Creative Non-Fiction - Three-Hour Incarceration

So this week is a study of form and language when talking about an activity or job which has a routine and which (probably) is tedious/boring/soul-crushing (this applied to me after a few months at it....) I worked for an antique company which is, in itself, pretty interesting but when your role is primarily data entry it does start to dull over time.

9.30am (or thereabouts – you never leave the house exactly on time) you stand and knock…several times, on the flaky lion door-knocker, to be admitted into the cosy establishment which houses your cell.

9.35, you sit in the dank little office, lit by one, sometimes two, of the three lightbulbs in the fixture overhead, the familiar smell of musty books mingling with cat litter and whatever is cooking in the kitchen down the hall. The first item is in your hand from the pile of magazines, books, postcards, beer mats, theatre programmes, comics, clippings, or newspapers sitting beside you. You and your voluminous warden. The jolly bespectacled grandfather anyone would feel comfortable around, but with a face that after several months you’d be happy to never see again.

With time, and diminishing errors, his visits become less frequent, leaving you alone to your own hopefully productive devices.

9.50, the piles just don’t seem to get any smaller, especially when you’re dealing with wafer-thin beer mats and scores of 3-page pamphlets, the life history of which must undergo your scrutiny and documentation on the screen of a decrepit blinking box to convert it into cash.

9.55, this one probably never saw the light of a pub interior so it’ll sell for two quid…

9.57 …this one is identical but with a sloppy ring mark right in the middle, knocking fifty pence off…

10.10 …this play features a prominent celebrity at the start of their acting career so, of course, it’ll sell for more than a printed copy of some local school rendition of Bugsy Malone – until you spot a stain five pages deep where someone had been careless with their popcorn. There goes another fifty pence.

10.20. There’s a fly. In here. Somewhere. It buzzes so close to your ear as if on purpose. As if it knows you’re already watching the neon digits in despair (it hasn’t even been an hour yet?) and that the last thing you want is to spend another two hours feeling your already chilly skin crawl (why can’t he just turn the heating up a fraction?) You flinch with every fly-by until it goes silent. A momentary relief.

10.30 brings another relief in a standard issue mug with the same cheerful cat pattern on it, but without biscuits because you’re ‘on a diet’.

11.00, you somehow make it to the halfway point – without needing to use the toilet either (although saying that now might be a good time). You feel your efforts deserve a reward, so you dedicate a little more than the required time to the next colour-filled superhero comic until…

11.30 …one becomes several and you suddenly realise that that pile isn’t getting any smaller, but time is getting on and you only have one hour left.

11.50, okay, you just about save yourself (not that he’d notice when those comics seem to go on for weeks!) You finish the icy dregs of your tea, tensing when a faint buzz sounds from behind the curtain in front of the desk.

Beyond the window, you see people going by: driving, walking (with or without a dog), jogging. Today is December so it’s pretty cold outside, which makes you wonder at the dedication of some people…and the stubbornness of others (is it too much to ask to bring the temperature a little closer to twenty?)

12.10, you secretly thank your stars this job isn’t all typing or your fingers would have atrophied from being glued to the keys and mouse for so long. The same can’t be said for your eyes which have been losing focus every fifteen seconds, staring back and forth between page and screen trying to correctly spell the twenty-letter title of a German book.

12.20, it’s watching the clock time. You can almost hear the chains sliding loose and hurry to get extra done to lighten the load tomorrow (knowing full well there’d always be more even if you did finish early).

12.23. The fly’s back. Come to wish you goodbye - until tomorrow.

12.25, you debate taking a toilet break so you can stop now (it’ll be a half hour wait otherwise)

12.28. You wait too long. Perfectionism can be a bitch when there are so many things to consider with a magazine of sewing patterns.

12.32, you put on your scarf, coat, hat, gloves, bag, and wait for your release to be effected. With a full bladder, empty stomach, and a dying mp3 battery, you hurry on your way homeward.

