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05/18/2007: "No controversial or brainy ideas this time, just an update"
In December I told you about my move to [OD]. Over the past six months my space has gone from feeling like a concrete cul-de-sac to something where I am feeling at home. It took some time, and all the while my work seemed to be moving in circles but now I’ve grown beyond the walls that surround me and I’m making some progress. One of the improvements was investing in a loft-type structure for storage. It allows me more space at floor level and I can also go upstairs to take a look at the paintings from above which was a habit I acquired in my last studio.
The work that is coming out is still pretty much Borneo-related. I never showed works from that period here and I still had a few ideas I wanted to develop before moving on. Initially I tried to fight it and that is maybe why I kept going in circles, but now I’ve decided to accept them. Somehow I felt that if I didn’t do them, the other ideas I had for things related to that period and which I never even started working on – ideas from trips to Bali, Java and Oz – would slip away too. Now, as I’m back to working on the jungles and the rain, the sounds of the gamelan and the didgeridoo kind of make themselves heard again, the fluttering of the shadow-puppets cast a shadow somewhere inside and the experimentation that happens on the margins of the main focus sometimes gives me hints of where I can move next, keeping me in touch with those original emotions and ideas. It feels like a good way to go about it so I’m going along.
Rui and Fernando keep asking me to have an exhibition in our gallery but I feel it is still too soon. For now I just want to concentrate on the art. I can’t even bare the thought of showing [and letting go of] the pieces I’m working on now before I have had a chance to be with them a while longer. See them in context, see them out of context, be 100% sure of them. If the show comes too soon I’m deprived of the best part of it… once they’ve been shown it doesn’t feel the same way. But there are other reasons which I’ll discuss some other time.
I’m getting by. Obviously, my wife’s job allows me the luxury not to have to show but I’m also managing to sell the odd painting now and again [from the previous series]. I am able to pay my share of the rent for my space through a percentage on the workshops – one workshop pays for three months rent, If I do 3 workshops a year I’ve almost got the rent covered for the whole year. The plan is one in March/April, one in September/Oct., one in December/Jan. The three months I don’t cover with the pay from a workshop I’m bound to cover with the sale of one small painting. But Rui recently spoke to me about taking on the roll of tutor to one or two new students and that would be more than enough to see me over the hill without too much extra work – just the responsibility.
The number of students keeps growing steadily, but because of the way Rui has set things up it never gets too crowded. Instead of a fee Rui uses a unit system, he calls them modules. Students pay a small charge for enrolment and then they buy sets of 10 modules which they give out whenever they show up for the courses they choose to take. Say a particular course takes 60 hours to complete, the student would need to acquire 6 sets of modules [a set of modules has a ‘life-span’ of 3 months, so if students choose to let them expire that is their business]. The advantage for the students is that they can choose when they show up within the validity of their modules – for certain things they can show up on Mondays and Wednesdays, for others on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but they only get full credits from [OD] if they complete the course. Of course it does sometimes happen that they all show up at once, especially when they are enjoying the course. There is no keeping them at bay and at those times we’re all one big happy family. Altogether I think Rui has got 50 students, not counting the workshops. I’d say things are running well for him.
I can’t recall if I mentioned this in a previous post but what I think makes [OD] different from the other schools operating here is that the students not only have their courses with Rui but they are exposed at the same time to an artist’s working environment. Fernando and I are both there, toiling away in opposite corners of the ring but meeting up in the middle to discuss things and throw a few punches – work related and not so work related. The students see and hear what we have to go through daily to live as artists and this in turn affects their understanding of what they are doing in a positive way. They see me work over [destroy!] what they previously believed to be a perfectly beautiful and completed painting, and I explain to them the why’s and how’s; they listen to Fernando and Rui discussing how best to approach this or that particular institution or gallery. Nothing is kept secret, much is shared. This, I think, is what is attracting so many newcomers, even art graduates who want to enter into some kind of collaboration with us.
In the meantime, the structure has undergone [and is still undergoing] some extreme makeovers since I last wrote about this. The unappetizing food joint has been completely ripped out, and I mean this literally. The manager has been sacked and the walls torn down. The ripping-out coincided with the beginning of my first workshop where I had intended to start out with a calm, introspective, morning session. The drilling and hammering went on for a couple of days but I used it to great advantage, departing 180 degrees from my originally planned course of action without the participants ever sensing things were not quite the way they had been briefed when they signed-up. But more about that some other time, maybe. The point is, the Music Society will be getting a new restaurant soon!
The theatre, too, has changed. The troupe is pretty much the same but a new director has come in. There is a new dynamic. The drillers and hammerers shake up the rehearsals but they’re gone by the time the curtain goes up. From what I’ve heard they’ve had a full-house on every performance they’ve had since opening night [they only do Friday and Saturday]. I still haven’t had a chance to go see them because by the time the drilling and hammering is over and I’ve tidied everything up from the workshop I’m knackered and ready to hit the sack.
But in my opinion, the major new feature has been the arrival of a new music teacher in the rooms across the hall from us. The sounds that reach us from there are simply amazing… we hear his music, his students come and take a peep at what we are doing. The whole place is starting to buzz.
This said, I guess we’re back to the theme of the individual and the community but from a different perspective to that which we discussed a few blogs ago. Places like these exist for the community: They are made up of individuals and it is undeniable that each one is striving for himself at a certain level but such places only acquire a meaning – and a life - if they serve a purpose and that purpose is lighting up the lives of the people who go there. I’ve been in places where artists have great conditions and yet nothing is happening. They groan and they moan that the community must do more for them. I’ve been in such places a sufficient amount of times to realise that most of the times it is the artists themselves who are not engaging their communities in a way that is visible and uplifting or at least meaningful to them.
We are the ones who have to generate activity – aside from our craft - and engage the community. If, and when, we do so the results gradually will become visible. There is no need to expect help. Help is at hand, wilfully and joyfully, because people will be happy to be a part of what we are doing.
A brainy idea did slip through after all. Darn!
