\nTrans-disciplinary artist Sue Pam-Grant, 58, has a new tattoo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It states: \u201cAll of The Gone\n31.12.2020\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She says: \u201cIt is my first tattoo. I\nwas inked on the last day of an unprecedented year, a year of years,\na year of no years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former anti-apartheid,\nanti-conscription, UCT theatre and performance graduate and mother of\ntwo, became a full-time artist in 1984, while still writing and\nperforming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have always been an\ninter-disciplinary artist, but my visual work started more formally\nand intensively in 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pam-Grant, who lived in Johannesburg\nfor decades, found herself caught up in a lock down dream, in her\nhome The Bauhaus in Kalk Bay, Cape Town, this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the magnificent home she and\nhusband DJ Grant bought two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grant, who grew up in East London, is\nan arts graduate, and a municipal bus driver in London and PE., where\nhe was detained for his work in the End Conscription Campaign ECC).\nHe is the executive creative director of long-standing communications\ncompany Blue Moon in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pam-Grant said: \u201cI arrived here in\nKalk Bay to live but also relocated my studio, which I set up in\nMuizenberg’s old Hillcott Hotel, now a space for rent. I occupy the\noriginal kosher kitchen \u2013 it was owned by a Jewish woman, and has\nhad many women owners since. In November, also opened a large solo\nexhibition at the Nel Gallery in Long Street titled ‘All of the\nGone’, a string of words emerged in the very dark place of lock down\nwhen we were in level 5 and 4. I was sneaking into my studio in\nJo’burg to find a place to breath \u2013 to do that, I had to continue\nmaking work and I was very prolific \u2013 it was all I could do. \u201cMy\nwork is so intrinsically connected to text and writing that I was\nworking with different words and phrases which seemed to reflect\nthese unknown times. This phrase \u2013 all of the gone \u2013 \u00adpopped\nup, along with other text lines, but the line stayed with me. It felt\nauthentic and right to express what I was experiencing as an artist\nresponding to this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe phrase suddenly became unique to\nme. I had other phrases, such as ‘all of the sad’ and it felt pretty\nobvious to me what it meant though it was not that obvious to others.\nIt was the way I expressed myself. ‘Gone’ was not enough, ‘sad’ was\nnot enough, it had to be all of it, because it felt that large, the\nloss triggered was so huge. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt expressed what was currently\nhappening. Everything was going. Metaphorically speaking it was a\ndeath of a time, it triggered for me huge areas of loss in my life. I\ncould not understand why I was feeling so sad, but on reflection and\nworking through the pieces, I realised this Covid, living in the time\nof corona, was much more complex than the actual disease. It was\ntriggering a melancholia that was profoundly primal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo this idea of ‘the gone’ became a\nvery prevalent and intrinsic theme for the work being made, but it\nwas actually accessing or triggering my whole human narrative, as an\nartist. We all have our narrative, our pattern, our story. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSuperficially, my story is ‘All of\nThe Gone’, that is my narrative and why I felt deeply affected. I was\nexperiencing it as deep, deep loss. Sadly, since then I have actually\nlost a lot of people, some to Covid, others because of other reasons.\nThe ‘gone’ is close, just under the surface in my story and the way I\nexperience it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the tattoo?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn my studio building in Muizenberg,\nI suddenly saw a new tattoo shop had opened and as much as I was in\nthe narrative of all of the gone, the flip side, the other side, is\nthe shape of the new. My thinking, my philosophy, is we can’t enter\nthe shape of the new until we have acknowledged or mourned all of the\ngone. I am very excited about the shape of the narrative of the The\nNew, I use capital letters because it becomes an object, a noun for\nme, as opposed to the verb. We are responding to that object, that\nthing called The Gone and that thing called The New. Now that I am\nembracing the new, because I believe in it, I am in a curious space\nin my life and have made a private promise to try and find something\nnew each day, something never seen before on my walks, or do\nsomething differently. So when the tattoo studio appeared, I thought\n‘you will never manage the pain. It’s not your sort of thing’. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cActually, I had been exploring the\nhistory of the artistry of the tattoo, or ‘getting inked’, as I had\nbeen writing a piece of theatre about this with a friend a few years\nback. I also happened to be working with a lot of ink, and was\napproaching new work using traditional Xuan paper, the Chinese name\nfor rice paper. So I had been exploring ink and rice paper. My studio\nis full of it and it it bears testimony to the idea that when you\nmake (work) and do so prolifically and are in the zone, you are never\nsure and never conscious of what it is, where it is coming from. You\nare just playing. Especially after coming off a big solo show, so the\nwork emerging from this play were these unconscious worlds, big\nlandscapes, big dreamscapes, quite hallucinogenic, very complex\nindices of the mark, the brush of ink on paper. Unconsciously I was\nentering something, laying a foundation for getting inked, it was\ncoming from my hand to the paper, external, but the landscapes were\nvery dreamlike and big surprises to me, not my usual work. I believe\nthe imminent inking was about to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo in my curious space, practising\nthe shape of the new, I decided to pop into to the tattoo studio and\nintroduce myself under the pretence of being the artist from the\nkitchen studio upstairs, and by the way, just because I am curious,\nhow long does a new tattoo take to heal? I ask the owner. He says it\ndepends on skin type, and the kind of tattoo. I say let us get down\nto brass tacks. Can you swim with a new tattoo? He said, no, not for\n15 days. