ARTISTS TALKING

# 26 [5 March 2007]

My writer friends and I met for a farewell celebration lunch at Gorky Park the Russian restaurant, the celebration being our meeting and being in Berlin, the farewell because they are returning to New York.  Borsht, blinis, caviar and German champagne, (Sekt), fabulous.  I love being with these smart guys who don't let anything get them down.  It is tender and touching to see them approach.  One walking slightly ahead of the other saying things like "watch out for the broken pavement here, keep to the left," "here is the curb to step down quite a way," "now there are four high steps up to the restaurant with a rail on your right."  The other, blind one, has his hand lightly on the other's shoulder and follows with trust.  They look as if they could be in a Beckett play, archetypal figures crossing the stage in eternity. Very moving.  Then they realise I'm there and shout and wave their arms.

03/03/2007           Every step of the way in making a painting one has to be on one's toes wary of the pitfalls and obstacles on the way.  Mentioning toes, painting, if it succeeds, is like ballet just as everyone quotes: presented as an effortless finished object, never mind the bloodied toes, sprained ankle, months of work. It is not at all a factory assemblage produced impersonally.  As an example, when Manfred arrived and we put together the stretchers, doubling them with an electric stapler, and then laid the pieces of linen canvas down, one was too short, too narrow, it simply did not fit.  After a bit of discussion and my swearing, there was nothing for it but to return to the kunst magazine and get another piece the right size.  Since it is expensive they wouldn't be happy about that, and if needs must I would just have to pay for another, but I did give the correct measurements. That helpful girl was extremely upset but immediately set about getting the replacement canvas, and said how sorry she was.  I only hope she doesn't have to make it up from her wages.  Personally I was much relieved for the paintings.  They were stretched up by the end of the morning and then I began wetting them, but I had a sinking feeling that they hadn't been stretched tightly enough.  Manfred is used to cotton canvas that does shrink when wet.  Linen may tighten when wet but doesn't shrink in the same way, and this linen was looser than what I have worked with before.  Knocking out the corners worked but warped the stretchers, so then they had to be knocked back again, back and forth until they were finally optimised.  After another wetting the corners rose up and weights had to be applied to keep them down.  Those piles of books came into their own here.  Whew, cross fingers I think they are fine.  Once they dry out I'll put the primer on.

# 25 [1 March 2007]

Now I feel much more at home in Berlin.  It is actually brilliant fun to be immersed in another culture; a pleasure to learn the history, to read Thomas Mann, Nietzsche, Rilke, think about thinks differently.  All those small details that stuck out so much at the beginning have been assimilated: where things are, how a shopping bag is tucked into the coat pocket as doors are pulled open, looking left in the street, carrying money to pay for anything I might buy, has all become second nature.  Because it feels so much safer here than in London, as well as much less crowded, slower in pace, and of course nowhere around here takes credit cards anyway; I carry amounts of money on me that I never would otherwise. This feeling of being settled in releases a lot of energy that was used up before, and that shows in how I work now, no more dithering.   The main thing is that now most of the Milchhof artists are back working and what a difference that makes to the vitality of ambience.  Sculptors in the halls, painters and photographers in their studios, coming and going, saying ‘Hallo', being friendly, I feel happy here.  Of the people I've met so far, the names I remember are Regina, Isabetta, Georgina, Wolka, Marcus, Mark, Tom, and of course Manfred, but there are all the others who smile and make me feel welcome as I pass.  " You are our guest.  Welcome.   We hope you enjoy Berlin."  That makes for an exceptionally fine feeling. 

Since I didn't want to stop working in the studio during the day, again this evening I went upstairs at ten pm to do some emails perched in the corridor, and again shortly afterwards the large bass cello carrying girl turned up and again flung open her door and all the corridor windows.  Is she a fresh air addict, does she play in a smoky night club and needs to clear her lungs, is it the smell of turpentine or some other medium that she is clearing out, or is it that she sublets from Isabetta so that she can practise her music letting it rip out into the sky?  This strong girl in her drab overcoat is intriguing.

