Pond study

Swimming in April

(Stories in the Trees, Anna Peach, history books, thread, Banyan tree roots)

Today, I wanted to swim outdoors. It being April, and my being in Switzerland did very little to deter me. I am one of those people who has an uncontrollable urge to get into any pool of water. I have had this feeling for years even though I nearly drowned at very bad swim lessons at age 8. I have been known to step into public fountains, and swim at night in phosphorescent plankton filled seas. I guess it is my way of feeling free. So with today's balmy air temperature, I set out on a mission to swim in the river. A swim in leg numbing glacial waters seemed just the thing to jolt me into feeling alive. The water smelled wonderfully of moss after a spring rain, a mother duck cruised by with ten offspring, and most of all I felt really grateful to climb back onto that island. Sometimes we get so caught in living by a certian set of rules that we forget what it is that makes us feel free. What is is to feel like ourselves...no matter how unconventional that may be.

Memoirs of an Artist Relocation

It seems like I have spent most of my life trying to attatch or detatch myself from places, but I never do very well at either. It takes me a long time to be inspired by a new home base, and this time is no exception. Switzerland in all its beauty and approachability in scale should be easy. But as six months have passed and I have created very little new work, I am beginning to wonder. My belongings just arrived after four and a half months at sea and then being mislabeled in a warehouse in England, where they sat and sat for another month before they pieced it together that those were the boxes in question. As an artist you always think about those things. How would it feel to suddenly have nearly all of your lifetime of work disappear. Since I am independent of a gallery, I am the one throwing my work in a box in the storeroom rather than the gallery doing it on my behalf. I have a haphazard list of some of the people that have my work in their collections. I know which pieces are currently being shown, and which ones were destroyed in a fit of fire or composting. Composting was a reluctant, but necessary part of the last move due to my use of hemp fibre that is supposed to be illegal in Switzerland. Hemp was my new fibre love in Hawaii due to the fact that it did not mold or mildew...probably the only thing in the whole state that could claim that title. But it is the composting that I regret because several of the things that were supposed to be banned ended up clearing customs in fine shape, including the seeded works that I took to the US Department of Agriculture to have them inspected. Wish I could have brought my camera in for that one! Sitting in an overly air conditioned box in Hilo airport holding a black seeded bustier as the nervous inspector repeatedly mistyped Sweden insted of Switzerland as he searched for plant importing requirements. Probably the only day anyone has ever broke a sweat in that icy office. So this bustier is now officially dedicated to the outstanding USDA Inspectors who helped me bring these works half way around the world. May they be inspired!