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI am in a ritual of swimming every\nmorning, evening and sometimes at midday. I am obsessed with the\nocean, I am in Heaven, I am living my dream, I am entering the ocean\nevery day and his answer immediately answered my curiosity that this\nwas not the right time to be inked. I would think about it maybe for\nwinter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe said: You will know when the time\nis right, and why you would want that tattoo, what it is and where it\nwill be on your body. I liked all of those things, it spoke to me.\nThe idea was pushed out of the foremost part of my brain, and I have\na very sensitive, reactive skin to all sorts of things in the ocean,\nblue bottles, jelly fish, it was becoming unlikely. However, the\nproblem with me is if something is seeded, it never goes away. It\nplonks itself in the waiting room in me. It hangs out there until it\ndecides to show its head again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChristmas came and next thing, Cyril\nhas made his speech. The beaches are closed and it triggers the loss,\nthe gone part of myself and the melancholy of losing the feeling of\nthe ocean on my skin every day. All I want to do is swim. I don’t\nmake the connection with the waiting room where the ink head sits\npatiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAfter three days of mourning and\nsneaking in I nearly got arrested by the lovely officer William* I\nhad got to know from the previous lock down days, who came up to me\nand said: ‘Sue, please, it will break my heart if I have to arrest\nyou.’ So I had to let the swimming go and replaced it with walking,\nbut as close to the ocean as possible to feel the water, its essence\nspraying over me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow, it is the last day of the year,\nand I want to cycle early from Kalk Bay to the studio, but can’t get\nthe lock on the bicycle undone so I decide to walk. I am walking on\nthe St James walkway thinking on this final day, God what a year it\nhas been. I am reflecting on it all, it hits me clear as a bell, I\nrealise that I like to mark things, it’s how I operate. This day,\nthis year, really needs marking and suddenly the waiting room ink\nhead pops out. It is my time, it says. Of course I can get the inking\nnow, because I cant swim! That’s it I have to get it done today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have to get the tattoo. Today,\n31st<\/sup> of the 12th, <\/sup>2020 but what is the image\ngoing to be? My dog? Then another epiphany. I need to ink in my text,\nwhich is my drawing. The numbering is part of the text, and the line,\nit is part of my expanded practice as an artist. Those will be the\nwords, those are the numbers which will go onto my body and it will\nmake sense to me and I won’t discuss it with another soul until the\ndeed is done. That is how I work when there is something quite risky\nor unknown to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI arrived at my studio, and the\nmedium in front of my eyes was my little bowl of ink and brush so I\nmade the drawing of the tattoo on newsprint, did it a few times,\nplayed with size, in my handwriting, the way I draw in my writing\nform, and I photographed it. I was desperate for the tattoo artist\ncouple to arrive to open their shop, so I could run down and ask them\nto fit me in. I thought they would be very busy as everybody wanted\nto mark this horrendous and astonishing year. I was so antsi, I\nwanted it done in this building to mark this time and place. If it is\nnot done today I won’t do it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI went down and there they were, the\nstudio was open. I had measured out the length of the the sentence\nand had it against my upper arm from my shoulder. I had played with\nsome formats, across or down? I decided to let it run downwards. I\nasked can you do me? We can right now, they said. I showed them the\nphotograph of my text and they said, no, that is not the place and\nshowed me the appropriate place. I said OK, I love the place they\nrecommended. I have recently discovered this other side of my\nforearm, which as a dancer \u2013 I dance all over the place — is\ndefined. You can see the skeletal structure clearly and it was the\nbed of the canvas. It made total sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They asked what font, but I said, no it\nmust be in my handwriting, through my hand. I ran up to get the\nactual work, I had a cup of tea, came down with the artwork. They and\nmade a negative and did a transfer onto the place and the procedure\nstarted. That’s how I got it exactly in my handwriting. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe act itself, was done by a woman,\nwho was very holding and encouraging and excited about the idea of\nmaking the mark through my hand, an act done through her, and back\nonto my skin. An act of transference. Her partner documented the\nprocess and I lay on the bed and I got relaxed. She said Look the\nfirst five minutes could be intense. I said, OK, I had no idea of\nwhat it would feel like, the pain. She said get into the breathing,\nget into the zone and the experience of it. I did that, but did say\nwhat if I flinch at the first moment.? She said if I am in tune with\nyou, I will lift up and move away. There was no flinching. There was\na total submission, submergence into what was indeed a full\nexperience of the marking. It was so right for me, I had no questions\nabout who, what or where, all the frames came together and held me, I\ntrusted that. It was intense but not unbearable. It was exactly what\nI needed it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe said my skin just soaked up the ink as if it was waiting for it to enter. There has been no redness as if it has always been here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n You are invited to Pam-Grant’s work<\/em> All of The Gone, at The Kitchen Studio in Muizenberg. Call 082 896 7112, or email pamgrant@icon.co.za<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Trans-disciplinary artist Sue Pam-Grant, 58, has a new tattoo. It states: \u201cAll of The Gone 31.12.2020\u201d. She says: \u201cIt is my first tattoo. I was inked on the last day … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[986,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4353"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4353"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4357,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4353\/revisions\/4357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}