Creative Non-Fiction - A Giraffe Among Strangers

A little late but I got it here in the end.
(NB: This is the updated version)

A vicious sheet of swirling white continued to gust through the doorway, the kind of white it hurts to look at, even through tinted goggles, and stings to breath in for its caustic purity. People came in from outside dusted in it, grinning out of warmly exerted faces which buzzed with confidence. They were the most frightening and inspirational strangers I’d ever seen.

I began to tug anxiously at my puffy mittens, trying to tuck them better into my cuffs; they refused to cooperate. It was the cold gusting around me, as much as the brilliant obscurity, which scared me more than expected. A cold which seemed capable of penetrating heavy-duty ski boots as well as two layers of thick socks.

‘Are we going out in that?’ I asked, looking back to where my boyfriend, Jackson, and his parents stood, much calmer than I.

I’d forgotten that my boyfriend was one of those ‘strangers’.

They were all veterans of the slopes, his family having been coming to these same Italian mountains for the last twenty years. There was always a cheerful hello for the ski instructors and the restaurant manager, the same apartments booked year after year in a nearby complex, and an enviable ease when moving anywhere with five foot lengths of sharp carbon fibre strapped to their feet.

‘We’ll give it a little while’ was the reply.

I’d felt more like a new-born giraffe trying to acclimate to its immense limbs with those same lengths of carbon fibre on my own feet.  

Jackson came over to give me a hug, and flashed a reassuring smile as he sat down to adjust the straps on his boots. His were for snowboarding, and so much more forgiving, much less rigid than mine: it was as if my feet had been encased in lightweight stone.

I gave the blizzard one last look before sitting down myself to wait. That blinding white mountainside had already been acquainted with the novice bite of my skis sliding down the tiniest incline, and yet at that moment, I almost felt as if that once had been enough. Skiing was a sport which required more effort than you might think, leaving your legs sore from unaccustomed exertions and stripping you of the confidence that you’d ever improve.

‘I think we’ll give it a go’ Jackson said to me, pulling his ski mask over his mouth and dragging his broad snowboard out into the quiet oblivion.

Still not sure if I was even ready, I tugged at my gloves again, lifted my skis to my shoulder, and followed him out into my own personal snow-globe. 

Creative Non-Fiction - A Peace of Mourning

Hey, it's been....well, a while since I last posted in here - since the Poetry Challenge back in October (jeez) but as I am back into a prose creative writing module, I think I could start uploading each week's assigned piece. The focus of last week's piece was Nature Writing, and finding a small piece of nature to concentrate on. I chose a part of a nearby graveyard. I hope you like it as much as those in my class did.
(NB: This is now the updated version)

I should’ve felt some kind of emotion coming to this place, but all I felt was peace. Peace at the solitude wrapped in a white noise of bird song and the dull colourless rush of traffic. Peace beneath the blinding cold midwinter sun. Peace at the satisfying sound of my steps scraping and clicking against the stone underfoot.

Dewy grass muted those steps as I turned aside towards a small tree which appeared to be bursting from the very lungs of the grave’s occupant. In tarnished metal letters I’d find their name, how old they’d been, and who might miss them, but that didn’t matter to me as I’d cast my eyes over more personal stones enough to know what I’d see. Instead I gazed upwards towards a trunk and boughs twice as dense as expected due to a choking burden of glossy prickling holly and matt club-leaved ivy, their ropy tendons clinging with lethal tenacity to the bark. With another nip of earth-scented breeze, those boughs also became twice as vocal, their collective leaves susurrating smoothly against one another. I’d often heard such a sound in every other graveyard I had visited. Breath of the dead, perhaps?

A shiver of colour induced me to look down again to a carpet of damp fleshy leaves which had all but reburied the dead, gravestones and all, leaving just the coarse and weathered tips to protrude. I wondered whose relative had had the bright idea to sow such rampant plants. Their only charm was their tiny stems from which burst a small star of fine purplish-white petals, but even then the winter air had already robbed some of their colour, leaving them to shake their faded and downturned heads. Their act seemed as much in self-pity as in reverence of the stately crows perched atop the stones, a feeling mirrored in myself.

