the sea, I wanted a gig at Barrowlands - unfortunately missed Camera Obscura last night (sorry! M - did not manage to track a ticket down), and I wanted Loch Rannoch, the Moors and Schihallion. That's for this weekend now. With a forecast of continuous rain. So it'll be M in the car with coffee and cigarette while I do my best tourist impression of running around through the rain and the wind, with a bit of paper and a watersoluble graphite.

The last time I saw Schihallion in the distance, it was at K's birthday party in Glen Coe - a long time ago. But she and I talked about it on Wednesday. So many good things...

I did a sketch at that weekend. It's three years old and in the first sketchbook. I think this weekend's sketches will look rather different. Interesting.

Rannoch Moor towards Schihallion, graphite in Moleskine

Three in one...

... after the previous post ended up speechless, let me try again.

I am clearing my office.

30kgs of photocopied articles no longer needed.
The way of walking and
Love and loss

 

 

Then I went and had my first drink with J, five and a half years overdue as I am leaving. We share the same job title as of soon: he in retirement, me with a beating heart. All the while, the city was dark, it rained on us as we sat covered, shared some tobacco and the ever urgent need for a word that starts with r... the second time today, this came up. Leaving: so many possibilities...

Yes: the scent of the city still gets me. Definitely itchy - my previous threesome was a lie :)

Speechless

... just for a wee while...

For Lea Rosen

... für wen sonst?

Who then knows what we will become? That we are is a rumour that we believe as soon as we remember: once I was a child.
But soon the next thing comes, it is too large and runs through us like autumn wind in empty alleyways.
Rilke

Für Lea Rosen

... who else?

Wer weiß denn was wir werden? Daß wir sind, ist ein Gerücht an das wir wieder glauben sooft wir fühlen: ich war einmal ein Kind.
Doch schon das Nächste kommt zu groß und rinnt durch uns wie Wind im Herbst durch leere Lauben.
RM R

I am doing an "art sale"

... how I laughed when I finally realised it:

I've been inviting people to a party. The invite is  a bit vague what it's about - with my assumption that it's yet perfectly clear: it is my leaving party. Though 'leaving party' makes a rubbish theme, and is thus omitted from the titling.

But then one of my close friends - who should know what it is about, since August at the very latest - said: oh, you're having a party because you want to sell your paintings! I: Nohoo... it's my 'thank you and until hopefully soon' party. Reply: But it says art sale on the invite I: Yehess... among ten other things.

So, it is really an "art sale" not an art sale, a "leaving party" not a leaving party. Hahaha... what's in a title, heh?

But, the inverted commas (which in German are curiously called Little Geese Feet - I am not making this up) did not stop me spending a large part of the weekend with curating and figuring out what kind of schedule I want to make. My latest prototype is an explosion booklet:

- but I also very much enjoyed hers:

This is an "art exhibition"

Tuesday and Wednesday, Libby, Michelle and I had been hanging out in the coffee area of our department to wait for people to drop by with some objects for the Home is... project.

So, over a number of hours, we sat around, organised, discussed and curated an emerging exhibition. We talked about the use of this weird space that is the communal space in our department, we talked about our contributions and what other people brought, we talked about what we may do with this in the Viewing event next Tuesday.

We also arranged the room differently, turned the table around, moved the chairs around, left a sheet of paper with Names, Titles and media to be added.

When we came back, the 'catalogue' had disappeared, the chairs where back in line and of course, the cleaners had done their work as usual.

So, we rearranged, wrote a note, asking for contributions from the cleaners and asked not to move the furniture.

The note was titled:

This is an "art exhibition"

While for Michelle and myself, it's an art exhibition, Libby insists on an "art exhibition". How intriguing: surveying, measuring and filling the space between research and art. And how the three of us fill it very differently:

• Proposing to hang the pieces either with Bluetak, on board/behind glass or by spirit level and measure tape.
• Inviting people to give titles to their objects or not.
• Wanting to record responses in a variety of ways.

