AUGUST
August. Already.
August is a strange month, when it’s still summer but soon it won’t be, with everything green maturing to warmer, yellowish shade before loosing its coolness completely to autumnal reds and ochres. Evenings are warm and still noisy with cicada songs but they start earlier now, and golden hour lasts longer, and air is sweeter.
I spend a lot of my time in the studio now. Ideas are flowing again after stagnation of July induced by heat and drought. When I work I often think in images. Sometimes images crowd words completely out of my brain when I finally emerge from my lair, usually hungry. I open the basement door and yell down into darkness “Do you want green goo sandwich?” My husband’s face pops out into a square of cellar stairwell “I hope you meant avocado”. The expression on his face is that of puzzlement and gentle concern.
I’m thinking about my attitude toward solitude. I emerged from quarantine semi-feral and never rejoined the society in a same way as before. My encounters with it are sharper and more meaningful now, with even a trip to post office being treated as almost an adventure, every conversation tucked away in a safe place in my heart to marvel at later (look it can still talk) but I’m done with the guilt. I don’t feel guilty or wrong anymore when I don’t leave the farm for weeks. It’s ten degrees cooler here in a summer and ten degrees warmer in a winter, my family is here and all my overly demanding pets, and days are full of butterflies and nights - of stars. And this is more than enough.
“AN ARTIST’S RELATION TO SOLITUDE:
An artist must make time for the long periods of solitude
Solitude is extremely important
Away from home,
Away from the studio,
Away from family,
Away from friends
An artist should stay for long periods of time at waterfalls
An artist should stay for long periods of time at exploding volcanoes
An artist should stay for long periods of time looking at fast-running rivers
An artist should stay for long periods of time looking at the horizon where the ocean and sky meet
An artist should stay for long periods of time looking at the stars in the night sky”
An Artist’s Life Manifesto: Marina Abramović
