Resting

I have been trying not to work for the past week, as it is Christmas and I am seeing family who this past year I haven't seen much of due to work. Not thinking about work, not relating every article, image or film back in some way to where your mind is focused is near impossible. For example I went for a coastal walk in France yesterday, it was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and there was snow on the mountains. I took my Camera with me to gather holiday photos I'd promised to show my Dad on my return to Norwich. Granted I was next to the sea, so my mind can't help but think of the show. I ended up taking over 500 photographs of the waves coming in and going out over the dark, grandious rock face. Flicking through the images I had made a little stilted film, captured in frames and began to wonder whether I might use some of this material in the show. This I can accept as work that was somewhat inevitable in a non working period, I did have my camera at hand and I was right on the edge of the cliff by the crashing sea... I was going to take some photos.

However my failure in not working started much earlier. I brought away with me only one book, a graphic novel I have wanted to read for a while, no theory books, only escapism hopefully. The illustrations reminded me of the images and tone of images I want to create in Silica, and there were a few chapters about the ocean but that is all, and goes back to what I was saying that when your mind is on something, everything you experience becomes linked back to that. I felt I succeeded here in reading to relax, the majority of the book is completely different to my work topics.

When your head is in something, it becomes a real strain to not bore your friends and family with all that you find exciting, mainly because they are never as fully absorbed in it as you, and I hear myself become repetitive and talking in abstracts that I can only understand because I know what I am thinking. I am determined, with this time of rest, to not talk too much about work, if at all. Whilst I believe talking things through is a fantastic way of broadening ideas, I also think they become tired; what excited me last week now seems like a relatively mundane idea. Resting the work seems important.

Going back to france, walking along the Port, there was the most beautiful chiming sound coming from the ropes of the Yachts, clanging against the boom of the boat. I'd toyed with the idea of putting a flag or boy, or big warning light into the design of the show. I wanted another sea sculpture object at the front near to the audience, one that was imposing yet dislocated from its real form. Seeing the booms and hearing them, I definately want to put in a sound sculpture of the boom: a very tall pole, with the rope attached and make a mechanism so that the rope moves as if it were being hit by the wind, making the sound in parts of the piece. I like the scale of the boom, and the fact it is only part of a boat, a suggestion of the water. Its shape is also powerful, towering above the audience, I also feel its absence from the boat suggests a sense of destruction, of danger perhaps. I am thinking that perhaps my warning light can be at the top of this mast, glowing and fading in parts of the piece... exciting thoughts for me! So once again, trying not to work I was working. I am having so much trouble shutting off, I can never relax, as if working on a project makes me feel like there is more of a purpose to things. This i s a slightly depressing realisation, but I see it around me a lot, in others working in Theatre and in my friends. Work is a funny thing, especially in the world of self employment. I would love to be able to settle into a week of not working, not thinking about it all, and then perhaps discover new ideas, fresh ones outside the realm of my current fixation with the sea and memory. And I will continue to try to relax, perhaps it just takes more time, it has been a hectic year.