Creating with what already is - A simpler art
After Lava Rocks, our first performance
Lava Rocks
Last week, finally came the time for our first performance, Lava Rocks, with my love Olivier Esposito, at one of our favourite bookshops/cafés here, Tills & Company, for Fair Saturday Scotland. It was a first performance for us together, and for me altogether.
The idea had emerged at the beginning of the summer, when I had longed for us to write a show together. Even before then, we had fantasised about taking the stage for Fringe, or after our Open Mics attempts. It seemed a daunting task, with much work to accomplish to get there. At the end of the summer, I had noticed a call out for the Healing Arts festival, that was right up our street, but we had other things going on, and not enough time to plan for it. However, this meant than a couple of months later, when I saw another call out for Fair Saturday, my mind was primed and ready to jump at the opportunity.
We had a couple of months ahead of us: the first to imagine the show and find a location, the second to market it, and rehearse. While I’m sure we could have written an entirely new performance in a month with devotion and focus, we were working on other things, and we didn’t have to. There was a simpler path, the obvious one, one of least resistance.
Our minds, especially our not very self-confident selves, seemed to be wired to forget all the creations we have in the drawers, and how we could utilise them or create something new out of them, or perish the thought, market them in a new way to bring them to a newer audience. Of course, creating something completely new out of nothingness is a beautiful process, but sometimes, the circumstances call for something else.
And so, our performance Lava Rocks, with an idea and intention for an audience in mind, was starting to be shaped with what we already have: our stories, our own paths of healing, our healing practices, Olivier’s songs, my poetry, my prose, and our own specific voices and lights. We found a thread and unravelled it. I chose the right texts to fit with the songs, translated some of them into English, cut and edited them. Then, came the blending and merging process, to bring flow into the show, and somehow, it all alchemized…
and from the old, we created the new, Lava Rocks.
Although not perfect, it was very well received and it carries a lot of potential for future events.
What hides in your artist drawers?
There were many lessons, joys, gratitudes and learnings with this first performance, but what I wanted to impress upon today, is the idea of giving new shapes, new opportunities, new lights and new forms to your art, especially if it had been laying dormant in the darkness of your computer drawers, if it hasn’t seen the daylight for a long time, if it hasn’t found its audience, and to consider that perhaps, there is some magic to be found in the reshaping, in the blending, in the bringing to light, anew.
So come on, be honest with me. What do you have hidden in the corners of your laptop and you haven’t fully brought to light yet? A screenplay, a poem, a drawing, a song, a book? How can you honour them now? How can you bring them to light in the new year? Where are you blocking your own process, by stopping at the same stage of life and art with everything you create?
For me, I know I have blocked my art from coming into the physical world, letting it remain digital only, if not hidden. Doing a performance like this with my poems and prose, is a step towards the physical world, if only ephemeral. I look forward in the next year again to work on bringing materiality and physicality to my art, hopefully in the forms of physical books - stay tuned! How about you? Where is the block, how can you do things differently with what you already have? What new shapes could your art take?
And if truly, you have nothing in your drawers yet - truly, truly nothing - then it’s the magical first step! You get to start completely new, and that’s absolutely beautiful too!
I look forward to discover more of your art in the new year, whichever form it finds, and till then, I’m so grateful for you, for your reading and attention over this past year. It’s been a pleasure to come back to this page and space and share with you my art, reflections and healing offerings. I look forward to continue in the new year, in this form, or anew.
I wish you a beautiful and bright end of the year, and I can’t wait to connect more in the new year, with always, art, love, healing and light.
Till then, I have made a 3 hours accountability video for your own creative, art or writing practice. Filmed over a 3-day self-writing retreat, it is mostly an ASMR writing body-doubling session, with a few musical interludes and chatty breaks. I hope you enjoy it and that it serves you well over the winter, in length or in parts, for your own art retreats and practices.
Thank you, with all my heart, I send you blessings and light for the winter,
xx
Lucie
