What a week. On Tuesday there was a horrific explosion in Beirut. So many people already with so little now with even less in terms of the most basic needs. It brings up all the themes in my essay about vulnerability and precarity – the government is corrupt and as a consequence there is no proper infrastructure. The explosion appears to be the result of no proper oversight of safe storage of tons of ammonium nitrate. It was the 75th anniversary since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the 6th and 9th August respectively. I think of Mike's parents an Indian doctor and white British nurse allowed to wander the destroyed city of Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped, it feels beyond any imagining. It certainly marked them for life. Meanwhile many refugees are arriving on the south coast of the UK as a result of the good weather…

​

Alongside beginning some tentative writing and preparing my Exhibition Proposal my main task this week has been to complete Husk, which miraculously I have managed it. Ideally I’d like to paint it again with distemper if time allows but we’ll see, maybe after the first hand-in. I struggled with it so much, trying to get the shape as I wanted it, it seemed to happen so naturally when I first distempered the canvas and that’s what led my ideas for the form it should take. It seemed clear and in my head sat so well with Schism and Haptic creating a good series of work. the despite enjoying stitching into it to create the translucent areas the form of it was lost. I had to make a maquette and then once the shape was clear and how I might achieve it I had to be quite brutal cutting and re-stitching and wiring it to achieve what I wanted. At least I felt clear about what it should be. It is a relief that I can now concentrate on my exhibition proposal and essay, it’s easier to juggle two rather than three things! Do I like pressure? I’m really not sure, I want to give my essay some serious concentrated thought though …

​

Tuesday. Day 4 since shielding has been paused and I have booked a slot to see Helen Chadwick’s Enfleshings I and II at Tate Britain link. I am doing what Anna suggested and have just launched in to writing not knowing exactly how these first trial pieces will work out. I have begun by setting myself the task of writing about Helen Chadwick’s Enfleshings I and II twice. The first piece written after looking at them online and in reproduction in the book I have just bought; the second following a visit to see them at Tate Britain. I wanted to see what was different about seeing them ‘in the flesh’ as opposed to in reproduction. Very interesting exercise….link…

​

Enfleshings the book I got on Ebay has an essay by Marina Warner in it, which is why I bought it. I never knew she was such a fan of Chadwick’s work until I saw her on the panel at the ICA in conversation ‘The Legacy of Helen Chadwick’ on YouTube. YouTube is a surprisingly good resource… Following writing about Enfleshings I and II I have started writing some short paragraphs of personal testimony for my essay… I have seen 8.7 million, of my own (curative) stem cells sloshing about in a reddish yellow liquid extracted by the unimaginable science of apheresis. 4.3/. I know they successfully lived outside of my body 1.1 miles away from me deep frozen and secure in their plastic pouch in a place unseen by me … I feel very unsure but it is an extremely interesting process. At the moment despite my misgivings I’ve decided to pursue it and structure my essay around some of my own words surrounded by my academic argument. Though I have lots of doubts I’m determined to push myself to experiment and do more than write a straight academic essay, I want to completely embed the essay in my practice. We’ll see how it works out.

​

Seems ironic that I’m currently listening to First Aid Kit … 

​

It is SOOO hot it is really hard to be upstairs in my studio and concentrate on my completing Husk…Took Thursday afternoon off and went blackberrying at Scadbury Nature Reserve. We collected loads, made blackberry ice-cream, doing things with my hands is a good foil to essay writing, though its rarely out of my mind.

​

Saturday. The Pen is the Sister of the Brush has arrived, but I can’t bring myself to look at it, I can’t focus on anything but my essay and now of course my exhibition proposal too, we have a session to look at these Thursday. In preparation of my PowerPoint I visit The Old Operating Theatre, which miraculously re-opened last week post COVID-19 closure. I was the only visitor in my time slot which was great. I managed to take all the photographs I needed and they let me measure up too. I’m glad I did some prep before my visit - despite it being hard to turn my attention away from my essay - as it meant I knew exactly what I needed to do when I got there. So strange travelling on a train for the first time since lockdown, all these firsts like going to Tate Britain on Tuesday so odd: but good to be able to visit places on my own again. Makes me realise how rarely I have been completely alone since lockdown as there is nearly always someone else at home.