# 24 [28 February 2007]

28/02/2007              From before ten am today I started drawing various directions and tryouts for the new canvases.  From time to time a thought would impinge that I should stop for lunch soon, but when I finally did stop it turned out to be after ten pm, so that was time to stop and make dinner.  A satisfying feeling but I'll know better when I look at what I've done later.

27/02/2007           At the Künstler Magazin, (Artists' Shop), I had the cash ready to pay and the girl with her heavy biker's boots, layers of black clothing with an underskirt of rust satin to compliment her flaming Venetian red long hair, silver bracelets and dangling earrings flashing, jumped up on the counter to pull down all the stretchers and linen canvas roll.  She made bundles of them for me to carry to the Milchhof.  They don't have delivery and the distance is too short for a taxi, but my word the weight was tremendous.  Yes it is only three blocks but the strong gusts of wind didn't help, especially since with the first load I somehow managed to twist my wrist.  Four journeys like that, staggering back and forth made me feel quite hot and shaky by the time I got it all safely up the stairs into the studio.  ‘Now is the time to relax', I thought after that and went off on the tram and U-Bahn to Postdamer Platz to the Sony Cinestar.  The Berlin Film Festival is held here.  All lit up at night, with gigantic anonymity, it is so Hollywood fake, that it is perfect for all the stars glamour.Yes it was all too good to be true and had a cheesy voice-off commentary, but along with a hot chocolate it hit the button for post heavy load-bearing wrist damage.  I understand it may even win an Oscar.  Duh.

# 23 [26 February 2007]

Well Miss Uppity, I was revelling in how I've assimilated my environment and thinking how nervous I had been on the U-Bahn at first, sitting on the edge of the seat, (and by the way one can mostly always get a seat), not taking my eyes away for a second searching for the signs that would be my stop, and now how different how relaxed; a seasoned Berlin traveller reading the weekly Guardian, when you guessed it, I went right past Alexanderplatz.  But at least I didn't feel lost forever, as I might have done then.  Worse though was my always making myself look left first when I cross the road, which I thought I had mastered well, but today I stepped out, after looking left, but preoccupied, I must have just glanced left without really taking it in, because I was looking at the empty road to the right when I stepped out.  At that instant a bicycle whizzed past about two centimetres from my face, and aghast I also saw a car that had stopped just behind.  That was shocking.  ‘But there never is any traffic on this road' came into my mind.  That's the problem, glancing but not seeing, my mind not paying attention.

After a month as recluse I have built up a routine, a satisfying rhythm of drawing, writing, reading, going to see things on my own.  All along probably whingeing about never seeing a soul.  Well now with these new contacts, along with the new canvases that will be stretched with Manfred, I have social appointments every day for the next seven days.  My anxiety now, since I seem to need to worry, is having enough time on my own and fitting everything in.  Un embarrasses des riches.  Is it ‘too much of a good thing'?   Or rather ‘you don't know how lucky you are'?  Yes.

# 22 [25 February 2007]

The noise in the night was the hurricane force wind blowing everything about.  A German artist said to me with relish, "It is raining cats and dogs," pleased to use his idiomatic English that sounded charming.  Upstairs I was perched precariously outside the door of the studio where I now have a much more satisfactory arrangement to log in to their Internet connection instead of trekking to the Internet shop.  They have a large three-room suite of studios with desk room for me, which is great, but they usually leave at six and this was ten pm.  Shortly after that, a solidly built fair girl in a grey overcoat, carrying a huge Bass Cello turned up at an adjoining studio.  Flinging open its' door, after barely saying "Hallo", she then proceeded to fling wide open the corridor windows as well.  With hurricane wind outside this made quite an impression and a huge draught so I didn't dawdle.  Thomas Mann's ‘The Magic Mountain' was a fine way to ride out the storm.  From the first pages one can realise that it is a masterpiece.  Written densely, I don't even think of skipping bits, but instead stop and unpick, then think about the phrases.  It is exquisitely written, reminding me of Proust.  Horrendous details of tubercular sputum, blood, drawn out deaths that are surprising but not actually as revolting as they might be in another novelist's hand.  Shocking as they are, these episodes are interwoven by the complexity in every detail.  Exact numbers of windows, doors, tables are given, the gait and stance of each person with a full description of their clothes, as well as their coughs, all in meticulous put in so carefully and thoroughly that a picture is physically built.