What we do is familiar to all of us, for Libby and myself as part of explorative research methods, for Michelle and I as part of an art exhibition.

I am so curious what our colleagues are making of this - but going by the contributions and various emails en lieu of object contributions, next week's event is looking very promising. Both as "art exhibition" and art exhibition.

Repeat with working links

Now... for the Variant event as part of the Document 7 Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, here's another announcement. This time with a working link to the PDF:

Poverty Advocacy & Action

Document 7 : International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival

Friday 23 October 2009 - CCA (Glasgow) 7pm

presentations & discussion : Chik Collins, Gesa Helms, Peter Kelly (chair)

Chik Collins, University of the West of Scotland, and Clydebank Independent Resource Centre will talk about his recent research, 'To Bankers from Bankies - Incapacity Benefit: Myth and Reality':

"The report offers a view on 'welfare reform' from the perspective of the Clydebank Independent Resource Centre (CIRC). It has a particular focus on the most recent changes to benefits and on the 2009 Welfare Reform Bill. These constitute a major departure from the principles of social protection which have been in place since World War II. The report is addressed to the former banker, David Freud, whose 2007 report inspired the reforms, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to the politicians who appointed him as their adviser. The first part of the report introduces both 'the banker' (Freud) and 'the bankies' (the CIRC). It then outlines the CIRC's perspective on 'welfare reform' as it has developed since 1997. The second part focuses on the experience of Incapacity Benefit (IB) claimants in Clydebank in recent years, presenting three case studies which challenge the stereotypes and the rationale presented by the proponents of the current reforms."

Gesa Helms, Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow will talk about, 'Beyond Aspiration: Young People and decent work in the de-industrialised city, Discussion paper', June 2009:

"This discussion paper is designed to provoke a debate about the work and training prospects for young people in Glasgow. It draws upon recent statistical evidence alongside qualitative data from interviews and focus groups. It highlight the increasing difficulties that young people experience in finding decent training and job opportunities in the city’s labour market. ... Finally, we offer up some thoughts on what alternative questions should be posed in offering people real choices and opportunities for decent employment. A cornerstone of any alternative must be to recognise individual rights to participate in economic life on equal terms. More practically, young people need to be paid ‘living wages’ in return for any kind of paid work and given properly regulated training and work placements."

There will be a discussion afterwards chaired by Peter Kelly, Director of the Poverty Alliance, Glasgow.

"The Poverty Alliance : Our vision is of a sustainable Scotland based on social and economic justice, with dignity for all, where poverty and inequalities are not tolerated and are challenged."

http://www.povertyalliance.org

For further details of the event & copies of the speakers' research papers, please see: http://www.variant.org.uk/events.html

This event is part of Document 7 : International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival and will be preceded by a screening of the film 'Drumchapel - The Frustration Game': a damning indictment of local authority enterprise schemes which are contrived to look as if they are there to help the disenfranchised but in fact serve the purpose of greater social control. Made by De-Classed Elements in the late 1980s, a video group who were based in Drumchapel, Glasgow, it is as relevant today as it was then.

Document 7 : International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival

CCA & GFT, Glasgow, 21st - 25th Oct 09

Document 7 will screen over 60 outstanding national and international documentaries that look at human rights in its broadest sense, as personal stories with a global punch. Audiences can expect to find films that are both accessible and thought provoking, engaging and challenging, then debate them with invited speakers.

Full programme: http://www.docfilmfest.org.uk

Taking precedence...

... I was going to entertain you with a bit more on type dynamics, but then this was far more urgent and - frankly - far more entertaining, too... at least for me, perhaps for you?

Another visit to the sea. This may well be the last I sea of the West of Scotland coast for some time, but this morning, after having been far too tired for anything yesterday I decided to go to Troon again. Less than an hour on the train and a long sandy beach.

It was warm(ish) sunny, overcast to sunny and breezy. Well: on the beach it was VERY windy. But great: the sun was out, the tide was out too and so I had a fantastic walk, took lots of photos and thoroughly enjoyed my new music additions.

