The above prompt popped up on my WordPress homepage, and given that I had just uploaded a post to Behance on this very topic, and while this website is mainly a “work” thing, I have always loved blogging, so thought I would make the most of Blogtober and post about it here.
As many of you know, I volunteer at Charleston Farmhouse and each year there is a Literary Festival which draws many glitterati and well-known authors and interesting people. Volunteering means there is kind of free access to this event, although of course there’s no guarantee of the people you’ll see as it depends on what you are assigned to do. Many volunteers only work at festivals and events rather than regularly at the house as I do, but I wanted to go along to see what it was like, having never been.
I had an evening shift, where a duo of pianists were playing two modernist pieces by Stravinsky and Debussy, accompanied by a reading, and a performance by principal dancer of the Royal Ballet, Reece Clarke. There were some seats for staff facing the entrance to the marquee but I was sitting in the tunnel running parallel to the event space so had my back to the auditorium, staring at the wall in front of me. All my colleagues were gathered up by the door, watching enraptured by the dancing, and when I made a move to join them I was waved back with a frown. Fair enough: I suppose it would have been distracting. Anyway, I felt so excluded I literally wanted to cry. The looks on their faces – eyes bright, eyebrows raised, lips slightly parted as they watched in awe, while I sat sulking and counting the metal rings in the marquee curtain.
I got over it quite rapidly as the dancer then emerged and chose to cool down and chat to his companion in the corridor about 6 feet away from me so I was able to marvel at just what years of training for high-level dance does to a 6’3″ man. To see the fluidity and athleticism of every movement – even just as he stretched – was quite a privilege, but I wish I’d seen him actually dance.
I wanted to communicate this feeling of left-out-ness somehow, and I always reach for collage when I want to express myself as my way of drawing is too hurried and simplified to get things, particularly people, accurately represented. I always use Condé Nast Traveller magazine for my collages, and love cutting and sticking. Here is my collage, called Excluded and it perfectly represents how I felt:
Argh that sounds so frustrating. I’m glad you got to see him at the end at least though. A collage is such a great way to process it too – I’m going to have to give that go sometime.
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Collage is great as you can pick the right image to match what you’re trying to say 🙂 give it a go!
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