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The Insanity of Artists

Debbie — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:37:43 +0000

Hanging out in a castle last nite. A real live castle outside of Dresden. The castle is a collection of about 6 buildings and grounds in a complex in which the other half contains a Denny’s wannabee pub, a suburban like ice cream parlor and farmer’s market shop that makes the perfectly predictable and safe day outing for the family from the big city or suburbia that suburbanites around the globe would be perfectly at home in. Need help visualizing it? Think parking lot full of clean, new, shiny sedans, randomly placed farming equipment, new furniture that has been intentionally distressed to look old and peach, the colour peach that rears its ugly head out from the 80’s when you least expect it.

Hanging out at the “Denny’s Wannabe” we feared the worst on the other half of the grounds. We were pleasantly suprised. We found normal people and normal living. Well, normal for us. In the public area we found ornate ceilings, peach sheets and a bit of “Tammy Faye” with the black and gold toilets. Beyond the public areas we found families hammering together random bits of wood to create important objects like helicopters and boxes and boats. mismatched patio furniture in the back, randomly placed mattresses and plastic cars in the hallway. Real people with long hair and mismatched clothes. One look and we saw that they were “our tribe”. We should have known. Not let the Denny’s scare us. So many of our friends have been telling us we need to come here. Friends that are not impressed with fancy buildings but by real people, by people living out the free, yet sometimes insane, life of an artist.

We talked late into the night echoing each others thoughts and finding more and more people we both knew and loved. Thoughts about art being a language that transcends the boundaries of mere words. So many words have lost their meaning through misuse that art is becoming a more efficient way of communicating truth. This is because art, many times, has a mind of its own. It will communicate more deeply and with greater truth than even the artist intends.

The conversation started my mind spinning.

If art is a language then what makes an artist?

Earlier this year I spoke with the father of 4 musicians who I considered very talented. “It isn’t about talent”, he said, “They practice hours each day”. I spoke with a potter as well. “What makes a great potter?” he asked, “The sheer quantity of clay that goes through the fingertips”. How many artists have echoed the words, “talent is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration” or “2% inspiration and 98% perspiration”. One of my favourite songwriters once said, “The songs are up there, the question is do I have the courage to pull them down”.

If perspiration and courage are factors then what makes an artist?

Many of the most “talented” artists are broken. A bad childhood, mispent youth, illness or abuse shadows many artists. I refuse to put brokeness in as a requirement to being an artist. Maybe brokeness is just one path to what is needed.

I have a theory. You know how I love my bizarre theories. Maybe what makes an aritst is freedom. If it is a language then we all have it in us somewhere. The difference is that through need or strength or perceived insanity some of us rebel against what is considered “acceptable” and declare ourselves imancipated. We refuse the boundaries and what is deemed normal and permisable. All too often we must be broken to rebel to this level. To daily throw off the cages of “the good life”. To not care is we create something that is “pretty” but to declare truth in ourselves and the world, as we perceive it. The better we do this the greater our reputation of “insanity” while living and “brilliance” long after we are dead. To create art is to expose our souls for all to see. Not caring, if only for a moment, about whether it is understood, accepted or rejected. It is an insane undertaking.

Am I taking this too far.

How about spirituality? The trappings, institutions and rules of religion remain long after spirituality has left the building. Is becoming more spiritual, intertwined with rebellion and freedom from acceptable norms of conduct and thought.

Are the two related?

At Freakstock now. Andrew seriously contemplating getting a mullet….. again. Drinking lots of tea with old and new friends.

Powered by Wings

Debbie — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:16:58 +0000

You know, ever since we went to SLOT Festival in Poland the first time, we just can’t seem to avoid it.

We have now been 4 times in a row.

We weren’t even planning on going this year until about a week before. We all love it. There are workshops on everything from black-smithing swords to tightrope walking.

We saw many old friends and made alot of new ones.

Andrew taught under the tree again.

I did something a bit different this year. I made the tipi into a space to make wings.

The thing is, I had this dream a few months back. I was in Africa. I found some beautiful, semi-transparent fabric and thought it would make beautiful wings. I have often thought of making wings. I dreamt that we went to SLOT and people were walking around in wings that were made in a space that I set up and this helped us get around the world.

Strange huh? I thought that if we go to SLOT I should do this. But, since we weren’t planning on going to SLOT this year I wouldn’t have to do it. I was safe. The dream could remain this strange and distant image in Africa, the land of dreams.

