otolith

Thank you very much for your application.
It has been a very difficult decision process and I'm afraid that unfortunately you weren't successful on this occasion.

We wish you all the best with future projects,
Thanks again,

Louise, Anjalika and Kodwo

//The Otolith Group

July and not such a failure

I've been busy.
I feel that I have shed my dependence on working only within a particular framework that is acceptable to the criteria set by my art degree and MA and declared statement which I think I have found very restricting. This emergence has not let to any miraculous output of work but I am happy with what I am making: I will have a small solo slot at the beginning of next year in a local space, I have been invited to review an exhibition, I am not totally invisible. I continue to apply for jobs.

LIVE DIY8

Dear Anna-Marya,

Thank you once again for your application for the ‘Liminal Bodies’ workshop. Due to a high number of applicants with very relevant practices to the themes tackled within the project, as well as a very limited capacity for the workshop, unfortunately I cannot offer you a place at this stage.

I would however like to offer you a reserve place, as this has been a very difficult decision because I found your application and images extremely interesting and feel you would be a great addition to the group. Please let me know if you would be happy to accept this reserve place on the workshop. If so, then I will be in touch as soon as possible if a place becomes available.

I am very glad to have been introduced to your practice. Please add me to your mailing list as I would love to experience your work firsthand.

Very best wishes,

Poppy

failure of pride

I am curious why I have, of late, preferenced the poverty and lowliness of my ancestry. On my mother's side, my people weren't so poor. Some sense of this lingered in her sometimes exaggerated sense of status - exacerbated by delusional mental illness, but not founded on nothing. Her father lost the bulk of his inherited wealth in the financial crash that came before 1926, the year in which my mother was born. 1926 would not have been a good year for my Swiss grandparents: already poor, with one child, they had twin girls. My mother's fate, as unwelcome number 3, was sealed; she got the leftovers of everything, so grew up with a sense of being worth less than everyone else. No wonder she left when she could.
She often spoke with pride of her own great aunt. Mädi, I think she was known as; she was featured in a national magazine as Kanton Bern's only woman pig farmer. And she was wealthy, as was the rest of that generation of family. My grandfather was given a sizeable chunk of land on the Rheinbank in Neuhausen-am-Rheinfall as his wedding gift. It was this land that allowed him to survive the financial ruin of the '20's. Initially farmed, it was gradually sold off, eventually leaving only the plot of number 10 Flurlingerweg which had on it two houses, my grandparents' house and one they rented to a couple. In 1974 when I worked in Switzerland the couple were still there and welcoming and remembered my mother. Both houses are gone now.
I have random memories all the time, some aspect of wandering brain activity that comes with age. I remember standing with my mother, must have been in the early '70's, on the street in front of the beautiful shaded house, and my mother asking for some plums from the trees planted there. Her father had planted the trees. Now years later I can feel her pain.

unattached

This is the time when I am trying to make work from my own initiative; this is proving difficult. It is no longer work suggested by anyone else, it is not in response to anyone's impulse, it is not to deadline,it is not part of a group agenda ... it is difficult.

Komarom

Komarom is a border town in NorthWest Hungary. It's in that indistinct corner where the country might be Austria or Czechoslovakia as was.
I've been reading "The Hare with the Amber Eyes"; I tripped over the name Komarom in the summary of what happened to the writer's relations from this place, an entrainment point for Auschwitz, and, as ever, I felt that sickening rush of heat and quickened heartbeat, that feeling of fearing to read on or turn the page in case I see the personal name of my father in conjunction with some atrocity. It is an absurd and exaggerated reaction, yet I can't help wondering ... Komarom was at least one place where he served as a Royal Hungarian Gendarme.
I have read de Waal's book with mixed feelings, feelings I've had in relation to other similar books as well. This excellent piece of scholarship unpeels event by event the dismantling of a Jewish family through the twists of the early twentieth century, the chapters on the consequences of Anschluss make grim reading. But here's my problem: it's difficult, even impossible, to give substance to the diasporic experience of ordinary people. De Waal's family were sufficiently grand to leave behind records of visits to the opera. Who recorded my grandparents' visits to the cowshed? Or that of the millions displaced and traumatised? And I'm not Jewish. My parents' experience and my experience of them, my post-memory, has no easy slot, precisely because it is a history of ordinary people. And even worse, my father was on the "wrong" side in so many different ways: Czechoslovak born Hungarian siding with Nazi Germany in the hope of retrieving lost land, a Royal Hungarian Gendarme signed up in the last months of immiment defeat but at the very time when deportations to the gas chambers escalated; no tale of the Shoah does not single out the Hungarian Gendarmes for ruthless brutality.
So de Waal's book is one I can read and pity the lot of his disposessed baronial family but ultimately it is not my story. Who wants to read that the pain of ordinary people, even those on the losing side is as great as that of princes?

