A play by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh from 1996. We saw it last night at Queens Hall Hexham in a very good production.
One night only and to a half-full auditorium the cast gave us its all and it was superb. Although a dark play it has some very good humour to make it more palatable. It had so many different levels; one the plight of Ireland, history, mental illness, relationships, and a struggle between mother and daughter...Tightly written, good sense of vernacular language however poetic and good comic relief made the play a real treat. Thank you!
I love going to the theatre! When I lived in Cambridge, Mass I went very often. Firstly there were several interesting theatres and programs in the Cambridge/Boston area and secondly being university cities there were lively and interested audiences too.
I was a graduate student at Emerson College in Theatre which also meant I was a jour with what was going on and I frequently ushered for free tix. I love theatre. The presence of the energy exchange between actors and audience, the intensity of being a part of something, I really miss that now in living such a rural existence. However last night was such a pleasure and a rare occasion so I treasure it greatly.
Martin McDonagh also wrote and directed "In Bruges" a film from a couple of years ago with Ralph Fiennes as a ruthless mobster set in the beautiful magical town of Bruges, which I now must visit!
Saturday 24 October 2009
New image
Although the Moomins are my Scandinavian ancestors and forebears of a kind kind/sort! I changed the image to this one . Red and bright with Love and Happiness sums up last summer and I want to carry that into Autumn.
The Moomins are always there and here and everywhere and nowhere when you look for them.
I do not need a wallet pic of the family but they will return here again be sure.
It has been very autumnal for this whole week. Rain, wind and fog, leaves falling and the cats curled up sleeoing indoors.
I dream of next summer already!
The Moomins are always there and here and everywhere and nowhere when you look for them.
I do not need a wallet pic of the family but they will return here again be sure.
It has been very autumnal for this whole week. Rain, wind and fog, leaves falling and the cats curled up sleeoing indoors.
I dream of next summer already!
Friday 23 October 2009
Birth by Pablo Neruda
Please read the poem by Neruda posted as a comment on my previous post. It is absolutely right on, touching and so true.
Thank you James for that.
Thank you James for that.
Thursday 22 October 2009
On the other hand...
Celebrity and fame is not the same thing at all.
In a doctors or dentists waiting room you may pick up a copy of People, Hello or some other such magazine and open pages with full colour spreads and wild headlines about people you may never have heard of or even seen before.
They are referred to as celebrities. Celebrity meaning in this case, what exactly? Not sure. They may be models, sport stars, actors, reality TV personalities etc. They are also famous. They may even be rich.
Yet you can be well-known and even famous and not be a celebrity. That is pretty clear.
You can be a famous celebrity with lots of money and you can be the same but without. Is money a compensation? E.g. for the hassle of being in the centre of attention? Or is it simply an added bonus?
You can be a hard-working citizen and quite invisible but very influential. Indeed.
You have Warhol fame, and you have fame and then you have celebrity.
Jade Goody and Jack Tweed are house-hold names in Britain and not because they are Dickens characters as their names might suggest but because they fulfilled a need that we have. A need to empathise and feel human like in Greek tragedies and comedies where the audiences could go through a catharsis. A release and outlet for a great many emotions some of them complex and over-whelming.
Our film stars are like our Greek gods, they serve up endless stories for our narrative-hungry beings and the drama is only so real." Two chewy beefsteaks of gossip please", but then we can go home to our cuppa and our sofa. Not 24/7 like our own lives.
For myself I would not like to be recognised where I go by complete strangers who think they "know" me! On the other hand I would like to know I was not a waste of space and could make a difference somehow in some way while around.
Life.
So simple - birth until death.
Yet it is that time in between. That time. That life we share .
In a doctors or dentists waiting room you may pick up a copy of People, Hello or some other such magazine and open pages with full colour spreads and wild headlines about people you may never have heard of or even seen before.
They are referred to as celebrities. Celebrity meaning in this case, what exactly? Not sure. They may be models, sport stars, actors, reality TV personalities etc. They are also famous. They may even be rich.
Yet you can be well-known and even famous and not be a celebrity. That is pretty clear.
You can be a famous celebrity with lots of money and you can be the same but without. Is money a compensation? E.g. for the hassle of being in the centre of attention? Or is it simply an added bonus?
You can be a hard-working citizen and quite invisible but very influential. Indeed.
You have Warhol fame, and you have fame and then you have celebrity.
