I also made a musical score using languages, which included hieroglyphs, seal scripts, numbers, shapes, symbols from alchemy, and created a score out of it.
At various times, your work involves permanence and impermanence. What has that taught you about art and life more generally?
I like to make works that are outside and ephemeral, so that they are available to people passing in the street. This frees the art from the context of the museum or gallery and makes it possible to engage the public with an invitation to question and think about their day.
This focus stems from the fact that, for me, all life is impermanence. I personally find it deeply reassuring, as I fall from cliffs of despair at times. I realize that I can dig my way out.
I love nature. And I love seeing my children grow up, bearing witness to the lives of my friends and loved ones. This, too, marks the impermanence of our existences – although you might say my feelings are permanent, in the sense they do not change. I should clarify: my core values do not change. I also see that we are all connected through our core values: love for our children, our relationship with death and medicine, faith and family relationships, adventure, love, war – getting from A to B.
My new work involves looking at honey, both as a material and as a way of looking at how society works. It is giving me a lot of opportunity to think about different perspectives. It may be the case that we all see the same reality but just interpret it differently: for example, while the flower may remain the same, how the bee sees the flower and how we see the flower may differ.
What is the relationship between art and craft?
You can be a very good craftsperson, but making craft is not art. In Japan the State nominates craftsmen to the status of Living National Treasure, when they innovate and
raise their craft to a higher level.
Maybe art is when something has become more than the sum of its parts? You look at a Fontana, for example: it is just a tear in a canvas and yet seems so much more.
You are a voracious reader who loves books. What books are you reading? Do you have recommendations you would like to share with readers?
As my interests are wide, I read a lot of different sorts of things. For example, during these past few weeks, I have been reading:
Radical, by Xiaolu Guo
The Marriage of Kim Kardashian, by Sam Riviere
Palace Walk, by Naguib Mahfouz
White Egrets, by Derek Walcott
Breath, by James Nestor
Picasso Cut Papers, by Allegra Pesenti
Let’s See, by Peter Schjeldahl
The Sacred Bee, by Hilda M Ransome
However, I love reading fairy stories. My friend Marina Warner is always recommending me things I love. Most recently from her I received Teffi, which caused me to stay up all night reading – eating chocolate with big hazelnuts and pistachios inside to keep me awake. I found all the gold wrappers around my bed! I have also started to read quite a lot of philosophy, as my daughter is interested in the subject and I like talking with her about it.
Meeting so many interesting people and hearing what they have to say, I have started keeping a journal within which I write weekly, so that I can share entries with my children. I use an app called Substack, which allows me to embed images and links, so I also have a record for myself. My intention is to keep this resolve going, so that one day I can sit with my children and have a chat about what I’ve shared. I have a thing about making feelings manifest, and this seems as good a way as any to show them I love them and I am thinking of them.
74