4 Nov 09
Shocking though it was, the accident to my hand was not life threatening. I’ve been reading about events that were, the relentless bombing of Malta during the Second World War and the recent shootings in West Cumbria.
Page after page, the sappers in S.A.M. Hudson’s book, ‘UXB Malta the most bombed place on earth’, detect and defuse the barrage of unexploded bombs dropped from clear skies over target Malta. They twist wires, pull pins and never flinch. For the most part the RE bomb disposal officers and men survive the relentless aerial attacks and mop ups in tact.
Not so the unsuspecting victims of last week’s shooting rampage in an English countryside unused to and naturally unprepared for such random acts of violence.
When we were children, our toy weapons were for the most part harmless, defused by rule of law. We had toy guns and pistols, rifles for war, pistols for the Wild West. But there were strict rules to these children’s games. We were not allowed to point or shoot at humans, not even brothers and sisters in spite of their obvious suitability as targets. Pets were also off limits. The dog could go anywhere without fear of sniper shot or pistol practice. And who would shoot a guppy in a tank? Pointing deadly aim at an oak tree or randomly shooting flowers wasn’t quite the same.
There was, however, no mention of grenades.
I remember the summer we spent in Harrisville on the big lake. The large open plot next to the house was sandy and overgrown. We filled empty tins with the sand and hurled them skyward with all our might just to see how high and how far they could go. The loaded tins flew in silver arcs against the blue until the grenades hit the ground with a dull thud and an explosion of sand.
Little sister had been playing at the other end of the plot making sand cakes and castles. It’s not clear whether or not any of the grenade game had actually seen her there. All knowledge of her presence was denied at the subsequent inquiry. No one claimed responsibility for the direct hit.
As children knowing we were culpable did not stop us from protesting the innocence of our intent. As adults we could hide behind the words, collateral damage.
What was certain was that little sister had not seen it coming. She did not expect the sky to fall. She never thought she might be hit on the head by a sand grenade while day dreaming cakes and castles. But she was hit and the doctor who patched her up found much blood mixed with the sand and tears. In the aftermath of the accident our perpetrators’ guilt and punishment were relieved only by the tacit knowledge that one of us would be lucky enough to help Dad take out her stitches when the time came.
4 Nov 09 flowers, kitchen and hand
After the accident to my hand it took a while to realise there was something coming out of the end of my damaged middle finger, poking into the dried blood on the dressing. The same thing can happen in art; when we draw we look but don’t always see. I had been told there were breaks, severe lacerations and wire pins, but I didn’t really take it in. I did not expect to see a curved bit of metal protruding from my bandaged hand. I looked at the wire fuse sticking out of a cloth covered hand grenade and flinched.
Coming up next: dressing down
In your drawing that hand, your hand looks a mess! The wire cube is sympathetic to that! The drawing never lies… the artist is always stripped naked by the work.H
As in most arts, it’s not usual to show one’s sketches or works in progress. Showing the drawings feels a bit exposed as I did not intend to show these sketches when I drew them. I still don’t know what they might become if anything. They are not finished works nor were they intended as such. Sketches are not the work. A written diary is not a work of literature. Not in most cases anyway.
I take it you weren’t the one lucky enough to help take your sisters stitches out?!
I love the drawings, the hand and the cube seem to be as one, the cube looks like a surgical cage type contraption which has been attached to the hand to protect it.
Wonderful writing too. I could really picture that tin full of sand flying through the sky. Oooh ouch.
i told you not to look!
jacques cousteau
love the kitchen pic, hope your hand feels less ‘caged’ to you now and as youngest, I again missed all the fun…
Great blog, creepy sketches, love ’em! The cube totally gives me the goose bumps. It’s as if the wire goes through the hand. It reminds me of that injured soldier in the film Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. Now, about the two sketches of the injured artist: the titles justify the sketches themselves. In the Kitchen with crushed hand, the cutlery hanging over your head seems more hostile, as if those uncanny items are responsible for the accident and it might happen again –is the wire stable, are the hooks safe, are they going to fall off any minute now, is the stove or the teapot still burning hot? I can’t help but think of the Semiotics of the Kitchen by Martha Rosler and Jim Dine’s Tools. The 4th of November is not a sketch of an injured artist any longer but that of an artist whose healing has begun: the artist accepts the injury and having drawn something like two thousand self-portraits since yesterday, she decides to pay attention to those cute pictures on the kitchen wall; the kitchen is neither a hostile environment nor a terra incognita anymore: it’s your sanctuary, your home –and a quite cozy one at that. Thus the title: flowers, kitchen and hand. I think that what we have here is the final two of the five stages of grief (the Kübler-Ross model): depression and acceptance. During the first three, maybe you weren’t able to draw… Both pictures raise questions: are you drawing in front of a mirror, are you drawing your reflection or yourself, are you right-handed or left-handed, would you still draw if your –let’s say– right hand was injured and you were right-handed? Oh and check out Henry Moore’s tube sketches –since you mention bombings too. Hope there’s more to come. I’ll stick around.
Menelaos