back in the back in the back in the ukkk

I’ve been back in the UK for a week and a half, back in my house for nine days. And still feel very peculiar and different, somehow. The main thing is that I am having an aversion to ‘things’. Johnny and Charlie, my tenants, and I, shared a storage unit when I went away - I put all my ‘things’ in it and left them my furniture, and they stored their furniture in it. I now have a real resistance to unpacking the stuff: I’ve written a list of about five things that I’d really like - my dressing gown, some towels and sheets, my sewing kit ... but I can’t imagine what all the other stuff can possibly be and why I accumulated it. I certainly haven’t needed it over the last six months and to be honest can’t imagine why I would ever need it again.   

I feel like this is a very important place to be in my life, so I’ve decided to keep the storage unit on till the end of the year which will give me a bit more time to decide what’s going to happen.  I already did the ‘Mari Condo’ thing with all my stuff last year (rationalising it and only keeping the things that “brought me joy”) so when I packed it away I really thought it had been pared down to the minimum - but that is clearly not the case. I now totally understand the freedom of people who don’t want to live in a house, whose only possessions are those they can carry with them. 

So yes I admit I’ve come back with a kind of madness about me, but I’m enjoying the freedom of playing with these new ideas and seeing what will happen next. 

Living in a cohousing project means that I have varyingly close relationships with 41 neighbours and it’s actually been lovely to reconnect over this last week. Johnny has arranged a ‘welcome back” party for me (and other travellers) tonight with music and snacks ... which will be a good time hopefully to do some more reflection and connection. I am noticing that I am much more able to be present in conversations than I was before I went away - I’m less distracted by other tasks and deadlines and much more interested in people and conversations. 

I’ve just about linked back up with my two jobs - helping to run Halton Mill and managing the events and outreach for the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities.

However , two extra curricular big projects have big deadlines at the same weekend, irritatingly ... I’m helping to put on a Klezmer dance workshop and Klezmer Ceilidh on 17 Nov

and also the 18th Nov is  the opening of the Hannah Frank 110th birthday exhibition - a show of the art of my late aunt who died at the age of 100 ten years ago and studied at the Glasgow School of Art in the 1920s. 

I’ve been up and down to Scotland twice in the last week and four times in the last month to work with my fabulous Glasgow uni volunteer interns - they’ve done an amazing job curating the show, designing the poster, doing marketing and social media, liaising with schools and other groups, and generally pulling together. They’ve been an exemplary team, taking on different roles and supporting each other . Two of them, Lilith and Sylvie, met with me and an ‘art accessibility’ expert on Monday evening to discuss making the show accessible to blind people, and Lisa, another of the team, and I spent a couple of hours with a group of blind and partially sighted people at Visibility Glasgow on Tuesday morning, finding out what they’d want in an ‘accessible art exhibition’. 

We introduced them to my aunt’s personality, poetry and journals, through the lovely film made ten years ago by Sarah Thomas, and they were able to experience the art through metal printing plates that were made in the 60s to reproduce her drawings, and also, of course, through the sculptures. 

We have weekly tours arranged during the exhibition, and we now plan to make three of those tours accessible to people with visual impairment - including audio descriptions of the art works, getting the sculptures out of the glass cases, and including the metal printing plates

     

and also arranging escorts from the subway and local bus stop. We’re also thinking about bringing some of the drawings to life with floaty cloaks, long flowing hair and flowers ... for the full tactile experience. 

It was spending time with Ed (my blind goat farmer friend) in Ireland over the last months, and hearing about his experience with an art project in Cork, which got me thinking in this direction, and it’s been totally elating and rewarding to see what we can do to bring art to life for a group of people who are in the main excluded from appreciating it. 

I’m off to Glasgow again on Tuesday to meet an embroiderer who may run a creative workshop during the exhibition - depending on the results of the Creative Scotland bid (that readers with good memories will recall i resubmitted last month from a Coworking space in Arles). 

And we’re hanging the exhibition on Wednesday ready for the launch on Sunday evening. Full details of the show, talks, walks, activities and tours on the website www.hannahfrank.org.uk 

I haven’t had a moment to think about my podcast series since being at home, except to think that the title ‘Fiona’s Travels: fascinating conversations and traditional music’ is pretty much the description of my life ! This week I was playing traditional music for dancing on Tuesday evening and traditional music in a session on Thursday evening in Lancaster, and plan to go to Preston for the monthly Irish session on Sunday   afternoon.   And I’ve had amazing conversations - for example with Cat Smith, MP for Lancaster , in the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre (at a gathering I hosted for Lancaster and Lakes Jewish Community).. with Gwen Knox, an Australian woman who’s doing a Churchill Fellowship tour looking at how puppets and storytelling can be used in post conflict communities (she was at one of the music sessions)...  and with several of my neighbours and Halton Mill colleagues. 

And I’ve spoken to one of the organisers at the wonderful Incredible Edible Todmorden project, by phone, to provide some context for the Incroyable Comestible Arles interview I did last month . 

I’ve also done a brilliant energising yoga class here in Halton with Rebecca in her gorgeous River Room, cycled to and from Lancaster three times, and generally remained on top of things. I actually feel different even walking down the street - I can feel myself radiating new energy and I have a different strength and fitness, I’m breathing differently and walking taller and more openly somehow. 

I’m still waiting for someone to donate me that big Apple computer I fancy (yes that is a possession, but also a tool which will help the creative podcast process along). 

And I look forward to seeing how this ‘newness’ develops over the next months when I will be hunkering down in the UK watching with horror how Brexit develops and trying to do my bit for connections and access.  

Thanks for following my adventures !

Best wishes and love
Fiona 
ps if you'd like to come to the opening of the Hannah Frank exhibition or the Klezmer Ceilidh or dance workshop, please do! Book by going to trybooking.co.uk and searching for 'Hannah Frank' or 'Klezmer Lancaster'