# 21 [23 February 2007]

Today I used up the Felix Gonzalez-Torres paper handouts doing quick scribbling sketches of ideas; this to the end of having three drawings on paper that I won't mind exhibiting at the blütenweisse gallery, in ten days time.  So far I have one I like, one that could be possible, and several maybes.  Manfred and I are in discussion over the stretchers, I've asked him to write a note in German specifying exactly what I need, especially that they should be made deep enough so that the linen canvas when being painted doesn't show stretcher bar marks. 

Since the biking around Berlin was such a pleasure yesterday, I've asked if the Milchhof bicycle could be fixed up for me.  The other admirable thing I noticed about cycling in Berlin is that not only is it safer for the cyclist but also the ferocious concerted stealing of bikes that occurs in London, Amsterdam, Montreal, you name it, doesn't apparently happen here.  This in a city with twenty percent unemployment is almost unbelievable.  I have seen no D-locks, only those plastic coated wire cables that last about four seconds before they are hacked through elsewhere.  These cables also are not necessarily fastened around steel poles but often just immobilising the wheels and left propped up.  Mind boggling to a cyclist more or less resigned to having to replace stolen bikes from time to time.

# 20 [21 February 2007]

Now the second month starts and how better to begin than with a bicycle tour of Berlin.  Outdoors, a different perspective and glorious.  Berlin is very bicycling friendly, truly green in this.  The footpaths have cycle lanes on them so that bicycles do not have to compete with cars and it works so well because the footpaths are made wide enough to allow room.  When there are cycle lanes in the roads they are amply large enough for bicycles so it's not the constant dangerous war with cars that I encounter in London.  Everyone gives way to everyone and no one gives dirty looks or shouts insults being passed on the pavement by a bike; they know it is safe and works.  Like a dream come true, (for a cyclist).  Also Berlin is flat so there is plenty of time to look around without having to huff up a hill.  It was exhilarating to cycle around looking at things with my new friend artist tour guide.

# 19 [21 February 2007]

16/02/2007           Another day at the Berlinale film festival.  "Bad Faith," a French film, was concerned with a Jewish French woman becoming pregnant with her Moroccan Muslim lover and the strains on the relationship that come from that make her decide to have an abortion.   Charming and beautifully shot, with lovely bed-linen I noticed, is it just me but these issues that are so vital and contemporary relevant for us today, especially one notes the Muslim mother is portrayed as less prejudiced than the Jewish French bourgeois, but aren't they the very same issues that we heard all about as children?  I remember, don't you, the discussions, films, delicate warnings of unhappiness to follow, short stories, ( Puccini's' "Madame Butterfly"), dealing with examples of English/Japanese, German/French war brides, Jewish/Goy, Roman Catholic/Atheist, Baptist/Hindu, Black/White, Chinese/ Indian and so forth.  Do things never progress?  What about male/female marriages don't they cause a lot of woe?  Oh yes that's what all the other films are about.  I guess it must be so: there are as the man said, who?  Was it Shakespeare?  There are only five plots in literature and films, so dumbo don't be a superior know it all.  It is how the thing is done that matters not the subject matter.  Strange isn't it?  In films and Biennales as in art.

This evening we went to a Turkish restaurant at the Hackescher Höfe that looked wonderful on entering but became more touristy exotic on second glance.  Never mind it was not bad and was remarkably inexpensive, so the very long wait between courses was just a grit your teeth thing but we were all longing to leave and go home to our snug beds by the end.  Coming out at last from the Hasir, the prostitutes were out in force standing at regular intervals along the Hackescher Markt, with pastel coloured umbrellas like parasols shielding them from the snow.  They all were trussed up immaculately wearing high white boots, tiny white skirts, white zippered jackets, thick tan foundation make-up, and pale whitish lipstick. They were too flawlessly turned out, stood too solidly in their place, stared just past one without eye contact, their hair too perfect to be ordinary people just there by chance.  It looked like performance.  What was striking was that they all wore similar spotless white outfits under their pink or turquoise umbrellas.

