the story of the spitalfields pop-up
"Di Clay
3 May 2018, 11:16
to me
Hi Kate
I wonder if you're on the train to London?
Progress report:
I've just completed a tiny 'artist book' - zig-zag format in tracing paper - it contains a very small amount of info re our lives in 1968 but if I manage to make some more they could be the beginning of an ongoing collection that could be a small display within any future MM exhibitions - starting with this one. I really like the idea of building up a collection of 'Year Books' in this way - and maybe the next one could be 1970 and then 1961...
I've attached a couple of images so that you can see what on earth I'm on about. They are (the books I mean, not the photos I've attached) in their nature intended to be unclear and need handling in order to explore them however one wishes. It's an A4 sheet of tracing paper folded lengthwise and then folded forming a zig-zag evenly into 4 sections, thus providing 8 faces on which to work. These are:
· the numbers 1968
· your writing (seen behind the 1968 numbers)
· arrows depicting our independent trajectories into central London
· arrows depicting roughly the parameters of each of our central 'territories' (seen behind the other arrows)
· 5 place names spaced to coincide with traced map on page behind (as do the arrows)
· photo of Touch Experiment 1968 leaflet
· my writing (seen behind the TE leaflet)
· tracing of some relevant central London streets
It sounds complicated but I hope the attached images help.
I've also attached the excerpts of writing that I've used (can be amended, of course)
I'm thinking that fuller pieces of writing of that year also need to be available should anyone be interested - probably just in a folder. I've been thinking I could put them together as a 'proposed' collection for a hanging installation, but obviously not realised for this show. I don't think I can come up with a way of hanging stuff without spending longer on site.
If you've made it to London, I'm eager to hear of your reaction to the space!!
Most of all though, I need your - well approval really - but certainly your comments on what I've produced so far and any further ideas you may have.
My task today is to get on with some sort of statement and explanation (I think you are going to write something too?), alongside my contribution to any joint statement that Judith and Biddy (and Pam?) are writing about our Arts Lab connections and their relevance today.
Next week I hope to get to grips with my website and then I'm away in Scotland for 2 weeks - and then it will be June - and then - and then...."
In fact I didn’t make it to London in May due to a strange health episode – a possible TIA, potentially a precursor of a stroke – which I wrote about in a blog post later that month:
birthdays and the brain
So April was a month of anniversaries. The 14th, the day following my birthday (a milestone I’m more than ready to forget) marked the day my dad died 16 years ago, and five days later, the second anniversary of Mum’s death. When I look in the mirror, often these days I see one or other of them looking back at me. I wonder what they would make of all this, unsure whether I’m meaning the personal or the mess that characterises so much of the wider world. ‘All this’ has me looking up at the poster above my desk advertising a 2006 exhibition of Samuel Beckett manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin, which I went to with my friend Maxine at just about this time of year. The exhibition took its title, ALL THIS THIS HERE, from the last poem Beckett wrote. In July 1988, 18 months before his death, a fall in his kitchen left him with what were thought to be the effects of a stroke or, strangely for me, Parkinson’s. Whatever the cause, he experienced temporary aphasia, a disturbance of the brain’s speech centres. In hospital, as he gradually recovered the ability to speak and write, he began work on ‘Comment dire’, described by one critic as ‘a representation and exploration of… the fruitless compulsion to search for words’:
what is the word –
seeing all this –
all this this –
all this this here –
folly for to see what –
glimpse –
seem to glimpse –
need to seem to glimpse –
afaint afar away over there what –
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what –
what –
what is the word –
what is the word
In an even stranger postscript, some hours after writing this I wake screaming from a nightmare to my own experience of aphasia, five minutes of slurred speech and nonsense alternating with a complete inability to form words at all which sees me spending half the night in Addenbrookes, the cause as yet unclear. Beckett - like me he was born on the 13th April - died on 22 December 1989, eight days before Jack was born. And so now I’m also remembering a fabulous production of Endgame with Michael Gambon and Liz Smith, which Jack & I saw at the Albery in the spring of 2004 and waited at the stage door afterwards for a glimpse of its stars…
Fast forward to early June 2018. I am in Cromer on the North Norfolk coast enjoying a few days break. On the Wednesday morning I receive a phone call from Di’s husband Nick with the news that Di is in hospital following a stroke. Of course the news, devastating in so many ways, means that Di is no longer able to travel to London for the exhibition as planned. Nick breaks the news to the artists involved in an email:
"Nick Clay
Weds 6 June
Sorry to drop this bombshell at this critical juncture, but I'm sending this on my phone from St Brieuc hospital where Di was
admitted this morning having had a stroke. She recognises me & understands what I'm saying but can't organise her words to
respond. No apparent physical loss. Awaiting further medical assessments including possibility of surgery. Will keep you posted as
best I can. She'd want you to carry on with everything and use what she's contributed so far as you see fit."
As Nick and Di grapple with this new reality and Di begins the long climb towards recovery, exhibition plans adjust to accommodate the situation. The Knitting, timelines and the tracing paper books are packed up along with sketches for the tables layouts of the materials which Di envisages are packed up in a box which somehow (via the post or Cathy?) makes its way from France to London:
"Box arrived!
Judith Clute
Fri, 29 Jun 2018, 16:02
to Nick, Di, me
Dear Di and Nick,
most important news -
your BOX HAS ARRIVED.
It's here in the living room
waiting for the van next Tuesday.
And I've included Kate in this.
As the box has very delicate stuff in it,
I'm leaving it for Kate to unpack
at Spitalfield Studios.
And thank you Kate for offering
to help up us set up on Thursday
and presumably you will be on hand
throughout the evening to help people
who might ask questions. And just be
general support for us all. Thanks!
And big hugs to Di!
We will miss your actual presence
but Kate will be your stand-in!
love and more hugs,
Judith"
So on the morning of 6th July I’m on the early train to London. I waste half an hour failing to orientate myself and walking circles round Liverpool Street Station before I eventually find the right road and head to the gallery where I meet Judith, Biddy and David, unpack the box and arrange our material as best I can according to Di’s guidelines. It turns out there’s plenty of time to chat, to explore the Arts Lab exhibits and the artwork on display in the gallery before exhibition opens and the guests arrive. The first to approach the Mapping Memory table turns out to my excitement to be the brother of one of my favourite writers, Jonathan Raban. I’m encouraged by his interest in our project as well as that shown by a range of other visitors and artists linked to the Studios. My excitement sustains me through the evening, peaking in a facetime chat with Nick and Di and a fairly chaotic attempt to record a video tour of the exhibition to send to Di in Brittany (the video you can see to the right).
