Artsmonkey Blog

And what started this train of thought?

Our government wants us to get out there and spend money to create a fiscal stimulus and calm the “potentially disastrous impact of the recession”. Let us be humble with our needs and our actions, let’s ensure that grand gestures are born of passion and tempered by wisdom and the obssessive, blundering behaviours that fuel our greed and selfishness are managed. Before we self-implode let’s look out for our neighbours, are they warm, will they be alone at Christmas? Do they need someone to listen to them? The man on the street begging may be surviving on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol but maybe a hot drink and a sandwich may remind him it’s not a ‘them and us’ situation and that now is the time to let in the professional support that’s out there. Does that make you recoil? It does me,  I’m rubbish at being a better person. Small steps, small acts of compassion, whatever it is, whatever you can offer. Hasn’t that got to be better than being a part of the world as represented by national news?

Steps slowly off soapbox… and falls over

Obsession however is all consuming, it destroys like the volcano and then implodes on itself. Is it obsession that drives us as a world? Obsession and greed that hand in hand walk through the world burning, pillaging to feed it’s need, it’s hunger? Here in the UK the news today is full of suicide bombers (fuelled by faith and driven by irrational belief) war atrocities (fuelled by greed, driven by hunger) retribution (fuelled by pain driven by pride) and the world-wide economic downturn (fuelled by greed driven by obsession?)

So what, I hear you yawn from the back row. Well, whilst we talk of managing our obsessions, what of humility? Increasingly people in the public eye are struggling to be humble and to say sorry, whether it’s the BBC over the Russell-Brand phonecall debacle or Hackney Local Authority over the death of Baby P. or the crush of people in job centers.

Woke up this Monday with questions:

When does passion become obsession? What tips a person over that razor sharp edge from say, admiring a celebrity into an obsessive need to know every detail of their life, search out every available photo and become a pseudo authority on the ‘object of their obsessions’ analyse every public move. What is the moment when a dispassionate distance is melted by the heat of a need to know more, pouring through magazines, internet sites, forums and chat rooms for more detail, more glimpses?

Is it the fine line between passion and obsession that draws and excites some people and scares other people off? Passion can be very attractive but unrestricted it can be overwhelming, off-putting. The strength, the voracity of the passion can be volcanic and destroy whatever stands in it’s path.

People with passion exist in all walks of life whether its passion for sport or technology or maths or history, art, furniture, houses, people…. the list stretches on into infinity. The important thing is the passion itself, that fuels and drives the possessor onwards needing to share, to convert, to inspire, to draw in, to recruit. Often with passion comes vision, sometimes people buy into it, sometimes they run from it. From Evangelism to mission to belief to unadulterated enjoyment, passion adds colour, excitement and focus to our lives. S/He who dares, wins?

Whilst the poor girl who came on to play the Harp before the match must have felt a million miles of detachment from the impatient crowd eager for the game to get going, she was a message. Music plays an important role in setting the patriotic tone of the game – allegiances are made, emotions toyed with as both the harpist, the band and choir who led the national anthems galvanise the audience, er sorry crowd, into a deeper emotional link with their team. In fact, with a bit more stage management the whole game could have left the crowd exhausted and begging for more.

Purists, I’m sure, could happily watch the game of Rugby played in a field half-way up a mountain and do without all the flim-flam but that doesn’t pay for the horrible polyester kit, sorry, I meant hi-tech, wind shear, shower proof, breathable membraneous sportwear – (whatever happened to those good, thick, quality cotton rugby shirts that actually look good on most people? ) and probably wouldn’t begin to pay the team’s nightclub bill for the celebration/commiseration party after the game to reward all the pre-match sweat, blood and tears of rigourous training.

You can tell I’m not sports orientated but I do appreciate the skill involved and am looking forward to seeing what Football and the Arts Award Academies get up to over the next year. The important thing is that young people have a chance to learn skills and that they have icons like Football & Rugby players to encourage them to aim high. The young welsh mascot who was marched on at the beginning of the game (alongside a goat??!) was beaming and it is very likely that he’ll be trying harder in PE for a good few months, if not years and as a result he might grow up to be a sportsman or maybe a sports commentator, a camera man or sound engineer, all equally vital parts of the modern world of Sports – if it wasn’t a good watch (ie. Entertaining) people like me would stay at home.

So we need to celebrate the opportunities where organisations invest in young people or they’ll end up like two young girls I bumped into at Cardiff Central, one clutching a bottle of Malibu, the other so high she couldn’t do her clothes up properly (or walk straight), overlooked by two stoic members of the St Johns Ambulance who’d voluntarily given up their Saturday night to be on hand with first aid, as the girls thrashed about in pursuit of a good time, looking like their ‘night out’ may just be about to end in the gloom of the platform one toilets.

Rugby is a bone crunching, awesome game when viewed from the heady heights of the Millenium Stadium, Cardiff. Choreography, speed, teamwork, body mass, muscle and nerve all come into play. This weekend’s Wales versus the Springboks (South Africa) brought 74k people to huddle under the roof of this city centre based stadium, causing network rail to galvanise staff at Cardiff Central into various attempts at shepherding those visiting safely in and out of the station (I wonder where the 6,000 people who didn’t make it got to?). Some shops saw fit to close before the game ended and I can see why, seventy four thousand people leaving a venue is quite a sight and it occured to me that if everyone there dropped a penny in the bucket that members of the Armed Forces were holding on behalf of the charity ‘Help for Heroes’ that would have been an easy seven hundred and forty pounds made, but it looked to me like most people had already spent their money on several pints of beer; I’m not a regular Rugby match attender but it does seem that this is as much a necessity as having a ticket.

It’s a sporting month in the youth arts universe; this month saw the launch of Arts Award Football Academies, an example of football and art coming together to work with young people on creative activities to gain a qualification. Already I have noted the almost dance-like grace of the Springboks where their defense was almost a choreographed routine taking them from one side of the pitch to the other with the Welsh team crashing about around them, literally like bulls in a China shop (Wales I was cheering for you, honest!) and I can see how the arts and sports are really not so different, who’s that rugby player gracefully holding his own in ‘Strictly Come Dancing’?

Glorious afternoon in Brighton. 

Our heartfelt thanks to Food Project volunteers/friends and to Feral Theatre Company for the wonderful storytelling. Homemade Toffee apples, soul cake, pumpkin soup and baked potatoes made for an unforgettable All Souls Day. Before we tore ourselves away, I couldn’t bear to dismantle my ‘inner child’, so left it hanging on a bush to scare the crows away.

Watch out for Feral’s new website and if you live nearby don’t miss their next event, heartwarming, affirming and brimming with friendly folk – plus the big adventure of finding it in the first place!