Jade Goody and Jack Tweed are house-hold names in Britain and not because they are Dickens characters as their names might suggest but because they fulfilled a need that we have. A need to empathise and feel human like in Greek tragedies and comedies where the audiences could go through a catharsis. A release and outlet for a great many emotions some of them complex and over-whelming.
Our film stars are like our Greek gods, they serve up endless stories for our narrative-hungry beings and the drama is only so real." Two chewy beefsteaks of gossip please", but then we can go home to our cuppa and our sofa. Not 24/7 like our own lives.
For myself I would not like to be recognised where I go by complete strangers who think they "know" me! On the other hand I would like to know I was not a waste of space and could make a difference somehow in some way while around.
Life.
So simple - birth until death.
Yet it is that time in between. That time. That life we share .
Wednesday 21 October 2009
Fame
Fame is odd, it is unusually common, and relative. At least in this society that I know.
Warhol is quoted as saying; "In the future everyone will be famous for 15 mins".
He was quite right.
When I was an artist in residence a few years back a friend, a painter, used to ask: "What do you want more fame or money?"
I could not answer the question, too hypothetical for me. He wanted staying power, he wanted his work to last after he was dead.
I suppose I agreed over time over our dinners of constant discussion.
Yet as I am here at home and at work all I really want is to be able to do my work, and make a living, a modest living, i.e. being able to pay my bills and help causes and others if I wish to.
To do the work that makes me happy and to live from it. Is it too much to ask?
In any case back to the subject fame.
I went to Frieze the London Art Fair last week and saw no sign of the "recession"! Money and art were changing hands before the fair had even opened, some stands/stalls in the market were already sold out. Barnaby Furnas for example who had made a series of works on paper on the subject of John Brown. Really nice work as well.
I saw some art I liked but mostly it was a crazy quilt of stuff which did not grab me or speak to me in any way. Unfortunately.
An art fair is not always an indication of what is going on in art, only what dealers believe they can sell.
I enjoyed a film by Stephen Sutcliffe and an installation by...Dang!
Famous folks were out in droves for the champagne reception e.g. Grayson Perry, Tracey Emin, Isaac Julien, Nicholas Serota, John Baldessari, Peter Kennard,...of art world fame, and then the popular fame was represented by Lily Allen and Lily Cole! I am certain there were many many more fames there but I would not have known, since I don't even know what they look like.
My ignorance is either bliss or boring!
The Pommery champagne flowed and so did some Kentucky smoothe bourbon in the form of mint juleps or bourbon champagne with apple sparkle. That was good and treacherous! The people watching was phenomenal and especially because many had made such an effort in their dress. Delicious. I sat and indulged my senses in the haze of slight tipsy-ness.
The great thing for me about Frieze is going on the hunt, the big safari of finding work I like. It is a marvellous challenge and the grid of the fair site is much like Manhattan cross streets and then all the Avenues, and neighbourhoods like the Village etc.
Going to Frieze has become a tradition that my friend Paul and I do every year and we enjoy it as long as we do not get depressed about the art world! I think the endless champagne is the best thing about it though.
Warhol is quoted as saying; "In the future everyone will be famous for 15 mins".
He was quite right.
When I was an artist in residence a few years back a friend, a painter, used to ask: "What do you want more fame or money?"
I could not answer the question, too hypothetical for me. He wanted staying power, he wanted his work to last after he was dead.
I suppose I agreed over time over our dinners of constant discussion.
Yet as I am here at home and at work all I really want is to be able to do my work, and make a living, a modest living, i.e. being able to pay my bills and help causes and others if I wish to.
To do the work that makes me happy and to live from it. Is it too much to ask?
In any case back to the subject fame.
I went to Frieze the London Art Fair last week and saw no sign of the "recession"! Money and art were changing hands before the fair had even opened, some stands/stalls in the market were already sold out. Barnaby Furnas for example who had made a series of works on paper on the subject of John Brown. Really nice work as well.
I saw some art I liked but mostly it was a crazy quilt of stuff which did not grab me or speak to me in any way. Unfortunately.
An art fair is not always an indication of what is going on in art, only what dealers believe they can sell.
I enjoyed a film by Stephen Sutcliffe and an installation by...Dang!
Famous folks were out in droves for the champagne reception e.g. Grayson Perry, Tracey Emin, Isaac Julien, Nicholas Serota, John Baldessari, Peter Kennard,...of art world fame, and then the popular fame was represented by Lily Allen and Lily Cole! I am certain there were many many more fames there but I would not have known, since I don't even know what they look like.