tulips

My mother sometimes drew or painted.
It was a random activity, some creative impulse that needed an outlet; she was generally too crazy in later years to really concentrate on anything sustained, though she still knitted socks, thick woollen bedsocks in garish colours.
She was excellent at handwork, stitching and knitting shen she was young.

anniversary

7th May is the anniversary of my mother's death. Remembering this is not a symptom of morbidity but an acknowledgement that she lived, and dying is the last thing we do. Only a year after her death my father forgot; on that occasion we dragged him out for a meal but never again in subsequent years. It meant nothing to him. It means nothing to me in itself but yet it is a marker for the years that have followed. The more time passes since my parents' deaths the more real they become; for a while they were gone and I mourned them. Now, sometimes, I trip myself up thinking I might just run over to Slough. I can hear the click and echo of particular doors and smell the food frying in the kitchen; it is part day-dream, part hallucination. I can hear the fighting and sense the fear, different fears for all of us: my own fear of violence, my mother's fear of the empty nights, my father's fear of survival. We stowed these fears away privately, harboring them; sometimes they still escape as irrational behaviour even now, many years later. My daughter doesn't fear being alone in our house at night; I'm not very good at this, it's the time when old fears surface.

failed upload

failed upload

some attempts to marry photography with drawing or a failure at both?

at last an International Day worth celebrating

St Petersburg Times

March drawings that I failed to upload

last of the March drawings

inhuman resources

Applicant Number: A3373Vacancy Number: 002744 This is to confirm that your application has been received and will be processed by the Human Resources Department. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest with the University of Hertfordshire. Kind Regards Human ResourcesUniversity of Hertfordshire

photoblog

ok, it's not love but being hit on by a weird fucker on my photoblog HelloHow are you?My name is Aishatzu I saw your profile today and became interested in you, I will also like to know you the more, and I want you to send an email to my email address so I can give you my picture for you to know whom I am. Here is my email address(aishatzuharuni@yahoo.co.uk)I believe we can move from here! I am waiting for your mail to my email address above.Aishatzu baby (Remember the distance or color does not matter but love matters a lot in life) Contact me here (aishatzuharuni@yahoo.co.uk) I am looking forward to hear from you soon.Take care your Aishatzu

entropy

in quantum physics the definition of time is a tendency towards entropy. why then does so much energy get spent on contriving order? its only ultimate outcome can be a descent into dis-order ... or madness

