7 Things Sunday

One. I’ve been doing my graduate placement at Inverleith House Gallery, which is a small contemporary art gallery located inside of The Royal Botanic Gardens (which as Spring approaches, I get continually more stoked about). I am currently conducting research into developing a patron funding scheme for the gallery, which has been a great experience so far and reminds me how small and networked the art world is. I find it really unique that this gallery is part of, yet still separate from the gardens. They often try to coordinate exhibitions that somehow relate to the nature around them, but I’ve had really interesting conversations with the staff around the struggle of being a house of contemporary visual art in the midst of botanical science, and the difficulty of communicating to visitors the correlation between the two. You’d be amazed at how irate people can be when they don’t “get” art.

Setting up for the Raoul De Keyser exhibition

Office bookshelves that I am obsessed with

Two. I’ve accepted a summer marketing and development internship with Art in Healthcare! AiH has a collection of 1400 contemporary artworks and use that collection to do site-specific commissions and rentals within the healthcare sector.  They also have outreach programming where professional artists deliver workshops in community settings/care environments and put on an annual exhibition of the art created. I am really, reallllly excited about this opportunity, which perfectly blends my visual art/art therapy/CNA/hospital work background with what I am learning right now. Plus, the office is in an amazing community arts centre that has the kind of natural lighting that makes an artist go weak in the knees. There’s also a random, giant, painted cow statue when you first walk in…which made me feel right at home. Hey, Iowa. Anyway, I will be tailoring my dissertation around the work I do for AiH and this will allow me to stay in Edinburgh and work for the art festivals in August, too! Woot, woot. Now I just need to find someplace affordable to live…ha…ha.

Three. Now that graduate placements are in full swing, I have been reaping the benefits of my classmates’ connections and access to comp tickets. This week Katie and I got killer seats for Dirty Dancing at the Edinburgh Playhouse. It was pretty awful (imagine lots of really bad visual effect screens and dancers who can’t act) so I’m glad we didn’t pay to go see it. But what the show lacked, the audience made up for in entertainment. SO many drunk middle-aged women who cheered and whistled whenever Johnny took his shirt off and literally got up out of their seats to dance during the final performance. And then I got to see The Scottish Chamber Orchestra at Queen’s Hall. A very different experience/audience spirit, but my first time at an orchestral performance. And it felt so foreign to just sit and listen to music. To watch music. With no distractions. It was a beautiful thing.

My hot date. And shout out to our Tanzanian waiter friend, Coleman, who gave us more wine than we payed for and didn’t run away scared when we saw him on the bridge later that night and I got so excited I nearly hugged him. You’re the man.

Four. If you’ve read to this point and/or follow me on social media, it probably appears like everything is beautifully amazing, falling together, and that I’m having the time of my life. Sometimes that is true and I want to pinch myself because I can hardly believe this is my life right now. But if I stop to think about everything that has happened since this time last year, I get this sensation of being in a tornado and I panic. Honestly, not a day goes by when I don’t feel sad and pissed off. Everyone around me tells me how well I’m handling everything, how they never have to worry about me, how balanced I am, etc. But for some reason, I hate hearing that. I find myself wishing I could easily slip into self-destruction mode and that I would do something really stupid because I honestly want to, I feel like it and I’m convinced that I have a reason/excuse/justification to. I play out all these scenarios in my mind and then I never do it. I can never bring myself to follow through with any of them. And yes, yes, I realize that being annoyed by the strength of your own conscience sounds pretty insane. So, I’ll just accept being a balanced-insane-person and bring it back to the point I wanted to make…which was that what gets shared is hearts and rainbows, because I cling to those life-giving moments to make the life-draining ones seem fewer and farther apart. But what pushes me to be better and feel better are the sweet people in my life who send me mail, take me to brunch, and join me in sporadic kitchen dancing (three things that are pretty much keys to my heart).

Can I have this for every meal?

Five. Since I haven’t had time for all the hiking I had dreamed I would be doing in Scotland, taking walks along the seaside has been my substitute. My head feels clearer when I’m near the water. The tide is so low right now that you can see ridiculously random items that have washed up on shore. Treasure hunt! Every few steps, I see something that makes me go…HOW DID YOU GET HERE?! Like, a hot water bottle with a pot leaf imprint or a pink ceramic frog. I also love how many textures there are on the beach and turning over rocks to find teeny tiny creatures. Six. I planned little summertime spiritual pilgrimage to the island of Iona, where the ecumenical Iona community has three residential centres. People from different backgrounds and parts of the world live and work together in community, putting on a variety of week-long programs and retreats centred around peacemaking, interfaith dialogue, social justice and the environment. Taking this trip is important to me because my faith has stretched and grown in new ways since I came here. I have been learning that there are there are ways God cannot grow you and there are things he cannot reveal to you unless you are, or willing to be, alone and in a place of isolation. I’ve been really challenging myself to face those places. To know my way around them. To consciously choose not to use crutches, but to keep walking even though things are broken and strained. To figure out what I’m afraid of. What I want. What I don’t want. To unclench my fists. To give up what is not mine to hold. And for me, there has been a level of honesty, a depth of relationship, and a drive to overcome my shit that I haven’t experienced until here and now. Seven. On top of work, placement, and classes…here’s what I need to accomplish in the coming weeks:

March 12: Fundraising/Sponsorship application pack

March 27: Group marketing plan and presentation

April 7: 2,500 word essay

April 9: 3,000 word essay

April 14: 3,000 word essay

April 17: 3,000 word essay

I might be off the grid for awhile.

Peace out, homies.

Love,

Taylor

P.S. This song:

A Look Back

I was reading through some writings from my time doing art therapy in Uganda and this one particularly stuck out to me this morning:

Each girl has a few minutes to draw whatever she would like. After a while, Megan and I asked them to close their eyes. With eyes closed, Megan and I took black markers and drew some sort of line on their drawing. Essentially, we messed up their pretty little pictures. After we let them express their shock and disappointment, we challenged them to make the black mark a part of their drawing. Turn it into something. Don’t let it ruin the picture, but instead think of it as an opportunity to create something new or different.

And just like that the black lines went from being dark, obstructive, and out of place to being jump ropes, snakes, mountains, gardens, boats, hearts, etc.

Sometimes in life someone or something comes along and messes up your picture. You weren’t ready for it. Your eyes were closed. Maybe you opened up your eyes only to see that someone abducted you at 14 years old and now you’re forced into killing people with your bare hands. Maybe you opened your eyes only to see that your spouse cheated on you and ran off with all your money. Maybe you opened your eyes only to see your house burning in a forest fire. Maybe you opened your eyes only to see that the dream you were chasing is never going to be a reality. Black marks look different for everyone, but they invade all of our pictures from time to time. A lot of people let black marks define their pictures. But, like we told the girls, “You and God in you are capable of making something good and beautiful come from something that once seemed dark and horrible.”

A friend recently told me, “God doesn’t eliminate evil. We don’t really see evidence of that. He transforms it.”

God doesn’t give or use erasers, He’s more creative than that.

I don’t know about some of you, but I’ve got lots of black marks in my picture right now. I feel like all I can do is pray and hold onto my marker. Challenge accepted.

Love,

Taylor