i'm trying not to miss everything

aria: never has there been a shade

2009-05-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

Untitled from mel shearsmith on Vimeo.

friday 9th january 2009

2009-01-08T14:45:00.000-08:00

The view (the ability to see something) is lovely from up here...

with a view to... with the hope, aim, or intention of.

vieue: feminine past participle of veoir 'see', from latin videre (consult for fuller or further information).

I know I am repeating myself

the root is the seed in the source in the essence in repetition(s)

'this is where the phenomenological doublet of resonances and repercussions must be sensetized. The resonances are dispersed on the planes of our life in the world, while the repercussions invite us to give greater depth to our own existence' - Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

There are epic landscapes in small folds,

in miniature moments,

small deaths

(are there such things? death of a thing of a love of a person of a dream of everything is momentus, vast, imeasureable, it ripples out and expands, to howl, it wants to repeat over and over again in new to explore, unexplained ways that remind us of life, an edge, to make a sound that breaks it, you, me and all open and is siren.

The small death; to watch it from far away, to crawl into the nook of a fold, to abandon the trying to someone else, to somewhere behind or out front, to be slowly, to be dense in movement, to find forgotten lines and let them follow you, hopelessly.

Simplicity... the terrain of abandonment to the unknown, the milieu (middle place), the moment in whatever shape it fancies to take, the liminal plane that makes no sense; it is wonder-ful and free of fancy, fuller and further. It is not about understanding, standing here.

'Liminality is an ambiguous state... the breakthrough of chaos into cosmos, of disorder into order... the milieu of creative interhuman or transhuman satisfactions and achievements.' Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: the Human Seriousness of Play.

repetition

echo

chiasma

chasm

crossing...

thursday 8th January 2009

2009-01-07T17:31:00.000-08:00

and so we make a poem of what cannot be said - Pina Bausch

there is a room

in it are folds and curves and dark places

it is deeper than it first appears

it creaks

it cannot be touched but the texture of it is tangible

the skin of it is warm, molten heavy

and at the same moment so cold in some small way

that makes it both cavernous and metal sheened

wings, weathering.

it is a film of a moment that cannot be held

but can be witnessed in the palm of a hand (if you hold the one)

it is denser, weightless and not of this world but feet folded in

earth and sky and water

breath floods in upon the other

there was no thing before or after it

nothing tick tocks.

never has there been a shade

more dear and lovely or more gentle.

wednesday 7th january 2009

2009-01-07T07:44:00.001-08:00

I'm trying not to miss everything

I'm acting as a magnifying glass

I am Alice

the 'drink me' bottle has enticed me

I have drunk and shrunk

in miniature I can sit upon the large white bird as I would a boat

tuesday 6th january 2009

2009-01-06T01:32:00.000-08:00

Because “You have to find a way for these startling images you

like so much to appear to emerge out of everyday reality,” said

my theatre professor, when I wanted the startling images to be

all there is. (Matthew Goulish: 'Why Devise, Why Now?')

is there a message here

or is this the inside workings of grappling with something essentially ephemeral and distinct?

the root: the swans

the message: the last song, a dance, presence

the intention: to see what is just out of the corner of my eye

the reconnaissance: the texture and weight of the skin

gently holding a large space (depths)

what lies beneath what is seen

monday 5th january 2009

2009-01-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

the essence...

Armed with a large loaf of bread and my camera I swan visit. I forget my gloves and my hands seize into still, unmoving things. I throw bread and then pass the loaf to a French man who is watching the party of swans, gulls, pigeons and the funny honking brown bird, how they gather in numbers and momentum. I'm starting to feel familiar here. I film freely for a while.

The French crowd move along and I finish emptying the bag of bread. The small gulls are getting brazen and begin diving at me, grabbing the bread in my hands with their sharp beaks, wings a hairs breath from my face. I feel the beaks, a thrill of the wings so close and a view of their faces, the all of them mid air, poised and begging for food. I throw small chunks up and they swoop in closer, catch the bread and fly off. More come in to hover so very close to my face, I am beginning to recognise their features, to distinguish one from another. Some are braver. One gull has a dark face and big eyes, he looks like a cartoon character of a bird animated and turned back into flesh.

I recognise this is a moment.

I cannot capture that essential thing that I grasp for with the camera,

I cannot witness and be present to the moment if I am removed from it or distracted by the camera

I need to be there, present

I receive something and it resonates, it magnifies, ripples out and repeats itself

an echo

Where the echo is, is a place

a place initiated by a new moment, a reflection of the initial happening

a reflection of a thing that is essential.

