Countdown To Shilo

Oct 12, 2008

countdown to Shilo, the long list 1/2 done, prepare for the Canadian prairies in mid-autumn, what will it be? snow? rain? heat? or all?

will I sleep in the field? barracks (hard shacks)? what about food? my feet? my 850 km walk across northern Spain last year must have prepared me for something I hope. sleep dep., fatigue, stamina?

I remember a fellow war artist saying to me that the two words he wrote on the first day of his journal after joining the troops on Ex were: Performance Anxiety.

then he said, “drop it, have no preconceived ideas of what you will do.”

his work is amazing. continues to be amazing.

and yesterday, a 4 hr. interview for a newspaper. then I recorded a dozen pieces. Tues., a radio interview. suddenly, this project has a life of its own.

the Globe and Mail interview still not printed. they’re waiting for us (five artists) to start producing. I told the reporter that one war artist, who went to Somalia in 1993, is still working out material from that time. art is not sausages, I told the reporter, and we are not sausage makers.