You wanna watch?

Switch the music on and here's Troon South Beach on a  sunny October Sunday.

 

 

And you know what? Change is here.

My job finishes in a week's time, next year at this time I will hopefully be a Fine Arts student in Berlin. And in the meantime I'll do assorted this and that, here and there - so, the blog will change a bit: I'll be putting more politics and research stuff into this too. No need to separate out all these parts any longer.

It makes breathing so much easier. It also is making my head so much lighter.

Happiness? This, here and now. Grin... Can you see it?

Jars full of distraction

I'm preparing my boxes for next summer by firstly filling lots of empty jars.

With what?



Green tomato chutney. I made some several years ago, forgot about it til recently. Opened a jar. Loved it. Stumbled across unripe tomatoes. Bought them. Made some jars. In fact: many, many jars. It's a 1950s recipe book. So, we're talking several pounds of ingredients. How could I forget.



You know what: it's pretty daft to BUY unripe tomatoes. So: another note to self: next batch will be with my own unripe tomatoes.

Document 7: International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival

http://www.docfilmfest.org.uk

Document : International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival
CCA & GFT, Glasgow, 21st - 25th Oct 09

+++ Document 7 Programme Announced ++++

Document International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival is proud to announce a dynamic programme of events and screenings for Document 7 - CCA & GFT, Glasgow, 21st - 25th Oct 09.

Document is the UK's only dedicated human rights documentary festival, one of just 18 worldwide. This year, with a record number of submissions and a programme of premieres and award-winning documentaries, Document affirms its reputation as one of the most unique and anticipated events on the Scottish calendar.

Document 7 will screen over 60 outstanding national and international documentaries that look at human rights in its broadest sense, as personal stories with a global punch. Audiences can expect to find films that are both accessible and thought provoking, engaging and challenging, then debate them with invited speakers.

Document 7 will show films which cover ground often ignored or overlooked by the mainstream media - films that show how real people are affected by the great events of our age on their own turf, and how they deal with that - films in which people refuse to be defined simply as victims of circumstance.

Document 7 Highlights this year include the festival's opening film - 'Umoja: The Village Where Men Are Forbidden', tells the story of a group of women who form their own community in rural Northern Kenya. Sexually abused by British soldiers, and rejected by their husbands, they founded Umoja in 1990 - a thriving village where children of both sexes are treated equally, and from where the women go to neighbouring villages to raise awareness of gender equality, HIV/AIDS and circumcision issues; their only problem now is that they must defend themselves against the men, who envy their success in making a new life on their own terms. French Directors Jean-Marc Sainclair and Jean Crousillal will be at the screening to introduce the film and lead a Q & A afterwards, and will be available for interview.

'Goodbye, How Are You?' proves the lie that human rights film has to be solemn or worthy, as Boris Mitic' tongue-in-cheek road movie slowly builds up a picture of the former Jugoslavia, its people and its culture, through a "satirical-vérité narration" and over 400 unique "satirical documentary shots" filmed on a three-year, 50,000 km trip along Balkan side roads.

'China's Wild West' shows that beautiful images can also have a moral purpose in a cinematically striking film which follows a day in the life of a Muslim Uighur community in their hopeful efforts to discover Jade in the harsh conditions of a dried-up river bed near a remote town on the old Silk Road in Western China.

'Durakovo: Village of Fools' examines a “utopian” community 100 km southwest of Moscow owned by Mikhail Morozov - Russian patriot, good Christian and successful businessman. People come there from all over Russia to learn how to become “true Russians” by abandoning all their former rights and obeying Morozov's strict rules. Purposefully restrained, yet cunningly subversive, 'Durakovo: Village Of Fools' provides a chilling glimpse of fascist ideology on the rise.

'Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen' is a groundbreaking work which helps illuminate the debate surrounding the role of race in transitional experience. Kortney Ryan Ziegler, African American filmmaker from California, film student of Spike Lee, will present a Glasgow School of Art Friday Event at the GFT on Friday 23rd October 11am and screen 'Still Black' at the GFT on Sunday 25th October 2pm-4pm. Zeigler will also available for interview.

To run in tandem with a series of discussions surrounding the current situation for UK asylum seekers, we will be screening a number of short films from the 'The Estate' series. Directed by Ruth Carslaw, these films uncover the lives of individuals living on the Sighthill council estate in Glasgow in the year leading up to its demolition. The seven selections included are specifically focused on the lives of refugees, which build into a compelling portrait of asylum in contemporary Scotland.

Document 7 will also host a programme of LGBT themed screenings and discussions to coincide with Glasgay. This will include a roundtable discussion with LGBT Youth Scotland & Our Story Scotland and the screening of 'Living Queer African' and 'Le(s)banese', an eye-opening documentary that reveals the truth about life for young Lesbians in the Lebanon. Intimate stories are interspersed with humorous anecdotes that reveal the tension between religion and identity in the Arab-speaking world, whilst also positioning Lebanon as a seat of liberal acceptance in the region.

Other strands include a full programme of films concerning women's experience with dedicated screenings and discussions, as well as a forum dedicated to Poverty, Advocacy & Action with Chik Collins, Clydebank Independent Resource Centre, (To Bankers from Bankies) and Gesa Helms (Beyond Aspiration: Young People and decent work in the de-industrialised city).

Exhibitions of work by photographers Martin Coyne and Martina Salvi will run concurrently in the CCA Bar, contrasting the lives of child workers in India with those of adults in the factories of contemporary China.

If that wasn't enough, at the end of the night surprise musical guests will entertain us in the café bar…

By providing a platform for a broad range of ideas, individuals, and discussions, Document 7 will sustain the principle of lively and open debate which has characterised the festival from the start. In an increasingly interconnected global milieu, Document remains a vital forum for information exchange, and for the celebration of shared human values across all contrived or imposed boundaries.


Programme:
The full programme is available at: http://www.docfilmfest.org.uk
Press Screening: 11.00am - 12.30am, Tues 6th Oct 09, CCA, Glasgow.
Press Enquiries: Paula Larkin, docfestinfo@gmail.com 07765 396226

------------------------------

+++ Poverty Advocacy & Action +++
Friday 23 October 2009 - CCA 5 - 7pm
presentations & discussion : Chik Collins, Gesa Helms, Peter Kelly (chair)

Chik Collins, University of the West of Scotland, and Clydebank Independent Resource Centre will talk about his recent research, 'To Bankers from Bankies - Incapacity Benefit: Myth and Reality':
"The report offers a view on 'welfare reform' from the perspective of the Clydebank Independent Resource Centre (CIRC). It has a particular focus on the most recent changes to benefits and on the 2009 Welfare Reform Bill. These constitute a major departure from the principles of social protection which have been in place since World War II. The report is addressed to the former banker, David Freud, whose 2007 report inspired the reforms, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to the politicians who appointed him as their adviser. The first part of the report introduces both 'the banker' (Freud) and 'the bankies' (the CIRC). It then outlines the CIRC's perspective on 'welfare reform' as it has developed since 1997. The second part focuses on the experience of Incapacity Benefit (IB) claimants in Clydebank in recent years, presenting three case studies which challenge the stereotypes and the rationale presented by the proponents of the current reforms."

‘To Banker, From Bankies - Incapacity Benefit: Myth and Realities : Perspectives on welfare reform, from the Clydebank Independent Resource Centre’, Chik Collins, CIRC, funded by Oxfam GB, April 2009, can be downloaded at: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/ukpoverty/downloads/To banker from bankies.pdf

Gesa Helms, Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow will talk about, 'Beyond Aspiration: Young People and decent work in the de-industrialised city, Discussion paper', June 2009:
"This discussion paper is designed to provoke a debate about the work and training prospects for young people in Glasgow. It draws upon recent statistical evidence alongside qualitative data from interviews and focus groups. It highlight the increasing difficulties that young people experience in finding decent training and job opportunities in the city’s labour market. ... Finally, we offer up some thoughts on what alternative questions should be posed in offering people real choices and opportunities for decent employment. A cornerstone of any alternative must be to recognise individual rights to participate in economic life on equal terms. More practically, young people need to be paid ‘living wages’ in return for any kind of paid work and given properly regulated training and work placements."

