Hope and Some by Steve with additions

S.Pool

Amanda Ravetz

Kate Genever  

 

 

Why do you want me to write from the outside? Is the outside an important place to sit.  When Amanda asked about reverie I said that for me reverie presents madness. It’s not a case of small moments where the everyday slips into the outside place it’s more that life is a constant struggle to stay within the recognized parameters of the inside space.  This does not mean I’m mad it just means I’m aware like many of us I self manage a precarious relationship with the world outside.

Do we mean the same thing by ‘the outside’? What do I mean by it? I think I mean  - and this is a very clumsy way of putting it – a more rational place, not a madder place. In what you just said Steve, it seems that for you ‘from the outside’ takes you closer to something mad, which I on the other hand would see as extreme insideness – inside my head, my subjectivity rather than inside societal norms to which so-called ‘outsider art’ is opposed. When I talk about writing something from the outside I think I mean detached a little, for a short time, from habitual ways of thinking about, reacting to, doing, experiencing and sensing things – even when  all of those might be precisely aimed at making the familiar unfamiliar. Defamiliaraise defamiliarisation. If that is possible and not just meaningless tautology?

I suppose I can see the usefulness of sitting outside for a while and thinking from there or observing perhaps- I wonder why Steve resists this in a practical way? It can’t just be because he wants to question norms or demonstrate the work in another way. Perhaps he’s afraid if what he might find or see or feel.

I was talking to Tom and his girlfriend last night about life and death.  Tom said that when he was about 10 he had asked me if I was frightened of dying.  Apparently I had said that I wasn’t frightened of dying because I wasn’t sure if I actually existed.  I chuckled and asked him what my answer had made him think.  He said it hadn’t made him think about anything he said it had just “upset him…………..for ages.”  We then went on to discus if there were any answers to anything – Amy is retaking GCSE math so we discussed what we could be sure of? what could be empirical knowledge? I said that nothing was sure, that for every question there was a meta –question – the question which comes before, or perhaps I’m just bloody minded.

In a recent Imagine TV programme about Doris Lessing there was quite a lot about how her childhood in Africa made her take a certain distance from the things she wrote about. There is a quality of seeing things from afar, in a less’ involved’ way. I remember when I was an anthropology student seeing a film in which John Berger talked about shuttling between distance and closeness. He was referring to his book The Seventh Man about migrant workers. That idea of shuttling between closeness and distance made sense to me as something necessary for me as a researcher – to be immersed, to be detached, to shuttle between the two. (Reverie, which I mostly understand in a slightly different way, is though perhaps some extraordinary balancing act between the two – wide openness and intense focus all in one).  

I suppose I would be interested to know what you think the meta-question/point is which comes before the work, before the Poly. In my head it’s the driver that makes you come to the work and that cant just be me! In Manchester you said it was playing games to win  - like in poker. It felt arrogant and detached – like trying to be cleverer than others or something and I didn’t like the in-authenticity or the dishonesty that could come with that. Afterwards and now I think you mean to work in an artful way - a strategic way, to make things better, even if only a little bit and in a small change way. I think the Paul Hamlyn quote ‘There’s got to be a better way’ fits…..  I suppose I want more detail.

Why did we meet at hope – the week before Kate had said that we should drive as we were busy and may want to go somewhere to eat.  I said that we had to go on the train and we were meeting at hope because it was important. I was thinking of the idea of a pilgrimage.  Kate said she thought we were meeting there as it was half way between Sheffield and Manchester, I suppose it is.  There is a scene at the end of the film Dogville where Grace a character played by Nicole Kidman asks whether she has been accepted by a community. A member of the village suggests she is half way to been accepted – half way there is both a good place and a difficult place to be.  I pretend I’ve read more than I have but I have read a little bit of Richard Rorty, he is one of my secret favorite philosophers.  A bit like the Cure in the 1980’s- popular but manages to keep trendy.  It’s difficult to sum his thinking up but one thing I did read was how he says that Irony is the only way to cope with the modern lived experience.  I think that to prevent irony getting to cynical we need to mix it up with hopeless romanticism.  Been a hopeless romantic is possibly the only thing you could be hopeless at which still has a certain amount of credibility. You can’t be a hopeless cook, sports person or accountant and still be taken seriously yet a hopeless romantic represents the pinnacle of the romantic – so far gone there is no way back.

