Hello my lovely readers. I am so sorry I've been quiet (virtually non-existent) over the past several months; I've had a few big events happen recently in my life. About 10 days before Christmas my husband and I moved into a new house, our first together! And about a week later we made the wonderful discovery that we're going to be parents! Then came Christmas. And then morning sickness arrived! The next couple of months were spent with me feeling absolutely dreadful and tired beyond all belief. I am nearly at my halfway point in the pregnancy and am finally starting to feel better - I have more energy, don't feel sick anymore, and most importantly I have my appetite back! Oh, and I forgot to mention that I had an exhibition in there somewhere which I scrambled to get ready for. So as you can see - a lot of big changes and life-altering events have been going on in the Singleton household, which has translated into my blog taking a back seat. But I'm hoping to change that and have a more regular presence here - so watch this space! Anyway, besides all of that personal stuff, I thought I'd share what is filling my creative space these days. Enjoy!
In the studio...
Since my exhibition, I've decided I need to take a little break to recharge my creativity and inspiration. So instead of working on anything big, I've decided to do a little bit at a time and working in my altered books is a great way to achieve that goal. I LOVE working with altered books because I find that I'm far more experimental working in this format. Because I'm not so worried about the final outcome and I see altered books sort of like sketchbooks, I free myself up and don't feel constrained by making something pleasing to other people. This image is my most recent addition to one of my books that I started years and years ago; that's another thing that's so great about altered books - it's so easy to keep adding to them (or taking away!) so it can be like a journal of of your artistic practice.
From the library...
I recently re-read a John Irving book and, as often is the case, I was struck with a strong desire to follow it up by reading something by Kurt Vonnegut. I went to my local library and decided on Slaughterhouse 5. A brilliant novel, although I'm not sure it's my favorite by the author, But the choices to hand were limited. There is a passage in Slaughterhouse 5 that was so incredibly moving to me the first time I read it and the image it evoked has stayed with me ever since. I was so delighted to read it again, in the context of the entire novel, and it filled me with the same tingly feeling I had when I first read it. It goes like this:
Billy looked at the clock over the gas stove. He had an hour to kill...He went into the living room...turned on the television. He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this:
American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. Ther Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
Fantastic food for thought. And with that I leave you for today. I'll be in touch soon with another post I promise!
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