I felt that birds, with their free-roaming wings, were the embodiment of each individual soul interred beneath the ground, at liberty to go where they wanted but always return to this exact same place. The silhouettes of gulls ghosting and laughing overhead was rippled and reflected in the water pooled in a fallen gravestone. The distant twitter of small birds had formed a fabric of natural sound which vied for supremacy over the modern roar. By this point, the clouds were drawing nearer, trailing rain like soft grey feathers, compelling me to leave. As I did, the sound of children shouting and a dog barking somewhere echoed around me so they were shouting and barking everywhere. They were unafraid of the rain.

Day Three of the Plymouth Arts Weekender: Union Street and The House, Plymouth University

My contribution to 'What we talk about...'

Here it is, the final day of the event. Unfortunately, I haven’t been as involved in it as with the first two days. I think my artistic eye is beginning to tire. Nonetheless, I managed to attend one small exhibition on Union Street: ‘What we talk about when we talk about love’ by MarcellaFinazzi at Sloggett and Son. 

Walking in, it felt at first like any other antiquities shop, however, further back it became more like a domestic living space crammed with retro furnishings – a boar’s head on the wall, old bicycles, comfy chairs. I would describe it as homely yet foreign chic. The idea behind it was to take in the room and then write a note about what love means to you. My meaning was along the lines of love being a place where you can go with the one who matters to you – coincidental then, that a map of the Netherlands happened to be on the wall, the very place I had visited on two occasions with my special someone.

Julian Isaacs: A man at one with his creative side

I again had my companion Mark Jones with me today, and while he was willing to explore whatever exhibition I chose, my heart wasn’t in it anymore, and so we turned away from the simmering revelry of the Union Street Party and re-entered the town centre. Along the way, we spotted local performance poet Julian Isaacs strumming away on-stage, before passing what the Arts Weekender leaflet termed ‘the smallest exhibition space in Plymouth…probably’ in the window of The Zone – and it was pretty much just that. Steve Clement-Large’s ‘Probably’ was a small collection of items in a shop front which you could easily miss if you weren’t looking for it. I didn’t examine it too closely though, so any significance between the title and its components was lost on me. A further disappointment

Spot the Exhibition: Steve Clement-Large

was learning that Jo Beer’s collection of works at the Theatre Royal entitled ‘Fleshy’ was not open to the public until tomorrow. The glimpse I caught through the window though looked promising so I may return. However, I did have one last event for the day: ‘Music of motions and presence’ at The House. 

It was quite honestly the most original, haunting, and experimental piece of abstract music I had ever heard. The instruments seemed to come alive under the musicians’ hands, sometimes, with the aid of motion sensors, without even touching them. This was, of course, the aim: to create sound using gestures and the musicians’ body movements. Marco Frattini commanded a drum kit, a small set of acoustics, and an electronic drum pad, from which escaped sounds unlike anything I’d ever heard from such instruments: explosively metallic heartbeats, chaotic stampedes, and screams drawn out by running a violin bow along the edge of a cymbal. Running solo was Lara Jones on a saxophone, creating noises which ranged from the roar of a plane overhead to the discordant trumpet of several stuck elephants, with a classic jazz tune in between. To complete the trio was the most important figure of all: researcher, composer and performer Federico Visi. His instruments of choice included electronic drum pad, synth board, and guitar, the latter of which dominated my attention. There was an almost organic quality to the noises he drew from it, groaning, growling, lurking like a predator, at times giving me chills when he drew a bow across its strings. All of this combined to create an ensemble full of anxious energy, hints of the industrial classicism of steampunk, and ghostly

Calm before the Storm: 'Music of motions and presence'

reverberations caused by the musicians’ movements. It was truly otherworldly to watch Federico move his hands above his guitar and hear the notes being drawn out, as if his own body had become an instrument or, as in the principle of The Extended Mind, the instrument was part of him. I learnt in a short talk with him after the show that these performances are a fairly even balance between scored and improvisation so it’s not always clear what will happen next. To be honest, I could’ve listened all night; there’s just something about the distortion and uniqueness of such music that never ceases to amaze.

As, indeed, has this Plymouth Arts Weekender.