Then our plans changed and we went to SLOT. I felt really silly doing this. I did a lot of moaning to my family, Sasha and Derek while setting things up. Moaning to the point that there was a bit of a role reversal with my girls. I was doing the little girl moaning and they were coming back with heaps of motherly encouragement. Doing this hit all my issues. I don’t like the attention. I don’t like looking stupid. Silly I don’t mind but stupid is another issue. I couldn’t quite figure out how to frame it. Was I to do it all for free? Was I supposed to sell the wings? What about a donation?

I need to tell you, at this point, that I have a belief in a God who cares about me and speaks to me. So, at the risk of seeming even more strange than I already am, I need to say that I think that this dream was from God and that He wanted me to do it. OK, I said it, Whew. To add to this, Derek had some really good advice for me. He said that the exact frame for a wing-space was unimportant. If I think that God wanted me to do this, then it was a simple matter of obedience.

So, instead of doing what makes sense and making money by selling wings to unique, eclectic shops in wealthy countries I take my partially made wings and set up a space in an art festival in a struggling country among economically challenged young people alongside over a hundred free workshops and then ask for donations for our diesel in a country where “donation” is a bizarre concept. All this because of a dream I had in the Sahara and a very strong feeling that I was supposed to do it with no assurance that I wouldn’t look like a complete idiot doing it.

Abi and I cut out and sewed together hundreds of wing panels, with my hand-crank Singer sewing machine, the week before.

We went to slot and set up our space. We set up the tipi. Painted a sign. Hung up some wings.

Our space was completely full of people pretty much the whole time it was open. We covered our costs with a single generous donation.

We left the tipi up for overflow for the neighbouring tea tent after we ran out of supplies to make wings and sold every last pair of intact display wings for donations.

I need to say, at this point that we didn’t do any clever marketing or advertising. We tried to print some cards off and our printer cartridge suddenly became defective. People just saw the tent and the wings and asked if they could make some. After we ran out of supplies for making wings people sought out me, or one of my girls, to ask for wings.

Over the next days the wings were popping up everywhere. Just like my dream, only better.
I think the wings made people happy… and beautiful… and free in a world where this is all in way too short supply. There is just something very special about wearing wings. It opens up a world of possibilities. Especially wings that are huggable.

We also got to fill up our diesel tank on our way out of Poland. Which was incredible because we drove to Poland with no money to fill the tank for our return trip.
Technorati Tags: Slot art festival, poland, wings, dreams

Divoka Sarka

Debbie — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:11:27 +0000

Sorry for the silence but we have been camping on some friend’s land in the Divoka Sarka on the outskirts of Prague. It is an old farm that was last used by the Nazi’s. Legend has it that the Communists and the Nazis had a bit of a battle right at the edge of the land. The new owners plan to make it into a retreat center, farm, home for 3 families and ??? It was a wonderful time with frequent bike trips to the spring fed pool and the pub right next door, which can only be reached on foot or bike.

We have received a homecoming welcome from our old friends. Made new friends that feel like old ones already. We have had our backs cracked by the muscly amature chiropractor next door. Chased fireflies with his wife. Heard hilarious stories from a very aminated czech ambassador. Heard from a Thai businesswoman about an amazing education program she is involved with in Thailand where their students learn practical skills for life and their 8 year old graduates must build a house before they can graduate. We drank great czech beer (the kids drank Kofola, alias communist coke) and ate great czech food.

WOW! What a great week. We have now left and are at the SLOT art festival in Poland. We have been invited to return to Divoka Sarka after SLOT to do some work on our truck. Hmmmmm… what would you do?

Inigo, the magnificent

Debbie — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:10:56 +0000

Just thought you might like a photo of how Inigo is doing. He is getting SOOOOO big. He is fitting right into the family. We think he is the perfect dog for us.

He frequently gets hiccups. He likes to do a froggy sprawl when he finds cool tile floors, he is truck trained, he has a muscly strutt, he still pees like a girl.

He now has his puppy immunizations finished, a little blue microchip floating around inside somewhere (how strange to think about) and his EU passport (wish we had one of those).

We have been given some great books on dog training. The best one is these 3 monks who breed and train german shepherds, called “How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend”. Bizarre cover (Do those 3 monks all naturally tilt to the right or did they change a slanting horizon to straight to help the cover look more symetrical, or the monks look drunk?), great book.

