10. I spent my life looking for my self’

BREN HEAD
Self
When you get sectioned and I phone,
you don’t know how you got there or
what day it is. Visiting with tulips I hear
Duncan from art school is making his mark,
how you want kids, a wife, to get rich like Duncan,
that the Pope is a good egg, that you hate the way
tulips’ perfect buds petal out then disintegrate
and I see your difficult paintings – the hard face
of the premises, gutter-pipe come adrift, trellis
disengaged from masonry, uncontrolled clematis
though you’ve softened a statue’s fractured face,
captured the intimacy between bird and struggling worm,
the messiness of autumn, and that locked gate,
the hill you’re not allowed up, a path wending on
lined with solar lamps that are self-lighting
whatever ‘self’ is, you would once have added,
catching hold of me in my little skirt, your eyes
blue, cool, no sighting of any tight-inside nub
if you ever had one, your tie hanging un-true,
its bad knot, collar buttoned up wrong, hilarious.
Poetry
The above is another poem about the lovely artist boy with schizophrenia, the second of my minder Sue Vickerman’s contributions to SCHIZO DIPTYCH (see last week’s post), the collaborative installation at Grassington Festival created together with printmakers Helen Peyton and Tony Connolly. Both poems, by the way, will appear in Sue Vickerman’s half of our joint poetry collection THIN BONES LIKE WISH-BONES, due out in September 2013 (Indigo Dreams Publishing). You might prefer my poems to Sue’s. Mine are less… Hers are more… Oh, you’ll need to read them.
This post’s heading, by the way, is a quote from the biography of Doug Binder‘s favourite artist Keith Vaughan which Doug had brought in for me when I modelled at Dean Clough on Monday (“but I need it back next week before I go on holiday, I never go away without it”). Self-confessed homosexual sex-addict Vaughan killed himself aged 65.
Life
Having (along with my minder Sue Vickerman) a theological background, I am predisposed to bringing religion into things. Ye of religious heritage will know how hard it is to shake it off. What interests me is definitions of psychosis.
In religious contexts, is a psychotic episode deemed to be a [harmless and respectable] ‘spiritual experience’?
A cleric speaking from the pulpit can say ‘God spoke to me’ without getting carted off by the men in white coats. Conversely the wino on the bench in the shopping centre who says ‘God spoke to me’ has a mental health problem.
I’ve found a blog on this theme, called ‘Spiritual Emergency’. Its anonymous writer describes undergoing a transformative experience, or ‘psycho-spiritual crisis’, lasting about six weeks, an experience which would conventionally be identified as psychotic and result in a diagnosis of schizophrenia. ‘Anonymous’ believes however that this type of experience might equate with an array of religious terms/concepts: kundalini awakening, shamanism, mysticism, gnosis, the dark night of the soul… “I was simply an individual in a great deal of pain doing my best to get through it”.
Is the madness of artists/ men/ any of us just (‘just’ not being the right word) high-intensity experience? Experience which – however extremely distressing – ought not to be treated with drugs and institutionalisation?
Art
You may have noticed that you can now upload pics with your replies. I am so pleased that two people posted samples of artwork last week. More, please! For any reason or no reason, just put up your work. See whether anyone has anything to say about it! (Scary though, huh?). Or post pictures of anything you wish. It might be something that’s being discussed, like, Euan Uglow’s life drawings (they get waved around in every taught group I do). But I don’t mind at all if you e.g. introduce me to your dog.
There is this brilliant dog called Harry in Skipton (which is also brill: a cute posh Yorkshire town). If he happens to be the dog that reads this blog – as in, my assumed audience of three punters and a dog – please, Harry, put your photo up. You are lovely. Be the first dog.
Living Alone
Last week I trained/aeroplaned it to darkest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to Marlene’s party (old friend from Berlin days). I love East Germans, they are full of good ideas about how to save money/ beat the system/ re-moisten dried-out cheap tobacco (put a piece of orange rind or apple peel into the pouch. Adds flavour too).
I got home late Monday night with loads to tell, but nobody to tell it to…
What is the solution? Not ‘phone someone’: I can’t afford chats on my mobile. Not some sort of meditative practice to make me all happy and contented with my single self: will not work – am too superficial. NOT Guardian Soulmates: I don’t want ‘walks in the country, cuddles, maybe more’. Not ‘get a cat’.
Living alone
At the party I met Ilka my ex (she of my Big Relationship: 17-year one) and her new partner Anna, with whom she has recently had a blessing ceremony in the Swedish Lutheran Church. I have been telling everyone Ilka’s got married. However this is not, I have been firmly told, the correct term. Marriage is husband and wife, clarified my Methodist parents as they very kindly drove me to Grassington to see my installation at the Arts Festival.
As the UK Parliament moves towards legalising same-sex marriage, how many of us find it genuinely controversial?
Does it matter what the Christians say?
I’m off to Paolo and Nathan’s civil partnership next weekend and all of us are saying they’re ‘getting married’. (In a cocktail bar in Leeds! How deliciously secularly celebratory is that). I say, let the Christians continue muddling on in their corner with their little self-torturing issues: the rest of us are doing what we want, how we want to, in the legitimate pursuit of happiness.
Aren’t we?
STOP PRESS!
1. FANTASTIC review of Sue Vickerman‘s novel Special Needs by writer Catherine Coldstream. She wrote it for Amazon. Sue is bowled over. I am blowing Sue’s trumpet for her because I want people to buy the blinking thing. See Catherine’s review on ‘Book reviews’.
*GOC = God’s Own Country
This week’s pic: Bren Head hates to be called Brenda. Her abbreviation makes me want to elide her full name into Bread. Bren – ‘Bread’ – belongs to the Redbrick Mill gang of artists. This painting is what Edward Munch’s model looked like after the hysterical screaming. Drained.
OLD COMMENTS
These were the 20 Responses from the original blog. They have been copied here to the newly revised website. It is possible to add further comments below
- chris murray says:
Doing what I want, how I want is the reason I make so many people around me unhappy. As a Christian I believe I should love my neighbour as myself. That’s not, to my thinking, a self-torturing issue but a route to the happiness we all legitimately crave. And here is a picture of Harry who does not have to worry about any of these things; he does what he wants, how he wants but we are working on that aren’t we Harry…. woof woof says Harry.

