Monday, 23
Today is another worry day. Maybe because it is Monday and the beginning of the week, or because I haven't written anything for a long time and I think I should write again. Or it's the many things that go through my head, for which I can't find a solution. The rainy season is about to begin, and that fact in itself worries me. The truck traffic has made me more at home anyway, and, as I'm less flexible in the rainy season, I am already used to going to town only once a week or even less. Today I spoke to the people and asked how long they would stay here. I heard they are dredging elsewhere now as the sand is running out here. They said they are in two places at the moment and will be staying here for another four months. Even during the rainy season. They assured me that the road would be still usable for motor traffic, but somehow there was something written on the face of the man saying this that something was wrong. Many have already prophesied to me that the road would not be passable during the rainy season. Let's wait and see. I just hope it doesn't get as bad as I fear.
It can also be the strong wind denying me the clear thought I so desperately need. In addition, it sounds on the roof terrace as if the corrugated iron would take off at any moment. Then today I saw again how the rust progresses and eats through the metal. Galvanising is what neighbors around me who are starting to build and learning from my mistakes recommend me to do. Last year around this time we built the canopy. A small amount of corrugated iron was missing, which the carpenter took from a leftover pile we stored. That's okay, he said. I saw that it was already rusty, but didn't intervene. Now I see that it doesn't take long for the rust to etch holes in the metal. Why didn't I insist on getting new corrugated iron. I remember considering it. It is often like that. Most of the time I'm too exhausted to assert myself. Then I just let things go. People try to help me save, but this often turns out to be a mistake that I then have to compensate for.
Actually, I wanted to renovate the house before the rainy season. But I can't make it. At least we were able to waterproof the open terrace with new tiles. That was absolutely necessary. Concerning the general renovation, the fact is that the salty sea air attacks the bricks and they would have to be repainted. That would not be a problem in itself, only that many are already so soft that they have to be plastered first. I planned to do this, at least partially, with tiles. As well as tiling the outside walls of the covered terrace. I already discussed this with the tiler. But the tiles are so expensive at the moment that I shy away from it. Not just that, but renting the scaffold, getting sand and cement. Then the hustle and bustle. I'm always incredibly stressed when there's construction going on. This will also be the case if it happens after the rainy season, no question. It can also be the trip to Europe that occupies me and for which I want to prepare thoroughly. My hope is that I'll come back with a lot of energy and then be able to get things done in peace.
Thursday, 12
I don't use a studio in the kind of traditional sense of the studio.
This is not a place of making it's more a place of thinking and rummaging.
That is exactily how i feel about my studio. But of course that's just a personal thing that I'm trying to relate to myself.
More crucial is what she says about her art installation, in which she worked with hair.
Do You Want to Touch?
People of African descent - people often want to touch their hair. Usually it can be a stranger coming up to someone wanting to touch their hair. It harts back to a very long memory of the African body being public property. The point about these works is that they were made to be handled by the audience. By these objects being removed from the body there's something quite violent but they become kind of disgusting. Even though if we think of hair and intimacy as something quite lovely the moment that there is no longer a body there it's like why has that been divorced from a body?
The following two quotes also speak to me in a way that inspires me to understand how she works.
In more recent years I've tried to let go of the idea of there being a message per se but a way of working. Increasingly that involves people improvising and being really spontaneous in the moment in that it gets captured.(...) I am trying desperately not to tell people what to think versus what I think the early works were because that was all these things that I had to say.
Sonia Boyce - Gathering a History of Black Women / Tate Studios
Wednesday, 4
Editor's Note
When we started this site more than twenty years ago (I've been the "web designer" since the beginning), the web links page was particularly important to me. I remember a design on a dark red background - when I was a bit more advanced in html - with the titles of sites bouncing around that you could be lucky to catch. At the time I thought the internet was crucial for linking to other sites and it felt important to showcase our network. It was a time when I realized that it doesn't take much to rate as a poor second. I wanted to stay tuned. Later, of course, I learned that my network wouldn't catapult me into the spaces I longed for. Over the decades the site with the weblinks has lost relevance to me and it might be years before I revisited it. My focus was absolutely on the bloq, where I still need to scream out to the world what has to be said or not. That's not to say I've eliminated the Links page entirely. By tradition, I leave it in. But I've revised it today in a way that may seem kinda radical. I tried to make it less personal by kicking out the friends section. The fact that friends mean something on the Internet is made clear on fb. However, what is called a friend does not necessarily have to be a friend. Or here is a so-called friend and there a real one. Anyway, I thought they looked weird among the others and maybe to be linked by me doesn't even please them. So I removed the links to my friends' pages. I don't forget them because they are my friends. If I forget them, we'll part ways, which is okay too. I know that my web design knowledge is totally out of date and you might find it rude for me to even mention what I do here. But actually I don't care if this site is designed according to the latest standards, and as I wrote at some point, this website is an archive and not an advertising platform.
Monday, 2
Al-Fitr Mubarak
Sunday, 1
Art Space Work of the Month
Bob Bonies (*1937) - Square Room V, 1968, silkscreen, 60x59.5cm