‘Beyond Aspiration: Young People and Decent Work in the De-industrialised City, Discussion Paper, June 2009’, A. Cumbers, G. Helms, M. Keenan, 2009, can be downloaded at: 
http://www.variant.org.uk/events/Doc7Poverty/BeyondAspiration.pdf


There will be a discussion afterwards chaired by Peter Kelly, Director of the Poverty Alliance, Glasgow.

For further details of the event, please visit the Variant site here

I never said...

... much more about the OCA Printmaking course. And that wasn't for the fact that it wasn't happening, only other things took over.

But when I came back, I had received back the comments from my tutor for the third assignment: it included the Fieldlines Reduction print, and various other pieces to try out different surfaces and different tools.

So, I printed with clay, styrofoam, hardboard, strips of lino and other vinyl surfaces. Used saws, hammers, screws and knives to make some marks. I did all that in May/June, over a number of weeks and was concentrated enough to build a nice wee register of experience: what tools do what on what surface but also more systematic trying out of different papers to print on, different applications of the ink and taking the print.

These are some of the prints I really enjoyed. The techniques and the marks are stored away for future use: Assignment 5 will be a series of different prints combining various techniques, tools and materials.

Untitled 1, lino print on printing paper, A4
Mixed white layer overprinted on mixed black layer,
Marks with screws, sidecutter and potato peeler
What effective fog this technique produces... so much can disappear in here...

Untitled Blue and red, 20x15cm, relief print on printing paper
the plate is styrofoam, marked with sidecutter, overprinting,
On different paper, it resulted in a shiny, metallic top layer


La luna y la Cordillera 1, Relief print, 20x15cm
Various plates, incl. lino, clay and foamboard;
Various marks, incl. saw, potato peeler and sidecutter.
Remember the full moon/sunset beauty in Chile?

Now: the next assignment is on collagraphs, I'm in two minds whether to start and try to finish in October, or to postpone it amidst all the hassle. But the hassle looks like a bit of a walk in the park, so...

BTW: the OCA now also offers a Printmaking 2 course. How exciting... I am tempted. And may end up getting an Art Degree in the end?

Where were we?

... och, right: home.

The cake, the plane, and nothing itches... how did that happen? ...

Home is where the heart is

I had mentioned a while back that one of the small ongoing projects is one with a colleague at work and an artist, Michelle Letowska. The title and theme of Michelle's project is that of home, people's needs and the urban environment.

Home is where the heart is:
Who are the people and what do they need?
Everyone will have his or her own idea of what are fundamental human needs, and the role that home plays in fulfilling our human needs. Human ecologist Alistair McIntosh has adapted Manfred Max-Neef’swheel of fundamental human needs to give parity to water, food, fuel, shelter, protection, participation, identity, understanding, creativity, transcendence and
affection.

As dwellers in cities, we are witness to, and interact with, theoutside structures which most people occupy –tenements, town houses, high flats, maisonettes, bungalows, cottages. What kind of homes do these external walls house? What kinds of homes do those without
external walls of shelter create? How do we live? How do others live?
How does the way we live reflect our human needs and ability to fulfil these? Where can we see that fulfilment in the structures of ourbuilt environment? When does a place become a home?

This project invites participants from across the department of Urban Studies (postgraduate students, researchers, support staff and academic staff) to explore these questions with each other. We invite you to contribute images, photographs, drawings or objects, madeor
found (anything at all!) that reflects your own experience of home. These items will be displayed, as a temporary and informal exhibition, in the coffee area of the department. The exhibition will be a starting point for a discussion on human needs, and the role we all play in providing these, for ourselves and for others.

