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MW: You are both
a writer and an artist; which of these would you say comes first? AF: There is only one art: there are states of consciousness that we experience, and for me these are reflected in making-alone, making-sharing, making-memory, making-imagining, but none of these comes first. I find that whatever I am doing, whether it is working with ideas, words or images, exists within this chain of terms, but I never find it meaningful to consider the work as defining a role, such as writer or artist or publisher. The idea comes and then settles into words-or-words-and-images. The categories themselves – writing, art – seem to have been so thoroughly sifted and threshed, and their usage has more to do with academies and economics than it does art – there are aspects of “literature” which are clearly more in sympathy with aspects of “art”, than with other aspects of writing – for instance, Tom Raworth or Maggie O’Sullivan. The books by your bed and the films you watch – in terms of your experience of culture and value, can you really, would you want to, separate these and surround with high walls? It is the nature of imagination and memory that matters. How wordsandimagesandideas are is ways, and ways don’t have one origin, one preferred route, one destination. I can’t imagine that I could ever restrict myself to one activity, as it always seems to me that you need aspects of one way to ‘forgive’ the other. So, if I write a poem and make it into a woven name tape, and I give that to you, and you sew it into your shirt, and take a photograph of it, and then I publish that, is that poetry, performance, visual art, book, or is it more a work which has touched you in different ways and at different points in time? MW: I think you've got it exactly right about all artistic disciplines amounting to the same thing, but i'm less clear on what you say about states of consciousness. Isn't the act of artistic creation to do with things like skill and technique and and control, whereas consciousness is more a matter of something far looser, more spurious, more volatile? AF: Perhaps it is more that works pass through, and then again allow us to pass through the same state? If you sew the woven poem then, in that act you will be with the poem in a different way – one that does not depend on technique or skill, and one that is not simply a passive act of reading. At that point you become part of the making. I don’t think that the points of origin of works have such a clear starting or end point as is commonly assumed, and as soon as you begin making work with people, collaborating, then it opens out this process, and it becomes clear just how much is happening in the states of consciousness that pass within and between people. It is the between aspect that I love most of all, and it the between that is so much what art is. I love the between that occurs in a renga linked verse, when you experience sharing consciousness in a subtle way. The act of creation can only take place within consciousness, so, I don’t believe that there is essentially any difference between the touch flame when an idea arises in the artist, and the moment when a work of art is alive in the reader – true they are giving themselves to different experiences, but isn’t the touch is the same thing touching; or, as Robert Duncan says: it exists only in its dance, only to its dancers. Outside the creative excitement, what we call the inspiration of art, the things done do not communicate. The poet and the reader, who if he is in intent in reading becomes a new poet of the poem, come to write or to read in to participate through the work in a consciousness that moves freely in time and space and can entertain reality upon reality”.MW: How would you relate these ideas about creativity to the things that you are working on at the moment? AF: I have been working on a number of pieces that are shared or participative. The renga is the most obvious, and this involves a group of people sharing a days writing, to compose a linked verse together. Usually we write on a special wooden renga platform that I had made, a simple architectural structure for the event. So far we have completed twenty or so renga, with over 100 people taking part in total. The thing that I find endlessly fascinating about renga is that the writing is only one aspect of the day – the product – but just as important is the mood or the feel of the thing. This is very subtle, and the more I have considered it the more it seems to me the experience is the art. Although it is difficult to discuss this, except in terms of mood – sharing, ease, vulnerability, love – and in terms of the practice or form – writing process, a space to listen, architecture – really I think that it is a political work. It is what Beuys would call a ‘social sculpture’, and it exists within the context of work by contemporary artists which concentrates on modes of discussion, participation, democratic process, and so on. The work is political because it involves opening out writing from a private act, a participative structure, and a non-economic active social experience. I mean, I have learnt much about relationship, respect and aspiration form these events. I also publish a series of postcard participations, inviting people to take part in projects. These are open to anyone, and include slides of Wind Blown Clouds, Mesostic poems written from the names of flora, a collection of Circle Poems, and Football Haiku. Whenever I think of a new form that can be easily communicated then I invite people, and the work that results becomes an archive, from which I select pieces for anthologies. It is a pleasure to work this way – recently I received a parcel of beautiful wind blown clouds from an 8 year old boy in Uruguay, and a suite of innovative and delightfully witty mesostics by Ira Lightman. The clouds project is a way to get beyond my own uselessness as a photographer, but then it also becomes a process of research into how different people think of a wind blown cloud, and into the skies of the world. I have constructed a wooden cabinet archive for all of the slides, as if one could collect all of the skies of the world. With the mesostics, I have written a great number myself, but Ira’s have such a different feel to mine, and I love that the anthology will have all of these different tone of growth. Again, the public aspect of these projects and the ways in which they elude peoples status or specialisms, does have a socio-political aspect. As I said before, for me its more about identifying ideas than it is about restricting myself to particular mediums. The poems that I have been working on are in the form of rubber stamps – a series of Circle Poems – and woven name tapes – a series of pairs, sewn into Y-fronts and panties – , and working with these materials the process of making the poem is endlessly extended, and there is a sense in which each realisation of the poem becomes in itself unique. MW: You are