Stitches

''And in the morning it rained.''

''...she was so beautifully out of contact.''

Blood red, her eyes latch on to you.

''tinged with repulsion, amounting almost to love.''

Though they never knew you moved, they knew you were there.

''Her limbs had a certain stillness.''

It's windy out there, isn't it?

And she knew that no one cared.

Witches

They danced a thousand songs

and they never did no wrong.

Dance with me, dear witches.

Burning through my soul.

Voices whisper gently..

He's craving for your breath

Voices whisper gently

It's you he will undress

And he whispers,

with a softened, golden glow

The witches, are tearing at my clothes.

Dancing with the witches.

Temporary blisters,

burrowed in your skin.

Careful, say the witches,

Time is wearing thin.

Tree Man

Aware of my presence,
Breath and feeling.

By my window he is a comfort to me
most nights and mornings,
He is still and silent.
Other times the wind stirs his movements and he moves with the flow,
sometimes violently,
other times subtle and soft.

He breathes, as I breathe
with the wind and the birds.

A vital presence in the remoteness of silence.

A poem to say Good-Morning

''What says the sun when he first pours

His light thro' yielding eastern doors?

He says, says he: ''Good-morning, all!

Good-morning, flocks and herds,

Good-morning, too, my dears, to you,

Delightful little birds;

Good-morning, meadow, wood, and hill,

Good-morning, stream and flower,

Good-morning, earth, for all you're

worth,

Good-morning, roof and tower.''

What says the Sun when up he climbs

And hears the cock-crow and the chimes?

He says: ''All hail, dear Brother Man,

Good-morning, sir and madam;

My love to all, good luck befall

The babes of Eve and Adam;

Good-morning, friend, good-morning,

foe,

Good-morning, rich and poor;

Take up your load and seek the road

To heaven's shining door.''

What says, at eventide, the Sun?

Either ''Alas!'' or else ''Well done!''

Harold Begbie

Birds

Like a bird that flies,

but never wanders far..
my soul it breathes,
and is as silent as you are

Hue of crimson

I see the Devil in his big black sheath.

A ''hue of crimson'' bleeds across his eyes.

''...on a rug, under a tree''

that's where we'll meet.

''...and wild creatures danced passed at once'', in ''walts of music.''

''She could fly into a passion without making a noise.''

soft, strange, little notes..

''...pleasure began to crowd her anger out of her mind...and she always ''privately believed..''

that one day, she would meet the Devil in his big black sheath, hidden in the silence of the moor, as ''hues of crimson'' bleed across her eyes.

Roses in the Garden

Unfurl thy limbs child

you are to be a flower - bloom.

''...out there things will be stirrin' down below in the dark.''

''Are there ever any Roses?''

''Everything was strange and silent, and she seemed to be hundreds of miles away from anyone, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all.''

''Even if the Roses are dead, there are other things alive.''

''...and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in, no one knew where she was.''

''What happened to the Roses?''

Sixten

''To borrow another person's eyes, to experience the world as your beloved sees and feels it, isn't that what love is?''

Images from Globalsapiens Exhibition.

WHY GLOBALSAPIEN?

As a society, our actions, our expressions, ourreactions, all show signs that we are aware of living in end times. Make no bones about it; no matter how much we talk about getting married, getting a house, settling down, we reek of a dying civilisation.

This exhaustion of everything in our merry-go-round swap between being the exploiter to the exploited has to end. Nobody can predict what ‘end’ we can expect, but we can guess what the prolongation of this current manmade nightmare will lead to. But we can also guess and hope; to hope that “surely this can’t be the end of the human story just yet…!” Grim resignation is dangerous; hope generates possibilities – but hope is sometimes hard for one to maintain.

Globalsapiens are artist’s who are desperately trying to find a way forward into a future worth living in. Our instinct is to express – we may not be the most pragmatic/practical people, but our contribution is a desperate attempt to realise a new way of living for the sake of the human race (sound self righteous? No: all species battle to maintain their existence). The time is right. Artists have no future in this old world, they must end their post idealist malaise/capitulation to the business mentality and join the cause to act now to make a future worth living in.

