I haven't written in my blog for a very long time. This could be due to me not wanting to share; or not wanting to share my thoughts with you, the unseen, un-trusted public that is. You're a funny lot, you others, and sometimes when we're twitching in the margins we just want to hide in the shadows, keep our cards close to our chest and not let you in. 

So what is to be trusted? Our pets certainly, sometimes our loved ones, always our inanimate and animated objects, but the thing that unites me to you – you other – that I trust in you is your art which is always mine too if it then makes any sense to me. I trust in you art, I have faith in you to always make things better. 

I was in New York recently and I felt alone and the only thing that made me feel better was searching out the art of others and in looking I found a unity and a delight and an 'ecstasy in communication' (1) that hugged me in a way only my mother can. That art was the art of John Chamberlain found at the Guggenheim, namely his foam sculptures, a honeycomb tactility bound tight, constrained in its being, it held me with it. Laura Favaretto's exhibition at PS1 also did something to me, and in particular her confetti works where something joyful, even a little humorous is at play but with a deep sense of unease. This unease was set free in a room where the confetti is blown about by industrial fans, the only thing I wished for however – though it was fun to watch – was the desire to be in the room with it; to have the confetti closer to me, to allow it to tickle my naked skin along with the air that it was intimate with.  I also got a sneak preview of Nick Waplington’s paintings at his studio. These are voluptuous, abstracted figures wrestling with each other, intimate yet in conflict, sexual but also vulnerable, joyful but somehow insidious – they’re paintings I want to live with; he has a show coming up at Hix’s Tramshed, so well worth a visit. And in going forward I want to bounce around in Jeremy Deller’s inflatable Stonehenge, Sacrilege a ‘social surrealism’ (2) where history is made plastic and the everyday is animated to a delightful hyper-real all encompassing environment. You can view where to catch it this summer as part of the London 2012 festival here.

I guess our taste in art moves with our innermost feelings; there is an aesthetic taste that is the core of us, but its also always changing dependent on our environment and our changing relations with others.  And when art works for you it binds everything together, relates one thing to another, and connects you to the world. This is the ‘ecstasy of communication’ that I think Richard Prince talks of, at least it is for me.

I am still feeling a sense of solitude, a fragmentary unfamiliarity with frivolity, a disunity to the real and at times an alarm with the seriousness banality of life – this will no doubt pass, and my mood will shift again – but it was nice to share this with you. I feel closer to you now. I'm still considering a pet though.

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Photo: courtesy Nick Waplington

1. Prince, Richard, Thoughts on Spiritual America, 12/09/11

 2. Deller, Jeremy, Dazed and Confused, 2012

Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), Ophelia

Cold porcelain kisses your flesh
Bound hindquarters keep me safe
Bleached stainless steel blades light up the whites of your eyes

*Postscript: after writing this I learnt that Amos Vogel passed away early this morning. May he be forever in peace. 

Music to be still to:

Feel free to leave him a message.

I’m a little fascinated by these young women and their discipline which was termed “aesthetic gymnastics”. The play between the objects and their perfectly trained bodies and the judging system feels a bit like a beauty pageant perverted.

If I was in Pittsburgh I would be making my way to the Opening Celebration: Playboy Pajama Party at the Warhol Musuem. It’s the opening of the Playboy Redux: Contemporary Artists Interpret the Iconic Playboy Bunny, which celebrates 50 years of the Playboy bunny. What an excellent meeting of iconic minds and bodies. I doubt my feminist sisters would approve however! 

I’ve just finished reading Straw Dogs by John Gray, an incredible book that looks at our nature and argues that we’re closer to animals than we may wish to concede. It’s a revolutionary read that insists we are not in control of our own world and commanding our will upon things can only lead to misery. Of course here are strong links to Taoism and I found the book incredibly enlightening, very timely and perhaps quite a useful tool for a woman of a certain age to find peace in being, first and foremost, herself.

In Western tradition movements such as meritocracy and feminism and post-feminism have nurtured us into believing we can have it all, be anything, ‘achieve’ and thus find ‘purpose’ in our lives. Included in such fortunes that must befall us are a career, beauty, marriage and the ability to bare beautiful babies. ‘Progress and technology’ (which Gray argues are not purely helpful things) are offered up to ‘help’ us along. As we hit our mid-30s, women, (if we’ve got the readies, i.e. why we need that status job) we can command baby botox, dating sites and IVF. Given these contemporary wonders, if you’re committed and ambitious enough, there is really no reason to fail. Now, we’re all thankful for meritocracy and feminism and I am not saying that any of the above goals in life is bad. Hell in an ideal world I want the whole package too, but the reality is we do not live in an ideal world, we live in world that is equal in tragedy and joy, and it is through us trying to gain control over it that has led us into pits of universal and personal misery. I think we owe it to ourselves to find a new way of being. As Gray summarises ‘Spiritual life is not a search for meaning but a release from it.’

On a lighter note, take a look at these little fellas and recognise a shared spirit with humanity. (Oh and check the monkey’s little fists.)

Okay, so we all know the best nights are those decided at about 10pm over a pint, and this one was no exception. Parker and I were previously at Late at the Tate, where The Laptop Orchestra played. Then it was ‘let’s go out, I’m bored!’, ‘right’, Parker said, ‘let’s go to mass in Brixton, it’s DMZ’s 5th Birthday Party’, ‘Cool’. DMZ is a full-on Dubstep night and it was brilliant. Real heavy bass, the sort that gets in your gut and anchors you to it. The place is vibrating with sweat and testosterone and Parker and I are happy jumping about till 5. I have to say it was quite a contrast, middle class, baby holding arty types to shifty looking geezers getting down and dirty. (I know what social group excites me more!)

This was another great vision on holiday; as it rained hard I sat in my bikini under blankets, drinking the finest Bordeaux wines, smoking fags and watching the under 19s women divers (who, as little containers of hope and ambition play on my mind). What took our attention was this singular guy, sitting in a typical sexually male chauvinist way watching these girls in sunglasses. Interesting sight that Paul caught on his camera.