what is process when we are 58?

thinking of process.
thinking of making art.
thinking of the artist and where that artist sits in the middle of their own life.

i saw Boiling Point last night, a young threesome of choreographers. they moved powerfully, and they walked up a wall, many times
they defied gravity
how do we as artists
defy gravity
those objects, people, ideas, beliefs that pull us to the floor?

as senior (?) surely not
artists (not you two, but me, yes, i am in that category. you both are still in mid career...that sounds a whole lot better)

i wish to do something:
ok
i will say it
i want (and have always wanted)
to work with nurturing people
and i do
i have a wonderful collaborator
i have wonderful students
and wonderful young artists with whom i work on a semi regular basis (depending on their writing motivation)

i do have what i have dreamed of.

and i want to say this: i did not realize that i had it.
i have always wanted 'a company': but how does one do that if one is not living in the eastern part of Europe (where you can live well as an artist!

but in a wonderful weird way i do: they just aren't at the same place at the same time.
thats all.
and if we think of Quantum Physics. that is possible!

as i write this, i am eating blue cheese, poppyseed crackers, hot salami and a beautifully soft red wine.
my dog is sitting at my feet. he was run over yesterday. he survived. we always do. life's like that.

margi

Forgot to add: a new process project has begun in Lounge studio, Pullenvale without me knowing

Recently, I have just been involved, and will continue to be involved, in a writing project with three young emerging writers.  we meet on a Saturday afternoon at my lounge studio in  Pullenvale, a converted lounge room.  The writers (including myself) use multimodal artforms to access story.  This is not a fast process necessarily, though once the idea takes hold, nothing can stop it.  the works that they are developing are all related to grief, loss and/or identity.  Powerful stuff and it is a privilege to nurture them. They present their newly created works at the end of the afternoon, and we discuss what we felt, saw and dreamed.
Good stuff.

margi

thinking about our project and wanting to share a story

hi everyone,
i am thinking continually about the importance of process over product, and have some articles that may be interesting for you to read so i will attach one of them when i alert you to this post.
i'm sitting in Boys, a great coffee shop at QUT urban village (what does that mean, an urban village) Kelvin Grove. It is a lovely piece of home, with Luke and Chris making standout coffees and i just tasted some remarkable poached eggs and tomatoes. so needless to say i am feeling comfortable and cared for.  someone at the next table only ate one of his eggs, and that old expression that i was brought up with, and perhaps you also  heard (expressions have a habit of being multigenerational), "what about all the starving people in China....[or wherever] and that throws me into overwhelmingness.  why are we so lucky? and i know that we often laugh when we are reminded of that famous book, but why are we the lucky country?

so that is where i am right this minute. processing food.  but also processing language.  i have been lecturing this year, as you know, and i have had some powerful interactions with students of late, where there is a little bit of irritation (perhaps) with their grades.  Words  such as "perplexing", "that is just insulting" and expressions like "would i get a higher mark if i thought like you".(please remember these are now out of context)..and this makes me  wonder about the power of words. 

How do we mark papers and still sit in the process realm: that it is the journey, not the mark? how can a I communicate to so many students at the same time and get it "right"...impossible perhaps? but that is the task i have set for myself, (that is one of my process projects!) committing to sending articles on a very regular basis, to keep the channels of communication open and growing, continuing to stay connected in the hope that we will grow very fine collaborative therapists.

i am, right now, thinking that the old fashioned way has got it right:
No overt involvement.
Just turn up. 
Then no one gets hurt.

but what a dull as dishwater world that could become.

any thoughts? 

a post from Nikki in the Ancient World

the last few days have been quite something...
went to the acropolis yesterday morning to admire the giant marble structures - on high in the white bright light that still gleams from the height of classical civilisation

... then wandered (somewhat overwhelmed and full of kind spirit) into the grimy downtown area of Athens toward the national archeological museum
my companion J then got robbed/pick pocketed (lost her purse and all her cards) on the metro and we ended up in a police station that was indescribably bleak
- dark narrow stairways, locked rooms and we got an up close glimpse through a door into
an interrogation room where about 10 foreign/Gypsy/Indian apparently drugged up guys were variously lying on the floor or edgily pacing the room/ punching the air
 with cops bringing in plastic bags full of 'evidence'.
everyone smoking smoking.
wild!!! i wish i'd filmed it!
it was a glimpse into Hades
needless to say they couldn't help us.
(all sorted now, with some drama)

then later in the evening there we were again back with the gods in the brand new acropolis museum
the acropolis and the new acropolis museum make a compelling double act.
we were in the museum at night and the fragmented marble bodies float in tableau against the glass with the theatrically lit acropolis as a backdrop.
achingly beautiful.
seeing the elegant towering caryatids close up from 360 degrees in the museum a delicious experience... braided hair down their backs

this morning at the Cycladic museum we saw an exhibition of very early figures, pottery and ornament from the Danube region dating back to 5-6,000 BC.
truly breathtaking, sophisticated simplicity. beautiful geometric designs and small animals and models of houses. the care, the detail and their scale does make me gasp and swoon with delight.

Good Morning It Is Monday

Hello everyone,

i absolutely know i am talking to no one out there, but it is still lots of fun to think about process especially when we are involved in making work. i will make sure i send you this link by email.

right now terror sits quite closely to me because i am in the middle of writing an autoethnographic performance about the therapist/artist and i am terrified that it will not be a useful piece of work for others to witness; yet i think if we start with such a premise we will not get very far in creating work.

this weekend i was in byron at a resort: it was Bill's management christmas party, and we stayed in a place that has remarkable waterways, and we can walk on the boardwalk for what seems like kilometres looking at exquisite water lillies, tall tall trees, the Byron surf nothing-beats-it; and of course good quality champagne.

Here are two signs that were along the path that you may resonate with:

We are all visitors to this time, this place. we are just passing through. our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love..and then we return home. 

(Australian Aboriginal Proverb)

and:

"Life can only take place in the present moment. if we lose the present moment we lose live"

(Buddha)

What do you think?
I am so not wanting to lose the present moment,

Warmest
Margi