The Art of Just Being...

One of my favourite works of art (among many, I might add!) is this sculpture by Albert Toft called The Spirit of Contemplation.

She sits, somewhat overlooked by her modern counterparts and the rush of the new, in the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne.

I've known her for over thirty years.   We are old friends, she and I.

When I first caught sight of this life-size bronze, I thought her impossibly beautiful and unattainable.   I wanted to be her.

I might have spoken before about my aspiration to have been an artist's inspiration.   His muse.   I think the time for that has fled.

But the spirit still gazes unseeingly out at an unknown future, lost to contemplation and reverie.

Who she was to the artist, Albert Toft, I do not know.   I can find little about him online.

The shock of the new.   L'Art Nouveau, as it was at that time.

And this leads me to ask, what time do any of us take for contemplation in this day and age?

Most of us run from task to task;   from work to home;   from bus to tram to pounding the pavement;   from thought to fleeting thought, to ennui...   From one demand on our time to another, in fact.

I am asking you to take a few moments out today, mes muses, to just sit and be.   Not to do.   Anything.   Other than breathe...   I am asking for just a few minutes of your time.

Spend them in contemplation, as I will do.   Observe your thoughts as they pass though your mind, but do not allow them to derail you from just sitting and being.   Concentrate on your breathing.

In.

And out.   Focus on the out breath.   The exhale.   Make it as long as you can and feel those tense muscles across your back, chest and shoulders begin to loosen.

Let those thoughts go.   There will be ample time to attend to them when you cease your contemplative moment.

Merely sit and close your eyes to the world.   Still the mind.

Breathe.

And be...

For, after all, we are human Be-ings, as opposed to human Do-ings, non?

Tell me how it goes for you?!   Do you feel a little less fraught?   A tad less anxious?   I hope it for you.

A la prochaine, mes bloggy blackberries - Well, we're in October already, non?!   Blackberry time.

See you in the hedge-rows!

Can you see the wood for the trees?

I was at Sam Taylor-Wood's show at The Baltic in Gateshead around when this film footage was taken...

Sam's work revealed to me traces and elements of mediaeval still-lives captured in oil; Candid portraits of musicians and jongleurs... Desperate Hollywood Men spun in celluoid, shedding tears and feigning tantrums... And there was Sam, ethereal and lovely, floating like a ghostly enigma above chairs and props, a propos of nothing, real and surreal...

My sister, La Wiki, had this to say when I dropped in to see her the other day at her Temple of Delights to pay penance and homage to the Great and the Good: "Sam Taylor-Wood was born in London, England. She is a graduate of Goldsmiths College.

Before breaking out as an artist, Taylor-Wood worked at the Royal Opera House and managed the Camden Palace nightclub. In 1991, her work began to appear in a number of group exhibitions alongside that of contemporaries from Goldsmiths. Her breakthrough came in 1994 with the work Killing Time in which four people mimed an opera score. From that point multi-screen video works became the main focus of Taylor-Wood's work. Beginning with the video works Travesty of a Mockery and Pent-Up in 1996, Taylor-Wood began to use professional actors. Her work since 1996 has often featured celebrity friends.

Elton John was included in a large photo-work, and commissioned Taylor-Wood to make a promotional video starring Robert Downey Jr. for one of his records.

In 2002, Taylor-Wood was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to make a video portrait of David Beckham sleeping.

Taylor-Wood is also a long-time collaborator with the Pet Shop Boys having produced films for their Somewhere concerts at the Savoy Theatre, London. She has also been guest vocalist on two Pet Shop Boys produced songs - their rendition of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... Moi non plus" and Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby". For the latter of these two releases, she used the pseudonym Kiki Kokova.

Taylor-Wood was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1997 (that's due again soon, mes bloggy loves - I get all excited about the Turner Prize. Sad puppess that I am!), and won the Illy Café Prize for Most Promising Young Artist at the 47th Venice Biennale.

In 2008, Taylor-Wood directed a short film Love You More, written by Patrick Marber and produced by Anthony Minghella (....j'adore), which was screened in Main Competition for the Palm D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

On 19 September 2008, Taylor-Wood and her art dealer husband, Jay Jopling, announced that they would be divorcing amicably for personal reasons.

In February 2009, Sam Taylor-Wood collaborating with Sky Arts chose Vesti la Giubba from Pagliacci to interpret. She commented: "I’m really happy to be involved in such a great project. I think by capturing one of opera's most moving moments in a film short, we have put a modern spin on the aria.""

Here are some linkies, should you wish to find out more:

Here

Here

Here and

Here