Escaping

I’ve just been catching up with the news on the BBC website and I was really interested to read about Antony Gormley’s latest artwork. For those of you who are unaware of Gormley he’s the man behind the Angel of the North and some would say our greatest living sculptor in the UK. His latest piece is simply fog in a box – a giant glass chamber filled with fog which you can walk into and wander around in, entitled Blind Light. Art that is interactive and experiential like this I really love – it gives you a real feeling for what the artist is trying to say and it takes you mentally to another place. For me good art is the stuff that does that – takes you somewhere else. In fact not just visual art does that – good music does it too and in fact for me climbing does it as well. It’s hard to explain quite what I mean because physical things like climbing lifts one out of the mundane world in an entirely different way from art and music – climbing in many respects is similar to sex – as you’re climbing up a route there is a good deal of physical exertion, maybe some huffing and puffing, taking leaps of faith, and sheer hard slog, but when you reach the top there is an amazing feeling of achievement and euphoria, oh, and your legs shake. Whereas art and music lift you out of yourself by making your consciousness shift over in your brain from the left side where it is logical and analytical to the right side where it is creative. When I’m writing fiction, particularly the novel, I have to be in the right hand side of my brain which may sound particularly odd to some of you, but it’s similar I suppose to riding a bike – you can’t really explain how you do it, but the more you practise the easier it gets. Except that moving over into the right side isn’t always easy sometimes it’s damn hard to switch off from the world around you and slide into the other you who isn’t concerned about bills and diaries and deadlines.

Writing this I’m beginning to see a pattern emerge in my personality and maybe I should rename the blog accordingly – I like to escape – everything in my life (almost) is about escaping. I only tolerate the mundane bits so I can go off and do what really pleases me which is to leave all this behind. All my life I’ve read voraciously – escapism. I used to do lots of yoga – escapism. Now I climb….I write….I daydream.

It’s just like Oscar Wilde said – All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

If you get the chance to visit the Haywood Gallery where Antony Gormley’s Blind Light fog in a box piece is showing, go! The next time I’m in London I shall make a point of seeing it – it opens Thursday 17th and is on until 19th August. Maybe I should drag my kids up there on Sunday and see it as a birthday treat for myself….