We felt aligned by a feeling that our artwork seems too driven, and too real merely to be for exhibitions only - which often seem to just castrate it and make it nothing but mere consumer spectacle. This is a pressing concern that is played out within the show: we know that this is all our works may be, but we are still often driven by a powerful dream-boat of blind optimism that refers to the opposite, and seems to be generated by the ideological coding of the very system we are trying to help unwire. We want to help pave a way out of this bleak place our species (and the planet it has dragged down with it) has stumbled into, but we too often get too trapped in our minds to be/or do anything but what the system would happily have us be/doing – what keeps it thriving off human day-dreams and desires.

Nobody is in any place to preach. To resonate with others to generate in others. To alienate is to disintegrate. Let’s take the No Them, Only Us belief seriously again.

Human beings offer fundamentally special qualities to life on planet earth, and wherever else life may flourish. However, we are not better than the rest of life; if we were better we wouldn’t need it; but strip the life away from under our feet and we’d be dead before you could say the words ‘Easter Island’. Nevertheless, this is what out species is currently doing. But to say that we are a species of existential contradictions is to give up without even trying, and to let the idea of perpetual profiteering drag our eyes to the grey floor, where we watch our feet take one step at a time, in a potentially lethal small-world view.

This exhibition wishes to contribute to the voices of reason in this time of collective insanity.

'Globalsapiens: An Introduction' Opening night at CADS, Sheffield

Globalsapiens: an introduction to Parallel Paranoia, Humans In Cages and Silently Chained - the respective alternate names for artistic collective Mikk Murray, John Ledger and Jade Morris. Each artist has, at some point in life, stumbled across these titles and found them poetically fitting descriptions of their own predicament as young adults in the 21st century: tied to lifestyles that they know are destructive to the planet and most often self-destructive; struggling forwards from this, trying to find cracks in a hegemonic social landscape that drags humans toward an ultimate battle with nature that we are certain to lose.
Thus this show cannot be a means to an end for Globalsapiens: it has to be the start not the end; one of many 'atoms for peace', clustering together, always growing never standing still, until their shout is big enough to make one final stand against a world ruled by money. This exhibition aims to resonate with all those who care but feel trapped and helpless to make a change, and possibly then inspire them to believe that they need not feel trapped and helpless.

The garden

Heather, gorse and broom. 

''That's the wind blowing through the bushes.'' Mrs Medlock said.

Small, lost and odd.

''She says she believes they eat th' grass same as th' wild ponies do.''

''an' birds as comes an' eats out of his hand.''

''even a disagreeable little girl may be lonely.''

Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin

Filled with art, people and good vibes!!..music, graffiti, a non-profit organization - interested in people, humanity and existence rather than money! The Berlin government have their sights set on shutting the place down, so the people involved in Tacheles are doing everything they can to get more people involved and in trying to save the place.
There's more info here..
http://super.tacheles.de/cms/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tacheles-kunsthaus-Berlin/116848323604?sk=wall

The building was about 3 or 4 stories high and filled with artists studios, craft markets and there was also a sculpture workshop/studio outside. An artists called Alexander Rodin has a studio there.. http://www.bellabelarus.com/en/component/option,com_jsgallery/mode,by_artist/artist_id,23/Itemid,49/
his work and studio was mind blowing! It was like stepping into a time machine somewhere into the not so far away future. Paintings covered the walls and there were little sculptural experiments scattered on the floor..bike wheels, empty glasses/bottles, lamps, paint, lights; it reminded me of the strange creature lady from The Dark Crystal..Aughra!

The creativity and inspiration in this place is immense! It's a real connected, creative community welcoming anyone and everyone. This is what art is - life! Existence! It's living..and especially for the Now!