Caring and hope and irony and hopeless romanticism – I’m hopelessly un-ironic which isn’t a good thing in the way Steve describes hopeless romanticism to be. I try to hide it especially in academia but I am hopelessly committed to authenticity. 

I am described here as not being able to see the romanticism or perhaps don’t care enough for train rides– of course I could and do – I am, I suppose, also pragmatic and live along way away from Hope [not metaphorically but 150 miles]. I am like Steve’s Dad when Steve was mowing in the grass, on the morning of his and Kim’s big anniversary party, at his house ‘Steve Loves Kim’ and he was rushing trying to get thing organized and he shouted Bloody Hell Steve! – I love the gesture; I do care, but am often short of time. Perhaps I need to just start another hour earlier.  But actually are you really saying that your want for the work is romantic - is concerned with the major concerns of Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution,^[1] it was also a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.^[2] It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography,^[3] education^[4] and the natural sciences.^[5] Its effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, in the long term its effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant. Or in fact are you saying you’re a dreamer – dreaming a different way- a utopian future?  It’s an interesting conversation and area of thinking. Or perhaps like you say a good team needs a pragmatist – some one to organise and a dreamer?

We ended up in Hope on the train because of the irony of the name and the hopelessness of my romanticism. The trip generated the space we built between us as we walked. Like our trip to Brantwood it helped draw a line in the thinking of our practice – if to “craft” as Amanda said is to care the trip to hope built a space in place and time where I was able to care.  Ironically and in a hopelessly romantic way I admit but caring was important.

I agree that act of ‘walking as process’ really worked here. It encouraged us to step back both physically and metaphorically. Like I’ve said in my text we used the walk as a tool. I remember that Amanda said at the start that it’s experimental, as we never have an end point or outcome that we think of first. This of course is only partly true – we do have an outcome we just don’t know what it ‘looks’ like. We make as we go – making through thinking rather than thinking through making. However I worry that Amanda becomes a mediator rather than critical friend. Like I said on the platform as we left - I want feedback, I want an opinion. I suppose the opinion is useful for me to think against or with. I think that’s why Amanda likes to talk to us too?

Just before we met you Amanda me and Kate had a disagreement.  I wondered if I should mention it but for me it’s important because the day was the day, not a set of distinct separate bits, but a day. 

We come to the end of a big project, we have different ways of working through this. We have our own commitments, identities, work and thought and then we have our combined practice.  I think at the beginning of the project this combined practice was something which had evolved and although we have discussed it a lot the deeper bits of it were Tacit.  The bits which work now are often still tacit, we start something together and it unfolds, in our way, we bounce duck, dive, build work hard within and around. We are like birds in flight who move almost simultaneously.  We have to say this and mean it as it is because we need to value this depth of intuitive understanding as the core of the work.  We also have a clunky side a difficult bit which is because we are difficult people who are never quite satisfied, who are constantly in a state of thinking and hoping to do more to do things better. 

So I talk of structuring work for the future – of looking for projects, of diaries, Kate talks of the acceptance that this is practice now, that we do not need to consider how to make it continue as it will continue.  I say we need to be practical and “other” stuff like before may come in the way. Kate feels sad about this perhaps worries about other stuff I unfairly accuse Kate of being paranoid, it flares, we mend it for the sake of the day, I walk around the cemetery and sulk like a teenager.

I have a problem here, I’m a private person and don’t like my dirty washing aired in public. I don’t like people tell tale-ing, I’m not sure what purpose it serves. Of course in this text I can see why you have included it – you’ve written stream of consciousness thing and so it makes sense here. I do think we should talk of the issues that arise from disagreements  - but perhaps in a different way? The issues are important and interesting and like you say draws attention to positives and the good as well as the concerns. This couple or so of paragraphs made me sad when I first read it. It made me think we will have to develop a much more professional relationship one where I don’t stop at your house and let the dog out or help the kids with art home work – basically I would have to become separate. I wondered how this might help and as the project is coming to an end and Sheffield is less of an emphasis it would be possible.  I’m not sure what to think now – maybe that would make us more effective, but then I think we get loads done when we talk in the kitchen. In terms of the future practice  - I suppose what I meant was that practice will out because it will, because it’s important and we want it to. If it doesn’t and we don’t make time for it then it has come to a natural end. I do however think that what we have done is good and worth pursuing - I think we have a lot to offer. For all the difficulties I think the work is made better by us coming together.