infectious ART

http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/78104/E91257.pdf

risk and failure in art and blogging

http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/article/536689

Costco is rubbish

On Friday I entirely bollocksed up joing Costco, the (apparently) very popular wholesale supermarket.
I need to buy supplies for a number of upcoming events offering refreshments and hospitality to many people: Costco I thought might be a good single source of wholesale goods. I was quite chuffed with myself at having got together the necessary paperwork for a trade membership. I signed up, though balking slightly at the £20+Vat membership charge but thinking that £2 a month would show dividends buying goods over the year.
I acquired my ID card with faint crappy photograph and also my superwide trolley and felt I'd joined an elite crowd of shoppers. Everyone looked well pleased with their trolley load though slightly harrassed. I immediately lost the plot, getting distracted by the TVs showing images of the tsunami sweeping through Sendai; I had heard only radio news and hadn't yet seen the images. So I stood crying in the aisle whilst others carried on looking at price labels; it reminded me of 11th September 2001 when I saw the first TV images of the WTC collapsing in Jarman Park leisure centre to the accompanying sound of laser games and bowling and kids matching disco steps. I pulled myself together and resumed shopping.
I mentally compared prices of photographic equipment and decided I could buy cheaper in any number of well-known retail park outlets. But I wasn't there to buy cameras. I headed for the toilet paper. I suppose it was "cheap" but I had to buy 144 rolls at a time; I was fazed by the storage problem and also that I wasn't organising Olympic shitting events but needed a couple of extra rolls on a couple of occasions. I declined the toilet paper.
I went to to the juices; I found giant Ribenas taped into pairs. I put some into the trolley for personal use though wondering again where in the house I was going to keep these and whether my daughter might possibly have left home before using these up. I also put a tray of lunchbox orange juice in the trolley, then took it out again, worried by the lack of variety and that my daughter currently needs fresh Vitamin C for iron absorption. The big juices, likewise, I declined because it seemed boring to buy large quantities of juice that wouldn't really be fresh. I moved on to the wine via the canoes; I was tempted by the canoe, also the 24metre long garden marquee, not that I am planning either an excursion to the Rockies or a wedding, also I would have to cut down all the trees in the garden, though they did have the equipment for that.
The wine counter was a disappointment: wine was cheap if bought in multiples of six ... but what if the first taste was crap and then you had to carry on drinking five more bottles of crappy wine? Single bottles were, without exception, all more expensive than even the most expensive of the well known supermarket chains; I know, I am an expert on wine prices. Dithering, I selected three multipacks of wine (one of each colour), total price £78. And a pack of polystyrene cups for hot drinks.
I tasted some jellybear vitamins for kids; they were quite nice, but I don't have malnourished small children. I felt the need to shop so I put some eyespray in the trolley because I'd seen it advertised on TV.
I then walked round and round in that state of "tharn" (what happens to rabbits in 'Watership Down' when caught in car headlights) that sometimes descends on me behind a shopping trolley. I totted up what my trolley load would cost and was appalled by the total; it was supposed to be cheap. My own shopping of late has gone down in cost with a son away managing his own weekly outlay; at home I've recently switched off the second fridge and the freezer, deciding not to store unecessary items of food at home and waste electricity when shops are a short distance away in every direction and items can even be bought singly. I realised I would never want to buy anything in bulk in this store and that, even for event shopping, this was not a good economy and I couldn't see how even the £24 membership outlay would be recuperated.
I looked around at other shoppers' trolleys loaded with giant boxes of strawberries and trays of a dozen iced buns and microwaves and gardening gloves and women desperately searching through dull piles of exercise clothing they would never wear ... and I knew what I had to do.
I abandoned my trolley (I am ashamed of this) and made my way back to the membership desk. "I want to cancel my membership", I said. "You are the first person in ten years who has ever asked to do this."

not qualified

Dear Anna-Marya
Thank you for getting in touch.
The Scheme has no age restrictions, just that you must have graduated from your first degree in 2009 or 2010. The aim is to support those who have just left university or college to help them get their start in a career in the arts.
Best wishes
Kate

and March gets off to a good start

Dear Anna-Marya,
Many thanks for your proposal for the 2011 artist residency programme at Luton Hoo Walled Garden.
I regret to inform you that on this occasion your submission was unsuccessful.
The selection panel was very impressed with your proposal and the quality of your work, however, we felt that at this stage in the development of the residency work that was more specific to the Luton Hoo Walled Garden would be more suitable.
We received a tremendous response to the residency with over 70 enquires. Thank you for your interest and we hope to see you at future Luton Hoo Walled Garden art events.
Best wishes,
Suzanne

February drawing

My thoughts in composing these life drawings were about disruption of the human body, having just read and considered the work of Nick Danziger in relation to former Yugoslavia

http://www.nickdanziger.com/index/home

The Unknown Masterpiece

http://web.org.uk/picasso/balzac.html

Escalator2

Wheels within wheels ... or whatever inept aphorism
The Escalator retreat was about failure and unrealised projects; somehow I thought I stood a chance.

Escalator

Dear Anna-Marya,I am writing to tell you that selection for the forthcoming Escalator assembly Unrealised - Unrealisable has taken place and unfortunately on this occasion you have not been selected to attend.Unsurprisingly, as one of the few fully funded programmes of its kind in England, Escalator is oversubscribed and competition to attend Escalator events is fierce.We are committed to keeping access to Escalator an open process, however what this means is that due to high levels of interest in the programme we are unable to give individual feedback to those not selected. In general, the reason is simply that on this occasion others were able to articulate the urgency of this assembly at this moment is time, and how work their work is appropriate to the theme.Thank you for taking the time to apply and I hope you will continue to consider future Escalator opportunities.With all best wishes,Gareth Bell-Jones

oh one oh two two oh one one

I've just turned over the first page of the calendar I bought in Switzerland last summer. The picture is of mountains covered in glistening snow under a bright sun in clear blue Alpine sky. The middle ground has an airborne snowboarder flying into the picture. The whole experience causes me some confusion.