I also met an artist there called Barbara Frogagna, she had an exhibition on there.. http://www.barbarafragogna.blogspot.com/
Her work was really beautiful..paintings, sculptures, drawings and personal thoughts on scraps of paper (which were all contained in a glass box). There was also music playing throughout, a Spanish or Italian woman singing along with a guitar, which added to the mood of the work in the exhibition.

It was a very intimate exhibition; a delicate insight into perceptions and experiences with love, anguish, sex and despair..I loved it.

x

Berlin 02.07.2011

Grey, rainy day.
Hungover.
Saw beautiful photographs in a beautiful building..

The exhibition included photographs by Sibylle Bergemann, Gregory Crewdson and Timotheus Tomicek/Kathrin Schonegg.. http://www.co-berlin.info/

The building was amazing and so were the photographs, each room was something different but they all had a sinister yet seductive vibe to them. The first room with the photos by Sibylle Bergemann took me back to childhood; distorted visions of nature and dolls, each tainted with touch. The photographs were tiny polaroids, there must have been about a hundred; concealed in delicate frames.

The next room was like a modern Victorian age, with photographs by Tomicek/Schonegg, slightly moving as you stared at them, at first I thought it was me..still slightly pissed..but they were moving but only just, it was like a floaty feather dream; women in dresses reaching out towards you/something and a man's eye; attracting/disturbing.

The toilets were just as amazing as the exhibition. I stayed in there for about half and hour, mesmerized, it was like an insane asylum; cold grey walls and tiles, huge sinks and doors, rusty, creaky pipes.

As I made my way to the third room there were some photographs that lured me in just on a wall that led to the room, they were like shots from a crime scene or a film set; grey, stark locations with no sign of life only maybe one or two people. In the room the photographs were huge! Lonely people staring into a distance, in one of them an old woman stands naked in a bleak bathroom, with blood dripping from between her legs. In another, a group of people walk amongst what looks like a destroyed wasteland, covered in scratches and dirt.

I wandered round the building for a good couple of hours, I've never had that feeling in an art gallery before - one that actually provoked emotion and feeling rather than being concerned with who you'll meet or what 'important person' will spot you there. I was totally inspired and touched. Even though the mood wasn't an ecstatically happy one, it was a mood..a feeling..and one that put me in touch with a part of me where there are no words for. 

I felt like a ghost that day, but one with presence.

Women.

Devil Women.

The Devil's women.

''I taste his breath on my tongue, and it is beautiful.''

Pale Dew

Poems from Penistone Poets Anthology..

Reverie

Her eyes deepened with curdled joy

seeping sadness towards the foggy moors

with the misty mildew trailing South

she danced and wandered along its vehement mouth.

'It makes me hurt

but I'll never give myself to you, ever

Come walk with me, over the misty fields

and promise me there

that you'll leave me be, forever.'

Pale Dew

I am not willing to breathe

you stand in front of me

the shivers sing

and bones hang thin

but oh,

you can't look at yourself

you're too weak to undress

I must have died to have begun

I come from within

from the depths of beneath

my senses inept, alert

I detect, a miserable

stench of folly

Digress

I find my way

although misled and unkempt

do I know who I am?

I know I come from death

unlaid and regressed

every part of me outstretched

wholeheartedly and repeatedly

unrecognised

Reaching for life, but yet again

deceived

by this tormented grief.

Painting by myself, for the cover of the book.

untitled II

''A womans legs can be spread as wide as the frogs. Our lips are as shiny as their skin. Theirs is green, yet ours is not..''

Seeds

Suppose there really is nothing there, suppose there never was anyway; that we never touched it, never knew it, never tasted it..then why do we feel it? That something we know is there, but that we find so hard to put into words, that is so difficult to explain, yet we connect to it, we share it – unspeakabily unsaid – but we know it’s there because it haunts us, everyday. We shy away from it, we’re afraid of it, we try to avoid it, but in the pit of our stomachs we know that feeling is right – or it feels right. That something that they can never take away from us, because it is embedded within us. It is our seed, and our seeds need to be planted – to grow and to share – to sprout and to live amongst other seeds. We just need to trust our seed and not be afraid of it, because all our seeds are the same; our seeds are true and what we need to plant and share is the truth.