It will take the form of a found objects exhibition in what is the commons space within our department. A much neglected communal space at the best of times. And that will be an interesting point in its own right.

Michelle (who has a blog at http://omeiswheretheartis.blogspot.com/) is interested in doing an Artist in Residence project within the department as this should be one of the first projects to explore this further.

With all my travelling back and forth and here and there and ensuing change of stuff I'm very intrigued by this project. It also resonates with a conference one of my friends is organising on Transit.

Currently, I'm favouring the following as temporary contribution:

My mother's layered apple cake. The favourite of all my grandparents' for Sunday coffees, my brother and I failed to see why. But here, the passing of time and some physical distance is rather productive in generating memories. It's currently in the oven in my favourite flat in Berlin, waiting for T. & I. to come back from a cycle tour, just needs some whipped cream and good coffee alongside it.

500g flour
20g fresh yeast
1 egg
80g butter
80g sugar
pinch of salt
1/4l lukewarm milk.

Make a yeast dough of the above, let it prove.

Take a (preferably deep) oven tray, roll out one half of the dough for bottom layer.

1.5 kg sharp apples, sliced and cooked with a bit of water, some sugar and a pinch of cinnamon.

Layer the cooked apples on top.

Roll out remaining dough, place carefully on top.

The top, before the cake is put into the hot oven (fan-assisted at 170C, 30min), is speckled with flecks of butter, some sugar and chopped almonds.

Bake. Smell. Let cool. Smell some more. Eat.

Home.... such a fluid concept.

Where am I?

ad 1. a train journey of ten hours leaves in one capital, travels through another to arrive in third
ad 2. in theory i should understand people here. in practice? don't ask.
ad 3. again and again i am thinking of auto da fe and the man without qualities. a hundred years in between don't seem to have passed.

that's quite a give away, i know... but here's some photaes too:

ach... empty promises. gesa, must learn mobile blogging better. next post then heh!?

Rarities... or not...

When I was growing up, it took me a long time to get used to my name. I didn't like it and would have exchanged it happily and favourably for Stefanie (don't I ask me why).

It doesn't lend itself to short forms - the best would be Gesa, Gese, Kaese (cheese) or more imaginately in Glasgow Goose... as in Gese, Geese, Goose... Wow... a well of creativity. [and just two weeks ago my dad told others the story how it was their intention that none of our names could have short forms... again, don't ask me why!]

But: it is rare. Until I was 26 I never met another Gesa. I usually always knew of another Gesa, but never actually met her.

Then I was at a party of my new flatmate. Fifteen people and among them, three Gesas - and every time someone said Gesa, they didn't mean me. How bizarre.

Now... my email turned up this, this morning... and I. can marvel now at my strange collection of facebook friends (my clan of online vampire gamers... jaja, the things, curiosity gets you into).

This is decidedly funnier:

Gesa Helms is going to be friends with Gesa Helms.

How come?

In colour. Blue. 40x40cm (WIP, I think)
Soft pastel/acrylics on canvas

... that my abstracts are always ending up seascapes?

Don't have a clue!

This is in fact an abstract interior still life, in case anyone is asking.

And just to add to confusion: it's pastel on a 3D canvas, over pumice, gesso and acrylics. Oh, and its first incarnation, this hosted a rubbish landscape in oil from a few years ago.

I let it mature a bit and see if I can sort out the composition a bit more.

In colour: squares

Having arrived back home on Monday night, I quickly realised:

I could do a paired series to the White Room.

Simply not of someone else's flat somewhere but of mine now. No: it's not that I 'could' do this. There's little choice, I feel. I simply have to. The start:

In colour: square 1, 10x10cm, Soft pastel on board


In colour: square 2, 10x10cm, Soft pastel on board


In colour: square 3, 10x10cm, Soft pastel on board