Day Two of the Plymouth Arts Weekender: Plymouth University

In a fashion quite unlike me, I decided to have some company while viewing today’s selection of art pieces, in the shape of friend and fellow performance writer Mark Jones. My centre of attention today fell upon the exhibitions being held on the university campus.

Douglas Gordon

Starting in the Peninsula Arts Gallery, we found ‘Searching for Genius’ by Scottish, Turner Prize winner Douglas Gordon, labelled a ‘reconsideration of genius, virtuosity, education, and skill’. The three installations present were thus:

• ‘Self Portrait of You + Me’, a quartet of publicity photos (Omar Sharif, Johnny Cash, Oliver Reed, and David Bowie) with eyes and mouths singed out and mounted on mirrors. The idea here was the perception of identity, recognising a famous figure without their facial features. While familiar, even without his iconic eyes, Bowie looked nothing short of horrific. Mark was able to see the funny side, remarking that it was literally ‘Ashes to Ashes’ for Bowie, while Cash had fallen into an actual ‘Ring of Fire’. Perhaps that was the idea.

• The glasses of artist Joshua Reynolds which were described as ‘auratic’, embodied with his aura, and conveying his physical fallibility. I saw it as depriving Reynolds of his eyes, just as Gordon had done with his celebrity photos.
• ‘Feature Film’ – a ‘divorce between sound and vision’ – consisted of an unseen orchestra with only the conductor’s hands visible on screen, and beyond, a small television silently playing Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’. In this instance I felt the actors had been deprived of their ability to talk as with the photos.

Victoria Walters

Jamie House

Moving upstairs, we encountered ‘Edge of Collapse’, an installation of art by placement students. Entering the room, we were immediately confronted with a lamp-lit row of plants confabbing through microphones. This was ‘Emergency Conference’ by Victoria Walters. Speaking to her, we learnt she drew her inspiration from the work of German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys whose interest in flora and fauna instigated the concept of climate change in her work. It was an ingenious piece, reminding me a little of Alice in Wonderland with its talking flowers. Her second piece ‘Groundswell’ was of mixed media and gave a natural effect to otherwise unnatural materials, in particular a set of candyfloss-pink polystyrene blocks looking like alien driftwood. At the centre of the room was the singular ‘Seizure Drawing, treatment 1, 2, 3’ by Jamie House, a sheet of rolled paper bearing a pattern akin to seismic cracks or, to quote Mark again, ‘an aerial view of the Grand Canyon’. This intriguing piece was in fact

Claire Thornton

created by electrically charging the paper and intended to visually represent electroshock therapy. The third and final was ‘friends of magic | agents of change’ by Claire Thornton, a mixed media piece where what seemed solid wasn’t quite so, and what looked liquid was solid. In particular, a podium made of what looked like multi-coloured marble was in fact foam. 

Tim Mills

Over in the Scott Building, there was a lot more work on display than I had originally anticipated, with two exhibitions overlapping each other. Due to this, I shall simply highlight my favourites. Of the ‘Media Arts @ Plymouth’ exhibition by BA (Hons) Media Arts staff:

• Tim Mills: ‘Malaise’: This had the Droste effect about it, being a series of photos of advertising boards at Bretonside, Plymouth, displayed within themselves. Mills described this as a way to ‘fill a void within a void’ and confront the public’s general feeling of malaise – caused by the EU referendum. The tiny points of interest in each shot gave them further personality.
• Inés Rae: ‘Guards’: A varied series of sepia photographs of gallery guards. Simple, yet complex in their variety, and taken at angles which one might not have considered. It was as if Rae saw the guards themselves as exhibits.

  

  David Hilton

• David Hilton: ‘Along the Way’: Anyone who has taken a panorama shot knows the potential for accidently splicing your scenery, yet Hilton has used this effect to his advantage, including motion blur, spliced vehicles, and colourful scenery in his set of London and country photographs. They give the viewer a sense of motion, as if glimpsing the world out of a train or car window.