- Sue Vickerman says:
Some of Suki’s best friends are Christians. Suki can be petulant and offensive sometimes. I have to live with her.
LOVELY DOGGIE – this is Harry everybody! Thank you for reading my blog Harry.
‘The pursuit of happiness’ is enshrined in the American consitution, from whence comes my inspiration. In the constitution it doesn’t add ‘so long as you don’t hurt others’, but we can surely take that as a given.
There’s an oh-so-familiar (from my Christian days) ‘beating myself up’ tone, Chris, in your sentence about how you make people unhappy by doing what you want to do. As in, you’re applying a bit of the aforementioned self-torture.
In my opinion, it’s just not necessary.
We can do what we want. We really can. As long as we’re not hurting anyone.
As my interfering minder Sue Vickerman informed you, some of my best friends are Christians and are in fact ordained (I studied theology. I myself went the Wrong Way (-: ). They are people with special, exceptional gifts that I haven’t got – they nurture and take care of others with a passionate drive; they are community-builders; they are idealistic, intense, full-on, 100% committed to human life and well-being. I need them. We need pastors in society. I want them there.
I tend not to know personally the type of Christian who fears difference and wants to regulate against that. My friends are all pretty amazing.
Not that fear of difference is a specifically Christian problem; that’s just human insecurity.
- Bel says:
I have a photo of Harry. Unfortunately it is on my laptop in the UK and I am in France. I will post it here on my return as long as Chris thinks that Harry would sign a model release form. (I’m sure “woof, woof” would suffice.)
– B
Thank you Bel, I am looking forward to this! I mean, as long as you agree, Harry. Lovely Harry.
woof woof wooof
Three punters, a dog AND a hedgehog. Here’s an unfinished page from my reworking of Senex – Senex Redux – which is about an old man finding himself.

THANK YOU Nic for posting a… a hedgehog.
It does look a bit like a dog though.
Re: ‘old man finding himself’ – I am still reading this biography of artist Keith Vaughan lent to me by Doug Binder, working out why it is almost Doug’s bible…
Vaughan’s life as an artist is an intense quest. Painting, for him, is about making sense out of an otherwise senseless life.
Does that speak for all of you artists out there?
Grahame Green (quoted in Vaughan’s biog) is described as ‘speaking for all artists/creatives’ in his assertion that “writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint, manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human condition”.
I do identify with the above.
I do what I want (and nothing wrong with that!), which is write. Although this might sound to others like a pretty flimsy activity, there is nothing else which gives me a sense of a meaningful ongoing future life.
But I worry that all this smacks of a ‘more sensitive than thou’ elitism on the part of creatives, because EVERYBODY is on a search for meaning.
Introducing Hamish. He is a poser well known in Settle. He knows he is something of a dog pin up…people melt in front of him. It’s terrible! You can’t just go to the shop or pub without running into his fans or admirers, or a passing tourist hoping for some little snippet of recognition from him. Imagine you meet Tony Curtis or Marilyn Munroe on the street (well pretend it’s 1962 for a few seconds) and you crave some fleeting attention from them…that is what Hamish does to people. He is picky, you might not get the attention you crave. He may snub you. That’s a sort of stardom in dog land! However, for the owner who just wants to get The Craven Herald, it can be quite vexasperating!
- Mike Crompton says:
Hamish.