I've always had a "Swiss calendar", something I inherited from my mother: each year she would acquire a calendar from Switzerland, often a linen (made in Ireland) printed version that converted to a teacloth at the end of the year, decorated in rustic furniture or gentians or Alpine cartoons. I still have these grotty teatowels and the year - 1969 ... 1972 ... 1980 - recalls this or that memory.

When mother's mother was still alive they would arrive as a gift. Then we lived there, then we visted each summer and brought one back for the following year, then my aunt would send one - usually the free one she obviously got from her local garage - but the year was coloured Swiss: mountains, lakes, chalets and little villages, goatherders and alphorns coming round like proverbial clockwork.

The calendar I have on my wall this year? I bought it in Basel last summer; I was there to close the bank account that I inherited from my mother, no great fortune or secret horde but ordinary pennies, the diminished money left from her own inheritance. It was her reserve, her escape money, it served to pay for holidays and travel over the years, paid for my own family to visit the country.

But the Swiss don't want poor bank guests; for a non-resident they were about to hike up the fees in such a way that would purely have eaten the money away, so I closed down the account and used some of the cash for a two-day stay in Basel, and was appalled how expensive everything was. That made me feel thoroughly like an outsider and brought back memories of how poor my mother was when we lived there, how we lacked every basic amenity, how we eventually found a room in an apartment cheaply because my mother looked after the landlord's resident and dying stepmother, a Miss Haversham presence who occasionally shuffled out of her deathbed down the corridor to the lavatory and didn't make it and left little white turds as footprints. The Swiss didn't like poor guests back then either and my mother's circumstances were as difficult as they could be and it all went very sour.

My mother nonetheless missed her "home" country and went back to Switzerland with me each summer but the "holidays" were strung out on a shoestring, living in Salvation Army hostels.
I look at the calendar picture and smell the snow; snow has no smell but yet it comes with a very particular olfactory sensation ... clear air? It is a potent nostalgia. As was the snow we had here in December last year, it is a sensation of light, of danger, of safety.

I bought the calendar in a department store, wandering around with my daughter, and this is the finest bit of the association: I hated being trailed around Switzerland all summer with my mother and maybe last year my daughter wasn't dead excited either, maybe it was a little dull for her but it was very precious to me, to know that a mother and daughter can do something amicably together.

I don't understand the skateboarder; he (it looks like a man) intrudes into the picture, both literally, flying into the image, but also metaphorically. His presence tugs the timeless landscape of little houses and churchspire into the twentyfirst century and this is exactly what I don't want; I want to stew in a dream of unsullied memory, to gloss over the reality of even my own real experience of Switzerland and I want to believe in the myth. Here the source of objection to minarets.

deepest gloom

Depression has a powerful narcissistic aspect. (No wonder it is the territory of creatives; all artists are egoists.) Its effect is to draw the self into the self: I am so miserable, my misery is greater than anyone else's around me, they cannot understand, my misery is special, my very own personal sump. It's horrible to admit it but there is a perverse pleasure in giving in to this lure of thoughts. They are insidious, compelling, and they drown out generative thought. That is what I fear most: the disappearance of thoughts. The nothingness. It's the most horrible state of mind, and it has an almost physical attribute; because of the inability to escape the sheer internalness of the experience, sanity begins to drift apart and floating in the void of unthinking becomes present reality. The inner vision is more compelling than real surroundings and colours everything with darkness. So lame then to realise that there is nothing special about the experience but that it is common, and January is a bad month for it. Today blue sky has broken through. The extra light is enough to show up how dirty the house has become and has shamed me into hoovering.

Tate ...

Dear Anna
Thank you for calling into Tate in relation to our current vacancies. Please do keep reviewing our website, http://www.tate.co.uk as we regularly update our vacancies and if you do see any position that you are interested in, please do not hesitate to apply to us.
For further help with your job search you could try the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) website on http://www.jobseekers-uk.com , as they hold a list of other recruitment agencies which you may find useful.
Sorry we have been unable to assist you on this occasion, however I would like to thank you for your interest and wish you well with your search for suitable employment. Yours sincerely

what do I know?

If I know the maiden name of a friend's mother, is this knowledge? Is it something I have learned? Should I have learned this kind of information in school? And if I had, would it have served me as well? What shall I do with the things I know? How do I know that they are as they are? Which knowledge means anything?