Joetta Maue

Today I discovered a fellow text embroidering artist Joetta Maue, who lives in Brooklyn New York, and whose artist statement on her website made me cry with a sense of recognition and silent complicity... another kindred spirit is out there!

Not only is she a word embroidering artist but also a medium format photographer! Spooky, but oh so lovely this kind of sychronicity...

I love her blog also... will be keeping an eye on this little yellow birdy and who knows, maybe one day our work will hang in the same space?

Ensemble - my first European solo exhibition

This is what's been keeping me busy these past 5 months or so... making the work for my first solo exhibition in Europe "Ensemble", held at the Institut Français de Berlin. The show runs until 30 May 2009, for anyone in Berlin, and is located at Kurfürstendamm 211, ecke Uhlandstraße, in Charlottenburg.

The exhibition Ensemble ("together" in English) speaks of togetherness from an intimate point of view, with ourselves as well as with another, to the global. I use second hand clothing to communicate our humanity and for its historical interest - the fact that it already contains energy from the previous wearer before it meets mine. I have embroidered text onto the clothing, as a way of perhaps making the abstract (thoughts, fantasies, dreams) more concrete and tangible. Like marking the skin with a tattoo, these texts adorn the clothing (our second skins) with our private thoughts, desires, wishes and bring them into the public realm.

The show is all hand embroidered by me but when I write 'solo exhibition', the theme of togetherness is very much part of this as I am not alone to make this work. It's a largely collaborative show, because this is one of my preferred ways to work - to bring people together in a creative setting. For one central work I invited 8 friends (including a combined effort from my sister and 4 year old nephew) all over the world to contribute an old t-shirt and a line of text in their native language to create a kind of global story, to illustrate that no matter what language we speak we are all the same essentially and that the most productive way forward for us is to come together in acceptance and love.

I had a very successful opening night on Wednesday this week (22nd April) with a wonderful crowd, great comments, and a liberating, cheeky, daring, loads of fun performance that came about through a collaboration with the passionate, inspiring USA born choreographer/performer Jessica Jobaris. She has posted on her blog a beautifully written text with some pics of our one rehearsal we had in the space... Thanks to the gorgeous dancers/performers from all over the world who made it the big success it was - Robert, Meredith, Tallulah, Tatjana, Elena, Eva, Guido and Liz (and the little one in her belly!!!). See video below...

I invited my dear friend Alessio Castellacci, musician/composer/dancer/performer/teacher, who introduced me to Jessica, to compose music for the smaller 'glove room' of the show. He made a beautifully sensitive 16 minute soundtrack to accompany the found gloves in this intimate space. I am utterly delighted at how our work sits so happily together. All these little lost souls (the gloves) are in very good company.

A quote to inspire...

"The planet is some kind of organized intelligence. It's very different from
us. It's had 5- or 6-billion years to create a slow moving mind that is
made of oceans, and rivers, and rainforests, and glaciers. It's becoming
aware of us, as we are becoming aware of it, strangely enough.

"Two less likely members of a relationship can hardly be imagined -- the
technological apes and the dreaming planet. And yet, because the life of
each depends on the other, [we have] a feeling towards this immense,
strange, wise, old, neutral, weird thing, and it is trying to figure out why
its dreams are so tormented and why everything is out of balance."
- Terence McKenna

Elspeth Diederix

Thanks to A of My Other Room I have discovered the work of Elspeth Diederix, a Kenyan-born of Dutch origin photographer whose work is so inspiring! Utterly simple in appearance yet apparently intricately staged, they make the ordinary extraordinary.

Bassike

I love these t-shirts, designed in the northern beaches suburb of Avalon, Sydney Australia, my home town. The Bassike girls, Deborah Sams and Mary Lou Ryan, create a basic wardrobe for men and women, and they use the highest quality organic cotton jersey available. The shapes and colours are always spot-on!

http://www.mycatwalk.com.au/c/fashion/bassike.html

VorOrt Berlin & Reinhard Plank

One of the most stylish shops here in Berlin for clothing and accessories is VorOrt on Alte Schönhauser Straße 47, Mitte. The other day I was drawn in by the new arrival of Elsa shoes (see my post from 1 February). I was so excited to see that they are onto another of my favourites... VorOrt (meaning something like "present", as in I am here now) already stocks Isaac Reina bags and leathergoods (see my post 2 February)... I had a lovely chat to one of the owners Susanna and she's a gorgeous, stylish, former Eastern Berliner, rare in Berlin funnily enough!

Another really special artisanal discovery I've made through her beautiful shop is the designer/maker of wonderful, renowned hats and shoes Reinhard Plank. (hats pictured)

Treasure for the spirit

All art and beauty comes from the spirits to us, through us, in my humble opinion, and here I wanted to share a couple of practices that make my spirit soar and my body very happy too!!

Appropriately somehow after the previous Nick Cave post, I'll start with a form of meditation I've been doing for a while called 5 Rhythms dancing. It was started in New York by Gabrielle Roth and you can find it all over the world now thank heavens... I started it back in Sydney and do it here too (there are 6 teachers in Berlin!).

http://www.5rhythms-berlin.de/ (my teacher Dagmar Cee's site)

Secondly, a while ago I discovered here in Berlin the wonderful The Creative Module which encompasses Osho Meditation Studio, Play-2-C Performing Arts space and The Body Mind Institute. Located in Kreuzberg and run by partners Ali von Stein (Germany) and Krisana Locke, whom I photographed above (Australia), this is a place of fun, celebration, healing, creativity and wellbeing on many levels!

Their vision is "to offer a place where each individual can explore and grow spiritually, physically and emotionally. To express themselves; to inspire and to be inspired."

I've been discovering the absolutely amazing benefits of Dynamic Meditation (among the many Osho developed) and would heartily recommend it as a form of meditation for those of us who perhaps need more active forms to connect with the stillness inside us.

Ali and Krisana also founded the Meditation Module in New York, which is the sister space to the one here.

Nick Cave's Sound Suits

My brother in law just sent a link to me about these glorious Sound Suits by another Nick Cave than the one who comes immediately to mind... A former dancer with Alvin Ailey Dance Company, this Nick Cave makes extraordinarily intricate, wildly creative, shamanic (to me), thrilling sound suits - suits that when worn make sound. It's that simple and that magical... check him out!