I remember Amanda’s train arriving at the station, I want to make a joke about brief encounter but don’t remember any of the lines.  I am really pleased to see her walk across the bridge I have missed her.  I have enjoyed all our talks on this program but also found them hard.  Amanda is one of the few people who doesn’t let me get away with things – Kate likes this – I like it but I wish she would let me get away with a couple of small things occasionally.  I like the meetings because they always seem to move us on they are thinking spaces.  The brilliant thing about working with Amanda is she is so bright but she knows our field, she understands all the shorthand’s to getting to a point but not from a theoretical side, from a practice side this is why she is so helpful.

I have learnt a lot from both of you. It feels like a special friendship – made around your work and my work and conversations that have a depth and meaning that only happens rarely in my experience.

I too am glad  - I like your approach and openness – your honesty and fairness. Your input is thoughtful and you work hard to find the meaning or push the ideas. I would like to work with you more in a more equal way, one where your not just our critical friend, I know we talk about your work too but it always feels we end up focusing on us. It was exciting on the way back to the station when we started to think about how we could come together more with the Poly, beyond Steve’s studio project. etc…. 

We walk and go to the Café for tea we talk of our children and the farm and species ethnography.  What would cow 245 think? what would a blade of grass think.?I say it’s all a load of balls and we all agree. Funny thing – the next day when I get back to the office there is a book waiting for me in the post room – its got an essay in it which I reviewed ages ago, so it takes me a while to work out why its be sent to me – but it’s the title that feels like a coincidence given this conversation: Living beings: Perspectives on Interspecies Engagements. Its got stuff in it along the lines of what cow 245 would think. 245 loves me, in fact she loves most of us, it’s got to do with, food, scratching, comfort – well in fact it’s to do with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I talked to my science sister about perspectivism and species anthropology – she shook her head. We try hard to not anthropomorphise animals on the farm but we do understand their needs –its called husbandry. It reminds me of the anthropologist who studied the teapots that talked to the potters during construction – I asked him if he made stuff and if he did he would know that a conversation happened in the process. It’s a bit like that when working with animals; if you’re prepared to listen they communicate.

In the café we list all we have done but it does not feel like what we have done.  It is a long list of things to be pleased with but none of it feels deep enough.  I say it’s an holistic practice but I’m not sure what that means.  I say that in my mind there is a clear link between a you tube tutorial of how to do a contemporary flower arrangement filmed in a shop in Wakefield with our Press piece in force of nature. I say it’s a clear line for me but I don’t expect others to see it – we all say in the end it’s about people and nod but this acceptance is only halfway there. I talk of audience, rarefaction and the art world, I stop as it makes me sad.

I’d like to know more about why it makes you sad. And to say reading some of this makes me sad too but I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the sense that we sometimes seem to talk past each other despite the fact that both of us want to be on a wavelength.

I’m not sure what makes you sad either – is it that you wont ever be famous like you wish to me every now and again. Is it because of rarefication? Is it because the art world doesn’t make sense – well it does make sense to some but we never seem to enter it. Is it because we can’t explain it – the work,  that it shape shifts and perhaps we will never get a handle on it? Is it because the line of practice doesn’t make sense to others. Its because we make work fit for purpose but no one really wants that  - I keep coming back to that Botticelli I saw in that Venice house – it was sooooooooo beautiful, I think lots of people want art that looks and smells and feels like art, stuff they can understand as Art. Or is it really because perhaps we’d be better working with refugees or on farms in order to do proper good.

In terms of holistic – its not a word I would use – I like continuum – like our diagram with the nodes, actually I’m not sure they mean that much different, but holistic sounds too Hebden Bridge.