Prague: A few of my favourite things

Andrew — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 13:36:47 +0000

This morning in Prague, Czech Republic, I did a few of my favourite things:

1. I admired the architecture,
2. I got myself a Czech beer and fried cheese sandwich (smazeny
syr) from a stall
3. I went into my favourite camera shop [FotoSkoda] to get some inspiration.

The weird thing is that my friend Derek just emailed me to say that he posted a video of us last year in Prague. And guess what 3 things I was doing? Yep – architecture, cheese sandwich, camera shop.

Check out the video and see why I cant leave Prague without doing these three things.

Andrew, Amy, Hannah and myself being ourselves from Derek Chapman on Vimeo.

Fancy Eco-hotel in Prague

Debbie — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 10:23:36 +0000

We got a tour of a very, very cool new hotel in Prague from the man who dreamed it up. He told us all about how he had the idea 3 years ago and some friends came in to help him fix it up. We have been staying in his hostel “Sir Toby’s” this time. They put us up in the very modern and fancy “Czech Inn” last year. This year he is opening up “Mosaic House”. It has been only open for 2 weeks and is full. He told us about how a team of 3 interior designers have been working on it for 3 YEARS! Everything is specially made – even the door hinges.
The kids favourite things were:

The gray water treatment plant in the basement. Complete with colourful lights to tell the direction the water goes. He talked about how he found out about it in Germany and it was really hard talking them into installing one in Czech Republic.

He showed up one of the very fancy smart rooms. The room has a special control panel on the wall that knows when someone walks into the room and adjusts the temperature and moves the blinds around to make it the best. He said that it even knows if it is winter or summer and the blinds change to let in more light or heat. We also liked the extra fabric on the bed that was scrunched to make a rose.

We also liked going out on the balcony and looking for our favourite Prague places.

We liked the special bathroom window that clouded up or cleared up at the flick of a switch.

One of the rooms didn’t know which way was up with standard lamps hanging off the walls and from the ceiling. It also had a bench that went up onto one of the walls.

In one of the rooms the chairs were covered with the same green shag carpet as the floor. I could see Abi’s head spinning about “astroturf potential”.

All in all a very, very great day about learning about dreaming big and high-tech, eco-friendly hotels.

Kutna Hora

Debbie — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:00:02 +0000

Uh, yeah. This is what you think it is. We are soooo strange when we turn tourist for a day. We used to live here in Czech Republic before so we knew what Kutna Hora was. With TJs bone fascination we couldn’t just drive past the bone church without dropping in.

We got in the short line behind the two emo girls with blue and purple dreads.

Hannah is getting more used to bones. Having spent hours preparing with the “Bone Scan Bob” IPod application she had the “geek attraction” to Kutna Hora. Spouting out the scientific name of all the bones. Pondering the joins and holes in the skulls. Noting that the chandelier had at least one of every bone in the body.

TJ, well, TJ was in awe. She had never seen such an amazing site in her whole life. From the skull and crossbones at the top of the steeple to the very last skull inside.

I think her special favourite was the skull with the sweetie next to it.

Abi wasn’t as excited about the bones but loved the car that matched her jacket out front. She decided to have a go at “sexy model standing next to the car poses”.

Hanging with Fellow Travellers

Debbie — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:27:52 +0000

Had a great last nite at the campground.
After spending a couple of days with Scott from the conference and Mark & Lorna, from England, who we met for the first time in Morocco, outside of Gouillmime. Can you believe it! We were so surprised when they drove into the campground.
Andrew spent some time on the last day hanging with some Macedonian truckers.
On our last evening in Macedonia and into the nite we hung out with a swiss couple, a danish family, a New Zealand/Belgian couple and a Dutch man. All adventurous travelers braving the balkans. It is funny, you get to places where most travellers won’t go. Where simple tourists will never brave and all of the sudden you are part of a brotherhood. You need each other and are there for each other. I missed this all terribly when we were in Western Europe.
We sat around sharing stories, treasures, exotic food and drinks. The Swiss couple are wanting to go to Morocco. The Dutch man found a new country, supported by the Russians and nestled in a little corner of Kosovo. He has come from Serbia, just like the Danish family. They have travelled alot and are thinking of doing it full-time. They enjoyed looking around our truck and our kids had a great time playing together. The New Zealand/Belgian couple have been all over the world. As a matter of fact they met in Tanzania.

One fact we all agreed on. In order to survive with travel is to be patient and flexible. If you don’t know how to find and adapt to the rhythm of the local culture and slow down you have a miserable time and miss out on so much of the beauty. What a great time. We strongly feel that we will find some of them again and again. We decided that this was the secret to driving on the roads around here.

