A message to you from Paul Maddern and Nicole Fordham-Hodges

Paul Maddern

"If you visit Yorkshire Sculpture Park, make a point of stopping at the chapel to see 'Still' by Jem Finer (yes, of Pogues fame). 700 images taken by a static solar-powered camera of one woodland view. I was filled with trepidation, not being a fan of video-instillation 'art', but this was one of the most memorable experience in a gallery for quite some time. There were points where we all gasped*, and I noticed I wasn't the only one reaching for a tissue. (*Which sounds it was a ticketed event. It's not. It's free and you just drop in and out. There were about 5 of us who stayed the roughly 20-minutes it takes to watch this, including two young children who were spellbound.)

And here's a short extract  [see below] , which doesn't really do the experience justice."

......................and this has reminded me about one of the blessings of having M.E.. that one has to stop, to learn to be satisfied with not doing, with watching out of the window, of seeking nature to look at when one can, and although the energy levels are low, and like a lap top battery unreliable in the length of time one has to function at any sense of 'normal', life should perhaps be seen as a series of photos strung together, and like memory, every-time ones scans through them, they change a little, bringing colours you had not seen before to ones awareness...


.......................and then I stumbled across Nicole Fordham-Hodges's blog and poem today, and had to put it up here, and although it does not fit the video below in subject, 


read the poem, 
and then watch the clip
....all is well.

Notes from The Lodge Café

http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/Nicole-Fordham-Hodges-blog?item=1249&itemoffset=1

The man who keeps the empty café steps out
to drink his coffee. Leaving just me
on the veranda
having myself stepped aside from my life.

The radio is still on in the inside
nobody listening to it
- London’s Heart - as if it listens to itself.
Every now and then a song comes on
which someone might pause to:
like that Tom Waits' song
the way the old American sang it last night
not remembering the words
but the colour they came out
the way they span.

I think myself specially blessed
then its gone.
Light slides on and off my hair.
The owner steps back in.
Teaspoons. Birdsong.
I have left behind someone I need to kiss.

                                                            by Nicole Fordham-Hodges

STILL (low res excerpts) from Jem Finer on Vimeo.