My ignorance is either bliss or boring!
The Pommery champagne flowed and so did some Kentucky smoothe bourbon in the form of mint juleps or bourbon champagne with apple sparkle. That was good and treacherous! The people watching was phenomenal and especially because many had made such an effort in their dress. Delicious. I sat and indulged my senses in the haze of slight tipsy-ness.
The great thing for me about Frieze is going on the hunt, the big safari of finding work I like. It is a marvellous challenge and the grid of the fair site is much like Manhattan cross streets and then all the Avenues, and neighbourhoods like the Village etc.
Going to Frieze has become a tradition that my friend Paul and I do every year and we enjoy it as long as we do not get depressed about the art world! I think the endless champagne is the best thing about it though.
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Cats sleeping on the window sill
How peaceful it is so see the cats sleeping nearby on the sill as I look away from the computer screen and see the autumn leaves outside.
Leaves are leaving the trees and the birches shed yellow petals and they are much like borders on the lane.
It is very warm in the cottage, outside is cool, the radio is on and I will play my CD from London again very soon.
"Here comes the sun", a cover by Charlie Dore, is so good it sticks. Alright alright alright...not like the leaves at all.
Tibetan prayer flags in the tree blowing in the wind will be like colourful buntings throughout the winter with its bare branches.
Wait a minute does winter have bare branches?
My memory is like snow.
It is good to be home but I do miss my bestest friend and all the fun we had in London! We had a wonderful time!
One night we went to an interesting Brazilian exhibition with contemporary young artists juxtaposed to already dead artsists e.g. Lygia Clark who also made contemporary art. The result was very good. We saw Guy Brett and David Medalla and talked to them. They are two very different people but equally alive and open to art and they make good things happen.
Also I had a lovely talk with Hugo Williams about Samuel Menashe, a poet living in NYC, whom I made a film about last year. I met Hugo's wife Hermione who lives in France and it was another moment of "six degrees of separation" when it turned out she knew a friend of ours.
Afterwards we went back to the Brazilian Ambassadors residence for a drinks party. It was sublime! An opulent Mayfair mansion all gilded and marbled with a grand staircase and a courtyard garden to boot! His art collection was most eclectic and I was particularly fascinated by these Brazilian wood carvings all out of one piece of wood. I enjoyed meeting the ambassador and his wife very much. Such gracious people. All in all the evening was marvellous and we met new friends and old.
Technically I suppose we were in Brazil for the night!
Leaves are leaving the trees and the birches shed yellow petals and they are much like borders on the lane.
It is very warm in the cottage, outside is cool, the radio is on and I will play my CD from London again very soon.
"Here comes the sun", a cover by Charlie Dore, is so good it sticks. Alright alright alright...not like the leaves at all.
Tibetan prayer flags in the tree blowing in the wind will be like colourful buntings throughout the winter with its bare branches.
Wait a minute does winter have bare branches?
My memory is like snow.
It is good to be home but I do miss my bestest friend and all the fun we had in London! We had a wonderful time!
One night we went to an interesting Brazilian exhibition with contemporary young artists juxtaposed to already dead artsists e.g. Lygia Clark who also made contemporary art. The result was very good. We saw Guy Brett and David Medalla and talked to them. They are two very different people but equally alive and open to art and they make good things happen.
Also I had a lovely talk with Hugo Williams about Samuel Menashe, a poet living in NYC, whom I made a film about last year. I met Hugo's wife Hermione who lives in France and it was another moment of "six degrees of separation" when it turned out she knew a friend of ours.
Afterwards we went back to the Brazilian Ambassadors residence for a drinks party. It was sublime! An opulent Mayfair mansion all gilded and marbled with a grand staircase and a courtyard garden to boot! His art collection was most eclectic and I was particularly fascinated by these Brazilian wood carvings all out of one piece of wood. I enjoyed meeting the ambassador and his wife very much. Such gracious people. All in all the evening was marvellous and we met new friends and old.
Technically I suppose we were in Brazil for the night!
Monday 19 October 2009
Leaving the capital
Departing for the far north today, sad to go and leave my bestest friend. We have had such a great time this past week. Thank you London!
Will be sharing some of the highlights when I get home.
Here are a few words to digest:
Brazil
Tricycle
Tower of Love
The Pineapple
Will be sharing some of the highlights when I get home.
Here are a few words to digest:
Brazil
Tricycle
Tower of Love
The Pineapple
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