both a writer and an artist; which of these would you say comes first? AF: There is only one art: there are states of consciousness that we experience, and for me these are reflected in making-alone, making-sharing, making-memory, making-imagining, but none of these comes first. I find that whatever I am doing, whether it is working with ideas, words or images, exists within this chain of terms, but I never find it meaningful to consider the work as defining a role, such as writer or artist or publisher. The idea comes and then settles into words-or-words-and-images. The categories themselves – writing, art – seem to have been so thoroughly sifted and threshed, and their usage has more to do with academies and economics than it does art – there are aspects of “literature” which are clearly more in sympathy with aspects of “art”, than with other aspects of writing – for instance, Tom Raworth or Maggie O’Sullivan. The books by your bed and the films you watch – in terms of your experience of culture and value, can you really, would you want to, separate these and surround with high walls? It is the nature of imagination and memory that matters. How wordsandimagesandideas are is ways, and ways don’t have one origin, one preferred route, one destination. I can’t imagine that I could ever restrict myself to one activity, as it always seems to me that you need aspects of one way to ‘forgive’ the other. So, if I write a poem and make it into a woven name tape, and I give that to you, and you sew it into your shirt, and take a photograph of it, and then I publish that, is that poetry, performance, visual art, book, or is it more a work which has touched you in different ways and at different points in time? MW: I think you've got it exactly right about all artistic disciplines amounting to the same thing, but i'm less clear on what you say about states of consciousness. Isn't the act of artistic creation to do with things like skill and technique and and control, whereas consciousness is more a matter of something far looser, more spurious, more volatile? AF: Perhaps it is more that works pass through, and then again allow us to pass through the same state? If you sew the woven poem then, in that act you will be with the poem in a different way – one that does not depend on technique or skill, and one that is not simply a passive act of reading. At that point you become part of the making. I don’t think that the points of origin of works have such a clear starting or end point as is commonly assumed, and as soon as you begin making work with people, collaborating, then it opens out this process, and it becomes clear just how much is happening in the states of consciousness that pass within and between people. It is the between aspect that I love most of all, and it the between that is so much what art is. I love the between that occurs in a renga linked verse, when you experience sharing consciousness in a subtle way. The act of creation can only take place within consciousness, so, I don’t believe that there is essentially any difference between the touch flame when an idea arises in the artist, and the moment when a work of art is alive in the reader – true they are giving themselves to different experiences, but isn’t the touch is the same thing touching; or, as Robert Duncan says: it exists only in its dance, only to its dancers. Outside the creative excitement, what we call the inspiration of art, the things done do not communicate. The poet and the reader, who if he is in intent in reading becomes a new poet of the poem, come to write or to read in to participate through the work in a consciousness that moves freely in time and space and can entertain reality upon reality”. MW: How would you relate these ideas about creativity to the things that you are working on at the moment? AF: I have been working on a number of pieces that are shared or participative. The renga is the most obvious, and this involves a group of people sharing a days writing, to compose a linked verse together. Usually we write on a special wooden renga platform that I had made, a simple architectural structure for the event. So far we have completed twenty or so renga, with over 100 people taking part in total. The thing that I find endlessly fascinating about renga is that the writing is only one aspect of the day – the product – but just as important is the mood or the feel of the thing. This is very subtle, and the more I have considered it the more it seems to me the experience is the art. Although it is difficult to discuss this, except in terms of mood – sharing, ease, vulnerability, love – and in terms of the practice or form – writing process, a space to listen, architecture – really I think that it is a political work. It is what Beuys would call a ‘social sculpture’, and it exists within the context of work by contemporary artists which concentrates on modes of discussion, participation, democratic process, and so on. The work is political because it involves opening out writing from a private act, a participative structure, and a non-economic active social experience. I mean, I have learnt much about relationship, respect and aspiration form these events. I also publish a series of postcard participations, inviting people to take part in projects. These are open to anyone, and include slides of Wind Blown Clouds, Mesostic poems written from the names of flora, a collection of Circle Poems, and Football Haiku. Whenever I think of a new form that can be easily communicated then I invite people, and the work that results becomes an archive, from which I select pieces for anthologies. It is a pleasure to work this way – recently I received a parcel of beautiful wind blown clouds from an 8 year old boy in Uruguay, and a suite of innovative and delightfully witty mesostics by Ira Lightman. The clouds project is a way to get beyond my own uselessness as a photographer, but then it also becomes a process of research into how different people think of a wind blown cloud, and into the skies of the world. I have constructed a wooden cabinet archive for all of the slides, as if one could collect all of the skies of the world. With the mesostics, I have written a great number myself, but Ira’s have such a different feel to mine, and I love that the anthology will have all of these different tone of growth. Again, the public aspect of these projects and the ways in which they elude peoples status or specialisms, does have a socio-political aspect. As I said before, for me its more about identifying ideas than it is about restricting myself to particular mediums. The poems that I have been working on are in the form of rubber stamps – a series of Circle Poems – and woven name tapes – a series of pairs, sewn into Y-fronts and panties – , and working with these materials the process of making the poem is endlessly extended, and there is a sense in which each realisation of the poem becomes in itself unique. |
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interview essay review |