I notice there are key resonances that reoccur

There is a texture of this film that is beginning to surface

textures, colours - a skin.

The song is still a silent vibration that hums underneath not quite at the surface, lingering.

I want to hear the Quay Brothers Institute Benjamenta, to leave it playing in the background whilst I edit, a point of sound that is far away. The voices, the breath, the haunting strings and sense of space (a depth of vast rooms and silence that is swimming about in them) gives a weight to what it is I am doing even though I am not sure what will be the final outcome.

There is an echo, an essence

It lies just below the skin.

sunday 4th january 2009

2009-01-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

dawn walk (walking in the shade)

I meet Huw at 7am on the bridge by the Arnolfini

it is dark and extremely cold

my fake fur is out for the first time this winter.

we walk in silence for the full length of the walk -

from here at the bridge to there, the 204 gallery on Gloucester Road.

I want to be by the river and head straight for the place where I know I will get my (quiet) view of the swans

we find them asleep.

all are mirrors of one another

their necks curved in the same shape, the same direction

to tuck the head into the nook between the wings

they are still

hanging in the dark (on water, on wood)

out in the middle of the river all alone are small icebergs.

I want to stay here but I am committed to the walk.

As I go I remember

I remember my last night time walk

my walk in the (Tycannol) woods with Jo and the tree and the laughing and the dancing

I remember how I loved that she was following some internal compass,

some instinct that pulled at a core sense of what moved her right now

pulled her to this place, this pause point

following the edges, the owl, the water.

I remember walking in the woods and how there is something 'other' that is followed

some thing that pulls you to it and you are aware of being pulled

to what?

not until you find it.

This is another walk

another way to walk

and I wonder at walking here

and if it will move me.

This dawn walk is a 'from here to there'

the start and stop point is marked

We walk in silence (my boots chitter chatter)

I allow the route (root) to surface as we go...

itinerary:

lurking shadow figurine

icebergs

story-tale park lights

bullet holes

vertically challenged railing

rooftop solo song

sail (upto 70% off)

smoking boots

time illuminated and living large (4x4)

black corridor corner

chewing gum street (pockmarked)

wall painted mermaid

ice rink for impossible tasks

cars (loud and louder)

stick it notes for semi-naked mud wrestlers

letterbox nosing

cold thighs

closed cafe's

Sponge Bob Square Pants cheese toasty

saturday 3rd january 2009

2009-01-04T12:52:00.000-08:00

Swan: derived from the word Swen, 'to sing'

Aria: song for solo voice

Swan: soul, spirit, breath

Anima: from the Latin mind, the soul (feminine). In Greek the spirit is feminine. The term adopted by Carl Jung for the concept of the female archetype.

the myth is that the swan is mute

until the moment it is about to die

when it sings a beautiful song

a funeral song

the song of its life

the swan song

friday 2nd january 2009

2009-01-04T12:26:00.000-08:00

Observation creates Magnification:

everywhere there are the dances of birds

I am drawn to them.

The birds appear to know that I am watching, I am able to witness something small

Everyone around me appears to walk, drive, cycle past, to pass and not to notice

the three rooks circling together, marking out a space to walk around together, again

the two seagulls stamp on the hill of grass,

stamp

skinny little legs stamping

stamp stamping

the worm dance.

I walk at dusk, follow the light and my legs

back to the water

the vein that defines where my curiosity wants to be

somewhere vivid

of feathers and skin

a little tactile that comes through the film

a touch

tuesday 30th december 2008

2009-01-04T11:59:00.000-08:00

the song is an aria

I begin to watch the swans with my eyes

then I film the swans watching them through the lense of the camera

shutting out everything else

I cannot hear some operatic moment under the water

it is epic

and I watch them dance

it is like watching the song with the sound turned off

of 'the man I love' from Pina Bausch's Nelken.

it is a love song but more subtle,

never has there been a shade

monday 29th december 2008

2009-01-04T11:47:00.000-08:00

it begins with a postcard from Fergus (random words of chaos and playfulness)....

he reminds me of the small things

forgotten things

the things we take for granted...

I begin

to walk and witness

to give attention to

a reconaissance

mapping the source

it is very cold and I can only manage to hold a fragile thing.

there is something haunting about the swans that keeps pulling me back to them, I think it is a silent song from very far away.

2009-01-04T11:44:00.000-08:00

I haven't waited for three days, it has been too cold.

I have been making short, sharp journeys out to the place that lies between.

I have marked it and I know where I must be.