# 18 [15 February 2007]

Thanks to friends of friends who are connected to the Berlinale, (the Berlin Film Festival), I got to spend a couple of days being let into films that otherwise I might never have had a chance to see.  It's fun all that hustle and bustle, red carpets galore and the pushing and shoving to get into the most hotly tipped screenings.  There are a lot of films dealing with serious issues of childhood in harsh circumstances, Jewish Russians in Israel, in "Love and Dance", Hitler in "Mein Führer", the concentration camps in "The Counterfeiters".  In fact, aside from the run of Andy Warhol related films, and the semi-pornographic, of which more in a minute, there seemed a lot of films about Jewish ness and the Holocaust.  Is that because it was held here in Berlin or is the Zeitgeist settled on this at the moment?  Oh yes semi-pornographic.  There was a film called "Fucking Different New York" which I imagined to be an amusing film about New York.  No.  It wasn't adjectival but descriptive, what was on the label was the content, i.e. thirteen separate episodes of gay and lezzy fucking combos as documentary, rather sad, exploitative, quite sordid, as art, as wild porno, as comic strip humour and one of narrative.  This one was based on a quote from Marilyn Monroe's autobiography where she said that once she had had sex with Joan Crawford and that afterwards Joan Crawford had wanted repeats, but when Marilyn refused, Joan had got spiteful.  So it begins with a typewriter with the Arthur Miller writing the story of what transpired.  Marilyn being fragile posing for photographers while "The Misfits" is being filmed.  Joan Crawford turning up, Arthur Miller looking through the keyhole.  Fantasy lezzy sex.  Joan driving off.  Marilyn posing fanning herself to cool down.  The End.  So kinda cute, but on the whole not very enlightening.  The Marilyn Monroe look-alike was more successful than the Joan Crawford look-alike.

Keeping up the glamour, apart from the actual film, (above), we dinnered afterwards around the corner from the Sony Centre at the Ritz Hotel in their Brasserie Desbrosses which is mightily stylish with wonderful atmosphere and cooking.  Since I had to go through the rigmarole of no wheat, no flour and so on they let me know what I could eat and what they could adapt from the menu as most places do now - so "Sex and the City" isn't it? - Fish soup in a tureen, no croutons, calves liver, no Berliner gravy sauce, mashed potatoes.  But then they, on their own, brought a basket of gluten-free bread to the table for me.  How excellent is that?  At the end of the meal they wrapped up the remaining bread so I could take it home, (and toast it for a breakfast).   Beyond a dream. 

# 17 [14 February 2007]

Berlin is a safe city at least this part of it: Mitte North, Prenzlauer Berg, which is what I'm judging it by.  Full of young people, everyone on bicycles, or using the trams and U-Bahns that run around the clock, it feels very comfortable to be going home late at night surrounded by these people out too.  Evidently there is very little mugging and one isn't hassled at all.  People are correct and keep to themselves naturally.  That makes life so much easier; I don't mind walking back at midnight from the internet cafe or taking a tram, there are always lots of other people waiting too. 

Once again fey freckled friendly Manfred has come bringing light.  One of the bulbs in the studio was kaput and since the ceiling is fifteen feet high there was no way I could change it.  Not a problem, in he came with a tall stepladder and cheerfully fixed the light.  Nothing really is a problem here as I have found there is always a way round.  Checking out the local art shop, they say they can do the canvases for me in only a week, and besides that, I could carry them back to the Milchhof with some help and so save on transport charges.  Manfred and I have had a discussion that may well work out, in that when I leave I could take the canvases off, rolling them up to take to London and then Manfred can re-use the stretchers.  Of course I have to do them first, but that would be a practical solution.  Unless they turn out not to be able to be rolled up which is always a possibility, fortunately acrylic mediums are amenable.