Oh yeah, we still haven’t gotten pulled over by the police in the Balkans. This is a common problem. There are 2 things to watch out for that foreigners seem to always get pulled over. The first is that you must keep your headlights on all the time you drive. Our truck does this all the time so it is no problem for us. The second is to watch the speed limit. I mean really watch it! Sometimes a little tiny sign on the side of a major highway in Albania will say 20km. Yes 20km on a major road! Nothing changes on the side of the road. It is still agricultural land with a few dotted houses. After about 2 km you see a policeman waiting on the side of the road. After that the speed limit returns to 80km. Some people might call that a speed trap. Just keep your eyes open.Technorati Tags: macedonia, travellers, brotherhood

Smelling the World Differently From Here and Forever More.

Abi — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:20:10 +0000

Errrmmm…. I dont think i have done a post in a while so…..
Hi, My name is Abi (which i am sure most of you know) and i have wanted a nose piercing for quite a while…….. Ok only a few months. The first day we arrived in Ohrid (a little more that a week ago) i saw two ‘Tattoo & Piercing’ Shops. So that day we waited until they would open (which was at 6 ‘oclock). We went into the first place (The SCARIEST looking place) i went in with: Hannah, Tj and Mum. The man there was big muscular covered in Tattoos, Piercing and looked very much like he didnt want to be known for giving little girls piercing or pretty butterflies or anything like that but to be known as the scary skull and cross bones and scary dragons sort of guy, and he was in a very scary looking place. I asked if he would do my nose piercing, he looked at me and asked me what age i am, i said i was Fourteen but going to be Fifteen soon. But unfortunately he said i had to be at least sixteen if i had my parents permission. So we left.

(This picture doesn’t fit here but I just liked it so I put it in to break things up a bit.)
We walked around town for a little while, then instead of the sunny hot day it was, all the sudden started to rain and pour with lightning and really loud thunder. So we went into a small shopping complex and went into an ice-cream shop which we thought, would have some hot chocolate but they didnt have any. We walked around inside the mini mall looking for a place to sit down for something hot to drink, we went into a pub and asked for some Hot chocolate. Not only did we get hot chocolate but (This is for you Cindy to drool over. You know that hot chocolate you told us about when you were in Portugal near us well it was that) The hot chocolate we got you had to eat with a spoon it was incredible, here are some words i would use to explain it: Creamy, rich, thick, have to eat with a spoon, not too sweet and not too bitter. So as we were eating hot chocolate (not drinking) i went to the other shop which was less scary but still a Tattoo and piercing shop and he was closed. we waited for a while eating our chocolate then checking again but he was still closed:(

(Ok, i admit it……..This photo totally doesn’t fit either. But i think it needs a photo right here).
So, yesterday when me and mum went into town for grocerries we were eating our ice-creams. And thought well maybe we should try the second tattoo & piercing place so we looked in some shops downstairs while i ate my ice-cream (well mum did. I was still eating my ice-cream). Then we went upstairs to the shop. We knocked on the door and a guy opened up. Yayy…….. i asked if he could do a nose piercing for me and he said yes and went back behind the curtain to get some stuff ready. He came back with some studs to put in my nose and gave me an option of three: one was a huge silver spike- errrrrr NO, one was a red diamond- ok i guess, and the last was a a silver star with a green diamond- yayy that one wohoo… So we went behind the curtain. He pulled out: a needle, recieving tube, gloves, put the stud in a sterile solution and took out some other stuff. he asked me if i was was scared and i said no (which was the truth i mean i stick needles into me all day so no big deal). and he pierced my nose YAYY……. It hurt but not as much as i thought it would. My eyes watered a lot so i had to close my eyes. But it was worth it and now…. I have an awesome nose piercing.

So unfortunately, we are on an idyllic lake and i cannot put my head under the water because of the… Piercing. But that doesn’t mean i cant lounge on my inner tube all day..:D

Abi

Party at the Truck in Ohrid

Debbie — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:00:00 +0000

After 3 days of being away Andrew came back to the truck this morning with 3 dozen eggs, milk and 25 of his closest friends from the conference. It was a great day of

eating crepes,

hanging about

chatting

and boating.

Hannah had the great idea of renting one of the slide boats for an hour to accompany our canoe. As inevitably happens when you get a group of energetic young people together on a hot day in Macedonia. A splash war!

A great day with new and old friends from all over the world.