a field study of E17 art de-trailment

I have failed in my aim of getting to something of the E17 Art Trail each day this week due to the ravages of a late summer cold and some other 'psychological' conditions.

Sunday, 2/9/12 - I woke up drenched in cold sweat, obviously afflicted with E17 Art Trail post dramatic stress syndrome. In one of my nightmares I was tied to a tree much like St Sebastian and instead of arrows it was very pointy Freudian interpretations of dreams in the form of paper planes that pierced me - and even more nightmarish was the presence of a photographer also getting right in there for the definitive shot of the agony and ecstasy of my E17 performance art martyrdom. More no more no more.

I had to re-ground myself in a different garden of earthly delights and so headed up to the allotment and apiary in Chingford. After communing with Demeter and gathering up her gifts I realised there was still some time left to get back to E17 and 'do' another spot on the art trail.

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Dolores Rocket is in there

 

 

Dolores Rocket - Spot 161 - 15th/16th September 1pm - 6pm

 

 



FSMiE17 loves a shaggy dog story and so made his way to Shaftesbury Road E17 and the canine collective conceptions of Dolores Rocket as hosted by Julia Spicer. Who is Dolores Rocket? The answer is not so straightforward - neither in fact nor fiction, Dolores Rocket is the subject of an enjoyably mystifying trail starting from a very hospitable front door greeting all the way to the small but perfectly formed intimate back garden gallery wherein an assortment of disparate photographic, graphic and sculptural artefacts accompanied by oblique texts create an elusive character narrative. You can marvel at the juxtapositions - the clinical absurdity of  beard samples immaculately presented alongside mock shamanistic devices and black and white archival photo imagery. It is all very cool and wry and worth visiting for the excellence of presentation and the attention to detail alone.

Back in the house there was also a Dolores Rocket bookshop where serendipitously I discovered  a copy of  Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams. It was offered at a freudian snip of a price - just £2.50. - and being in very good condition I just had to have it. The silvers and coppers in my purse amounted to £1.60; not enough. It was an opportunity to try making an offer of a couple of handfuls of climbing french beans (fee fi fo fum) to supplement my meagre finances and so get a Freud. I'm happy to report he now sits on one of my bookshelves ready to impress some of my fictional friends and visitors. Oh yes, I'll say, he's very good; particularly in 'distortion' where he gets into coitus interuptus.

Monday 3/9/2012 After work I spent the evening involved in or with a rocket of an altogether different sort - making this one out of willow/withies in a form inspired by Oliver Jeffers, How to Catch a Star. The rocket is to be part of Elphinstone Road's communal contribution to the art trail on the 14th September; a lantern procession and installations along with other performances and contributions from the community.

So far so good but for the itch of a suspiciously dry nose soon followed by a ticklish and then sore throat. A sleepless dreamless night confirmed the onset of a cold. 

Tuesday 4/9/2012 - by the return of evening all sorts of viral (or is it bacterial?) pandemonium had broken out in Field Study's Man in E17. I began to wallow in the dribbled snot of snivelling self pity and abandoned the promise of the art trail for the fear of making an unwelcome gift of my nasty germs. How considerate. 

Wednesday 5/9/2012 - After work, a very long, hot and arduous day, involving Birmingham's Spaghetti Junction and Stratford Upon Avon, I made a brief visit to the allotment to water and harvest a little but I retreated quickly due to the increasingly vicious attentions of ankle nibbling midges and blood thirsty mosquitoes. Not quick enough; God! How they bit that evening! I shouldn't have called that photographer an ignoramus; I'm sure there is a connection.

Thursday 6/9/2012 - I came up with an idea for automatic interior wind screen wipers for a van driver with the sneezes and an excessively runny nose. Any constructive progress with this idea was obliterated by an all consuming rage felt towards the people responsible for closing Bond St all afternoon and therefore creating gridlock and mayhem in much of the West End. I let fly volleys of invective infected with demented abandon. 

By the evening I had become involved in a psychodrama involving my landlord, and was still very 'diseased', so had no time or, some might say, generosity of spirit, to get out there and visit some art trail venues and thus help encourage contributors that their efforts have been worth it. The psychodrama continued right through to Friday evening.
 

Friday 7/9/2012 - I rehearsed silly confrontations with my landlord while staring at the bestow/art trail image of a girl holding a house of some sort. I think she is offering the house up. She is holding the door to the house open with her thumb. I'm hesitant about going in; the house is a little sinister with those curious slits and holes for windows in the gable end. I put the cover illustration close to my ear and I do believe I heard the murmurings of letting agents preparing to dupe gormless twits like me with, let's say, alternative versions of the truth about renting in Walthamstow. Their guided tours of E17's desirable residences were being contrived in rhyming couplets - yak, but fairy tales get me everytime especially when they are in rhyme. Not for the first time this week did I experience a profuse cold sweat.

I managed to recompose myself for the landlord's visit. He made reassurances about the problems getting sorted out soon, and then left.The meeting was a psychodramatic anti climax but still a very tiring affair and so after a little perusal of the art trail listings for Saturday I went to bed. The next morning I began in earnest a process of re-trailment at The Mill and, amazingly, found myself in the company of thee voice of, The Great One.

Technomist has commented on the increase in local spider activity recently. This, I suspect, is no coincidence. Saturday promised to be an extraordinary art trail day.

Coming up next in this web of artful intrigue:

Field Study's Man in E17 gets stowned, marvels at some big comic paintings, gets lost in a David Lynch like dream,  and watches a shaggy bee story.