We walk up the hill we need to go somewhere; I have the top of the ridge in mind.  It’s not like a proper walk we stroll and talk.  We have opened the project and told it’s narrative and had thoughts but we haven’t got to the essential core of things.  Going up the Hill we talk about the difficulty of not getting anywhere.  I talk of the meeting in Manchester of how we needed to get somewhere with the idea of Authoring a proposition and the process to get to this point was a type of drawing.  I said that Amanda had pissed on our bomb fire and I found this hard – I had to start to get somewhere even if it was only on the way to been halfway there.  We resolved this we moved past it – the idea was a good one it moved things on.

About the intuitive part of your practice and the tacit. I hope that if you were writing from the kind of outside I am imagining this wouldn’t mean spoiling the intuitive parts of practice  but would feed them.  But perhaps if I pissed on your bombfire (I like the shift from bonfire to bomb fire) this is a false hope of mine?

I think we need the strength to own that idea and like it. To me it felt like we were now as then, being critiqued and asked to think harder.

I forget a lot of the rest of the walk and am hoping this will get filled in by others.  I got a bit lost in thoughts until we sat on the stones half way up the hill and talked of writing. I told Amanda I was not sure of the merits of writing from outside and she said I was bloody minded and perhaps this reluctance was a reason we only got half way towards things.  I said perhaps there was some bloody mindedness going on, not that you are bloody minded as if that were one of your main character traits. But yes, this feels unfair now. I think I misjudge how deeply you feel about things and am prone to misreading you. I didn’t hear the question behind the question.

Can I just say it’s taken a long time to understand that the humor, irony, pretending not to know and the self-deprecation that Steve puts out is a ruse. I did wonder at the time why Steve was so resistant, I understand the need to question default positions but sometimes they are defaults because they are useful or work. I do though think artists have an inclination to be bloody minded – its to do with fighting for the work, we are trained to fight its corner – think of all those crits. Also perhaps it’s an inherent trait because who in there right mind would try and make art for a living its so bloody hard.

I felt as I had said to Tom that I was not bloody-minded I was looking for the question before the question.  The question before the questions is where is the space outside and why is it of value.  I am accused of bloody mindedness I think of default positions and resistance to what is expected. I don’t say this and therefore appear bloody-minded.

As I walk at the back of things after a really busy week where I have done lots of things , I am tired and warn out through thinking and balancing I consider that I have achieved very little within the Ruskin project.  I think of the idea of the game that is what got me into trouble before, to suggest that it is all a game to be played.  The playing of games is part of it but not all of it . The playing of games is important but once you start playing games there is always a bigger game which people are playing or a game with different rules it would be nice to not play games.  I don’t play games with the people I love.

We talked of doing something well – I say from my perspective its about intentional decisions for everything even its about letting chance in. I am interested in the question of doing things well – often for the Poly I think it’s about finishing things off well for people, of making them feel valued and relevant. I often think its to do with generosity, of going the extra mile, of putting yourself out, putting the work first – this makes sense in drawing to.

On the way down the Hill to eat our tea, after I sing that I can never go back to savory after eating something sweet Kate says she will never follow any Dogma I try and set up again. This is after my abject rubbishness at sticking to Dogmas I establish.  I have steak and ale pie after eating loads of chocolate.  I think about this and wonder what I have to offer if it’s not a good Dogma.

On reflection I felt I was quite quiet during our day, apart from when I didn’t agree or was asked directly. I have come to realise that I do this more, I remove my voice although I am thinking hard. I’m perhaps taken less seriously because of this. I suspect I see it as being useful or perhaps I hide my insecurities, my lack of confidence. Steve often has a lot to say, lots of suggestions, dogmas - that I can see as being strategies for all sorts of reasons. Due to my nature  - to set me a dogma will mean I will kill to do it properly. Yet these are flippant things to Steve - I learn to adapt to personalities, to not get frustrated, to make it right for myself. All this I suppose means that we bring different things; perhaps it’s a counterbalance. Steve brings strategies and ways of working that are in fact experiments, catalysts, useful things. He brings questioning, insights and reflection – he brings stories, dreams. I think these are really good things.