Friday, January 06, 2006
Bounty
In preparation for an exhibition, a number of books and perhaps an artist or two will haunt my studio. It used to be quite easy locating these sources - all it meant was a pleasurable foray in the city or university library, lugging home the selection like a pirate with treasure. These days however, I hang out at MPH or Borders, taking notes discretely or reading as attentively as I can if I don't have pen and paper. (Staff at MPH will stop you if they see you copying anything out of their books. Besides, half of them are wrapped in plastic). In a very rare instance, after much hand wringing and consideration, I will buy a book that I feel is absolutely necessary.
Where I once had a sea of words, now I have trickle.
Which is not necessarily an entirely bad thing. It forces you to be more ingenious, far more focused, much more creative with filling the gaps in information. And it also gets rid of the danger of over-reading, which in my mind, is the first step towards artist's block, as you become enamored of other people's ideas, and forget your own.
Once in awhile, you will have some serendipitous meeting with a piece of work, like an obscure illegal DVD or a loan from a friend's book collection. People also give me books and burned music, which sometimes hits the mark, and sometimes misses it totally. Today I stumbled across a good, stout little second-hand book store called Payless Books, on the 1st Floor of Amcorp Mall.
(The dog is in her corner and having a dream. She twitches and bares her teeth at some internal threat)
So this bookstore. Clean, well-organized, a reasonably good range of books and honestly cheap. I would say some serendipity is involved here, because I walked in and at once found what I believe will be all the books I need for my upcoming exhibition. The list is:
Longitude : The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, by Dava Sobel
The Voyage of the Narwhal, by Andrea Barret
Post-Captain, by Patrick O'Brian
and Issue 61 of GRANTA (a literary journal published 4 times a year). Guess the theme. Yup, The Sea.
Total cost: RM 50
Together with a very expensive (the pocket has yet to recover from the shocking blow), but truly beautiful book that I bought - Early Mapping of the Pacific, by Thomas Suarez and Paul Auster's Collected Prose (also Annie Proulx's The Shipping News - a gift from P.), I feel perfectly well-equipped with words and ideas. These things are like my armor. Without them I would find it difficult, almost impossible to create anything. With them I enter into a battle with myself, the surviving bits of which will result in an exhibition of all-new work come April. Touch wood, touch wood, touch wood.
(By the way, did you know that 'touch wood' is a phrase with naval origins? It's because the ships were made of wood, see? Sailors would say something to the effect of 'Looks like clear weather' and then thump the wood under them, which of course was their ship, the one true thing they could rely on. Sorry, couldn't resist.) ¶ 1:09 AM
Where I once had a sea of words, now I have trickle.
Which is not necessarily an entirely bad thing. It forces you to be more ingenious, far more focused, much more creative with filling the gaps in information. And it also gets rid of the danger of over-reading, which in my mind, is the first step towards artist's block, as you become enamored of other people's ideas, and forget your own.
Once in awhile, you will have some serendipitous meeting with a piece of work, like an obscure illegal DVD or a loan from a friend's book collection. People also give me books and burned music, which sometimes hits the mark, and sometimes misses it totally. Today I stumbled across a good, stout little second-hand book store called Payless Books, on the 1st Floor of Amcorp Mall.
(The dog is in her corner and having a dream. She twitches and bares her teeth at some internal threat)
So this bookstore. Clean, well-organized, a reasonably good range of books and honestly cheap. I would say some serendipity is involved here, because I walked in and at once found what I believe will be all the books I need for my upcoming exhibition. The list is:
Longitude : The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, by Dava Sobel
The Voyage of the Narwhal, by Andrea Barret
Post-Captain, by Patrick O'Brian
and Issue 61 of GRANTA (a literary journal published 4 times a year). Guess the theme. Yup, The Sea.
Total cost: RM 50
Together with a very expensive (the pocket has yet to recover from the shocking blow), but truly beautiful book that I bought - Early Mapping of the Pacific, by Thomas Suarez and Paul Auster's Collected Prose (also Annie Proulx's The Shipping News - a gift from P.), I feel perfectly well-equipped with words and ideas. These things are like my armor. Without them I would find it difficult, almost impossible to create anything. With them I enter into a battle with myself, the surviving bits of which will result in an exhibition of all-new work come April. Touch wood, touch wood, touch wood.
(By the way, did you know that 'touch wood' is a phrase with naval origins? It's because the ships were made of wood, see? Sailors would say something to the effect of 'Looks like clear weather' and then thump the wood under them, which of course was their ship, the one true thing they could rely on. Sorry, couldn't resist.) ¶ 1:09 AM