Hamish, welcome, you are an enhancement to my blog.
Are there any other dogs reading this?
I was at my friend’s wedding last weekend. It was one “with” church and I quite liked it. The ceremony was quite personal and the priest funny. Whatever, I would be a hypocrite to marry in church. I wouldn’t be able to say ‘yes’ when asked to raise my children in the Christian belief, and I am not fond of the Catholic church.
I found out it was a ‘Pope’ illustration that made Tina Berning (a fashion illustrator mentioned on this blog some weeks ago) famous. The funny thing is, she accidentally drew him with six fingers and was scared this might end in disaster if the Pope noticed… But thankfully there were no consequences.
It’s not just the Christians who find it controversial. I think it’s uniting Muslims and Jews too, which could prove an answer to various religious conflicts. Just parachute crack teams of gay commandos into trouble spots to get all fabulous, and watch the Protestants and Catholics/Sunni and Shiite forget their troubles and unite in bigotry.
I don’t think the rest of us are that bothered. I did pick up an old copy of the Mail (it was on the bus, honest!) ranting about how same sex marriage was just about the only thing this “supposedly Conservative” government has achieved, which amused me, however. Poor old Dave is upsetting the hang’em and flog’em brigade without getting any votes from the rest of the country for his pains!
I think people with an ‘Artistic Bent’ seem to see life through different eyes. Not always rose tinted, sometimes quite the opposite. Definitely different. Whether or not there is a pre-disposition to being nuts, who can say, but if it helps the creative process, is it such a bad thing? I do know for sure I don’t seem to see the world the same way as others.
I used to be quite analytical, until I was struck with what I can only call an ‘artistic eye’. Although I am a keen photographer, it always seemed to be a calculated image with much of the content thought through. Now, I seem to have the freedom to create the images I see in my mind’s eye, only limited by my artistic ability, either with a camera or with a drawing medium. So I will keep on seeing the world my way, and I’m sure that you will too.
Kind regards,
Malcolm
The best term I read for the “more sensitive than thou” act was “Warholier than thou”, BTW. From the comic “Why I hate Saturn” by Kyle Baker.
Ta for all the responses, Feisty Fraulein J, Malcolm and Gavin. Re avoiding madness – or at least unhappiness: isn’t ‘doing what we want, how we want’, whether getting married or doing art (or being a chartered accountant, I suppose), the most straightforward and honest way of living life? I think we have to do what we want. People who don’t do what they want and are unhappy should just start doing what they want.
Paolo and Nathan’s “wedding” yesterday was indeed fabulous. champagne and cocktails and canapes and exotic people. We don’t have to wait on other sad people’s permission to do what we want; “get married” as a same sex couple if we want; spend our lives being artists and poets (despite words like “work-shy” that the sad people might say) if we want. There is only this life.
I was messaging people all yesterday afternoon saying how smashing it was. Today I have had to re-read my sent messages to find out what I got up to. I know I cried on the train home, and had the raving munchies when I got back to my flat.
Even though I think I am incapable of that kind of relationship, I was green with envy, watching them getting hitched. It was so emotional.
I’m not against pursuing happiness, or people doing what they want. Self-torture is no more of the Spirit of God than self-will. I don’t think you can take the ‘so long as it doesn’t hurt others’ bit for granted: who decides what hurts others? presumably that’s the self again, on a case-by-case basis, so in fact there’s only self-will, isn’t there?
It is down to us to decide what hurts others. On a case-by-case basis. We have to just try and behave as best we can, don’t we.
- Bel says:
Back from taking pictures in the lovely gallery in the old chateau at Vogue in France. Seductively peaceful.
Here is the picture of Harry that I promised.
Bel

O CUTE. Lovely lovely Harry. I love my dog readers. Thank you Bel. See you soon x
(Bel is the awesome professional photographer with whom I am collaborating on my Next Big Project – THE LIFE ROOM… More anon)
Comments
10. I spent my life looking for my self’ — No Comments
HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>