''..a longing that disturbs her piece of mind.''

Across the glimmering gashes, 

shy and uneasy

not quite there but nearly. 

I want to show you my insides. 

I want to share with you the pieces in me that are hidden. 

Burning, broken blisters

reveal themselves; 

unashamed parts in me that glisten, 

unspoken and insane.

Silken grace, 

stricken down by ignorance. 

I see your face, mocking my intelligence.

Maybe my insides are best left hidden,

locked away, unridden

wearing me away, 

day by day, 

by day, 

by day..

How far really, is death away?

A confrontation of two Natures

One of my favourite films from a young child was Gone With the Wind. I first watched the film when I was seven years old and was captivated by it, I wanted to watch it over and over, never really knowing why. The image shown below of Rhett and Scarlett hangs on my wall at home, as I catch a glance of it every morning, it fills me with a silent comfort.

Until a couple of weeks ago I never really thought much about the image and what it represented, until a fresh eye saw the photo hanging on my wall and asked about it. I described the film to Him; a love triangle between one woman and two men, a story told during the Civil War.

Around about the same time when I was thinking about the image of Rhett and Scarlett, I'd been listening to the album Blowback by Tricky. The image on the album cover highly struck me, and on the same night that He asked about the image of Rhett and Scarlett on my wall, he also said something that made a mark in my mind..something about the way the woman looks up to the man and the man looks down on her and how that image of Man and Woman is probably a lot different now. I find these two images very alike in contrasting ways, a modern day version of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara, perhaps.

A woman in control of herself, her sex and the man - who seems to crave her and obeys, the image oozes dominance and pleasure, reflecting a sexual connection and acceptance of equality.

Who dominates who? Who fears who? Who protects who? Who obeys who? Is there ever an equal?

I think the roles of being doted on, protected, feared and dominated do change all the time for men and women..and I don't think there ever will be an equal in a realistic sense because we're a different species..aren't we?

''It is a law of nature that a dream carried far too long inside you must, eventually, begin to rot.''

Patience

Buried are my bruises, that shine in your reflection.

A heap of mess, decaying in on itself, once shone; beaming in light, now hides shamelessly in nothingness.

Unscented, unscathed, untouched by man's hand, but yet to his eye remains, completely mislaid.

A passive sociey

''Everything I think of when I think of really living, living to the full - all my ideas are just the opening credits of sitcoms. My idea of life, it's what happens when they're rolling the credits.''*

We're told what to do, and how to live, how to act, how to conform. We're just passive to everything now, we no longer question anything because we're so used to someone else doing things for us, so used to thinking that someone else will 'sort it all out.' We constantly point the finger and blame, but it can't always be someone else, we have to do things for ourselves, work together, think together, LIVE together. We're too disconnected from the world and from nature, yet we're told that we are a ''connected nation'' ''we're better, connected.'' On what level? As mere machines, portraying false identites, a false sense of self. Well that's not something I want to be a part of, and I'm sure deep down none of us do. So why do we do it? Why do we conform? Because we're innocent, or ignorant? Because it's easy just to go along with things, to not question things, for an easy and quite life. Insecurities? We're decievingly made to feel inadequate compared to the 'beautiful people' we see in advertisements/magazines/film, we strive to be these false identities, and hide who we really are, just to feel like we belong or fit in. Well, I don't want to fit in but I definately want to belong. 

* From the book 'Feed' by M. T. Anderson

All the birds are dying..does no one care?

Indeed was death, was death indeed.

Who I am is not visible
Who I am feels, and knows
Who I am longs to be recognised
it is not my shell, but my insides
I am the universe, I am an atom
my face is not me but a transmitter.
My body and my mind are but tools,
through where
I express my inner being.
I am alive.