Liz-Ann Vincent-Merry

Of ‘The Forms of Possibility’ exhibition by graduating MA Photography and MFA Photographic Arts students:

• Liz-Ann Vincent-Merry: ‘The Marseille Papers’: At first, just a series of aged female portraits, but with some insight into Vincent-Merry’s thought process, it became an attempt to create a ‘dialogue between past and present’, penetrate the 2D photographic surface, and question who they were. One face, central to the collection, was particularly striking, her eyes looking right at you through time.
• Sian Davey: ‘Martha’: While this piece, as a photograph, did not interest me, the idea behind it opened up a world of speculation. Davey’s daughter features in it, on the cusp of adulthood, and thus neither a girl nor a woman. She becomes someone ‘free of the weight of societal expectations’ and thus not a person at all, a ‘nonentity’. Additionally, she is not identified in the picture which only enhances the enigma and invisibility of ‘Martha’.

  

  David Gibson

• David Gibson: ‘Dark Light and Mist’: This small series of misty black and white photographs was perhaps the most introspective of the lot, leaving the viewer feeling almost isolated in the profound quiet of the pieces. Each appears to be filled with fog/mist with just a hint of detail such as a tree, allowing the eyes to sift through the layers and the mind to imagine what lies beneath.

I think I have successfully covered all which piqued my interest for today. All quotes are from the various leaflets provided. With day two over, bring on the third and final day!

James Wilton Dance: Leviathan at The House, Plymouth University

I am unsure what drew me to want to watch Leviathan. Most likely it was the title, or the promise of a progressive rock soundtrack by an artist called Lunatic Soul, or maybe I just fancied another dramatic slice of entertainment. Whatever the case, Leviathan delivered on all counts. Choreographed by James Wilton, the cast of 6 performers re-enacted scenes inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick through the medium of capoeira-esque dancing, while simultaneously examining the relationship between man and nature. It was a performance with a narrative of blind obsession and conflict, a desire to conquer the unconquerable. The five men portraying Ahab and his crew (or man and civilisation) danced in a symbiotic fashion, at times animalistic or violent in their moves, struggling against one another, lifting and throwing effortlessly. In one scene, they began to form a magnetic chain, hypnotically weaving and leaping around each other, yet not once did they break contact for more than a few seconds or become tangled, even with all five men linked together. Their only prop was a large quantity of rope which was used to excellent effect, pulled across the floor, wound round the dancers, and lifted in intricate patterns in an attempt to catch the whale. The singular woman of the company (Sarah Jane Taylor) played the part of the whale (or nature), her movements lithe and fluid, yet also contorted and spasmodic, never rising far from the floor. After a certain point, the crew dancers became whale dancers, no longer fighting but moving in sync with one another, helping to emphasize the scale of the whale, and tease Ahab with their elusiveness in scenes reminiscent of a tormenting nightmare. Their movements were always more gentle than the crew’s until the finale when they became more violent, chasing Ahab back again and again. All the while, the music built and dissipated with the energy of the story, a mix of pulsating tribal electronica, indie-style rock, and unsettling sound effects such as what I felt sounded like the hollow cries of a dying whale, or the ominous beat of its heart. It all contributed to building tension and enhancing an already taut atmosphere – made so by the bare stage and minimal lighting. Even the weather went towards setting the mood: a raging rain-storm at night. Returning home, I definitely felt the force of Nature at work as the roads were turned to rivers and Niagara might as well have been falling from the sky. 

Day One of the Plymouth Arts Weekender: The Barbican

I know I usually use this blog for posting my old and new poetry, however, this piece (and the two that will follow) does not quite fit the parameters of my other blogs, thus I give you Day One of the Plymouth Arts Weekender: The Barbican.

Today I learnt that I was missing out big time. Last year, the Plymouth Arts Weekender meant virtually nothing to me; however, this time, even just from today, I found out I had deprived myself of so much local artistic talent. 

The 100 Most Watched

I started my expedition at the Plymouth Arts Centre to take in Danish artist Katya Sander’s exhibition ‘Publicness’. This consisted of ten pieces created from the material of the streets – graffiti, finance, the ‘public subconscious’ – which brought the city into the gallery. The two pieces on the ground floor were stark and simplistic, ‘The 100 Most Watched’ chaotically scrawled across one wall. The second floor was more of a burst of colour, as seen in the

Some Statements in Relation to
a Bank

complicated ‘Some Statements in Relation to a Bank’ which conveyed an ignorance and a lack of trust for the humble banker. Two installations were audio videos and, as art in this form goes, a little confusing, but ‘Exterior City’ made me feel as if Sander were trying to say ‘we are all actors within the manuscript of our city’.

