Masks have been compulsory in shops in England since we left home, but they are not in Wales yet. Strange to understand the difference between restrictions in Wales and England this being a very visible sign as we travelled to Pembrokeshire. We’re staying on the coast for a week. I realised on the way here that it was images of this coastline that Helen Chadwick merged with magnified images of her cells to make Viral Landscapes makes me feel a visit here is meant to be! What different meanings we assign to the word ‘viral’ in this period of COVID-19 ...

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I’m reading Jill Bennett’s Empathic Vision again it is so interesting and lovely to be able to give it my full attention…no WiFi and no phone signal in our Welsh cottage! She has just mentioned the work of Bessel van de Kolk, I get such ridiculous enjoyment out of different parts of my research overlapping. It feels like a magical triangle or prism… channelling these connections. It is very exciting though I feel rather daunted by my essay. Bennet mentions van der Kolk in connection with the difficulties of representing trauma aesthetically. She connects this to the psychological process too, asserting that the work of van der Kolk asserts that traumatic memory also resists representation or is ‘non declarative’ involving bodily responses that lie outside verbal-semantic-linguistic representation. Connects so well to the ideas of Pollock that I was researching in Unit 2. Unfortunately there is no way I can get all of this into my essay…there is so much to say! 

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This is a great way to do research, up early and sitting on the beach with a cup of tea and my book, yes the cottage really is that close to the beach and it’s lovely. Amazing to see beyond London’s buildings that in itself feels like such unbelievable freedom. Freedom for the mind as well as the body, though I might regret this ‘break’ from studying later…but surely it’s good to have time to read and digest ideas?... As my brother said when I first was able to get out for a walk (after 11 weeks of ‘shielding’ confined to the house and garden) incredible how the things we took for granted in February now seem like a great treat. Like being ill suddenly you have an appreciation or an ability to notice what was once unremarkable.

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I swam in the sea.

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Back at home and on Day 1 (1 August) following the pausing of ‘shielding’ restrictions I went to went to Andy Warhol at Tate Modern. It was interesting, more so because of having read Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City. It was particularly interesting to see his TV work that so vividly demonstrates how he took control of his image. I couldn’t help feeling that the Interpretation was very much written from a 2020 perspective, emphasising how ‘inclusive’ he was working with ‘drag queens’ (whose identities had been lost until very recent research …mmm) and how treating all as equal was part of his philosophy. I feel sceptical. The work however was fascinating: as is so often the case the pieces everyone knows so well from reproduction are in the flesh, bigger, more painterly and so on, than you ever realised before. Visiting Tate Modern was not a bad experience overall, bit of a queue for the booked time slot but nice that it wasn’t too crowded apart from one corridor area in the exhibition. 

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Amazing I have just managed to order ‘Maria Lassnig the pen is the sister of the brush Diaries 1943-1997’ from Hauser and Wirth…I can’t believe it! When I tried a week or so having managed to track to Hauser and Wirth ago the ordering system would only accept an order from a US postal address… Was going to ask Fran in New York to order it for me just thought I’d have one more go today to order it from here and miracle of miracles I could order it in the UK. I feel so excited at the prospect of it arriving!