Sue Willis

My next stop was Only Originals on White Lane where the works of Sue and daughter Christie Willis were being displayed and sold. I spoke with the artists, though at the time did not know it. The acrylic floral paintings of Sue Willis struck me as possessing a pastel-shaded vibrance which almost seemed to glow, while her serene country and maritime scenes captured the varying levels of sunlight perfectly. Daughter Christie’s work focused primarily on animals, lacking slightly in depth or character, but the brushwork remained soft and practised. It was the perfect scenery for a typical country poem. Check out their shop on White Lane, Barbican.

Christie Willis

Up next was the Barbican New Street Artists at Studio Two, New Street. This collection of art belonged to local artists Glyn White, Dave Crocker, Keith Simmons, and Caroline Mercer. Unfortunately, I missed the work of the latter, but what I saw did not disappoint. Keith Simmons displayed a series of maritime pieces in acrylic, a piece entitled ‘Spirits of the Sea’ capturing water in motion with surprising detail. Dave Crocker favoured an almost photographic approach, painting local buildings and people with a degree of soul and personality, evident in ‘The Girl with the Silver Tongue Stud’. However, it was the moody maritime and moorland scenes of Glyn White’s ‘Blanc on Blanc’ which stole my attention. I was fortunate enough to meet the man himself and give my feedback on his

Diogenes at Night in
the Studio Window

work, stunning him, I think, with my view that the water in his paintings looked almost like stone, while the stone looked rather like water. Check out his Facebook to see what you think. 

My fourth stop was at the New Street Gallery for prominent South West artist Robert Lenkiewicz’s ‘Diogenes Show’, a series of projects based on his friendship with and the life – and death – of vagrant Edwin Mackenzie, or Diogenes after the cynical Greek philosopher. The series depicts Mackenzie as the embodiment of chaos and death through paintings, sketches, photography, and 3D masks in plaster and thermoplastic. I saw these as ways to immortalise and spotlight this otherwise invisible man and all that he stood for. Two particular pieces caught my eye, the first, an immense painting of Mackenzie entitled ‘Diogenes at Night in the Studio Window’. His blue eyes were so alive, the light glinting on his unkempt hair to great effect. The second was two photographs of a dead Mackenzie entitled ‘The Putrefaction of Diogenes’. It shocked and fascinated me, but also reminded me of the fate of any other vagrant.

Tim Pearse

My final stop was at the Comma Five Art Space on Southside Street to see the local talent in Comma Five fullstop. They were setting up when I arrived, so I was unable to get the full experience but, for the second time, was able to speak with the artists present. The first to catch my eye was a series of simple yet thought-provoking urban photographs by freelance photographer Alexander Kanchev. They made me want to know what lay beyond the pictures’ borders. The second was Tim Pearse’s more disturbing and introspective photography which, after a short chat, I learnt contained pieces of his own inner self, the monochrome and distortion effects only enhancing this and endearing the collection to me. Check out his Facebook page and see how it makes you feel. The third set I viewed

James Wells

was a series of ghostly and industrial black and white photographs by James Wells. One image appeared to be have been laid over another as if showing the past and present in one shot; again, something I could appreciate. The fourth installation was from Sarah Fitzpatrick of Fitzy Pawtraits, a neat set of colourful cartoon scenes of Plymouth. Not generally my cup of tea, but the clean style and inclusion of a colourful canine made the set noteworthy. 

Sarah Fitzpatrick

A brief explanation that I was writing for the Plymouth University magazine even got me a little postcard for free. The final instalment came from Josh Greet and was a lenticular poster board which I was unable to figure out. That’s not to say I had no concept of what it could mean – there was something in there about the technological age as it bore the dreaded Internet Explorer logo – but again, it wasn’t quite the kind of art I found myself drawn to. 

And with that, day one of the Plymouth Arts Weekender draws to a close.