Charlie Hammond

A poem from today

I feel like I am a balloon full of squishy gooey viscous that

is ready

to pop.

Not with a bang though

but with a slow

squelch

an oozing

until all that is left is a limp damp polythene shell

crumbled on the ground

and a light stain on your jacket

from where I touched your shoulder

hello little shadow ghost of a slime balloon.

Hello! I am ok despite the tragic sounding poem. This is going to a quick and gentle bloggings.

I’ve have not been writing on the regs and this is an attempt to jump back in and accept that this is ok.

Here’s the quick updates: I’ve been busy dipping my toes into creativity again, as I work out how to function in a dysfunctional world. I’ve got three offerings in the work: a work-in-progress showing of Feral this Sunday 19th in Sheffield at Alder Bar, a workshop in Sheffield at St May’s Psalter Lane Church May 30th (The Art of Being Silly) and a 2-day workshop at Greentop Circus in Sheffield 1-2nd August (Playful Performance – to be confirmed!). Feels good, feels busyish, and trying to be gentle with the all of it.

Also had the excellent 2 days with Holly Stoppit at Hillsborough Pavillion doing her Play, Presence, Parts workshop. I was assisting Holly on this, and it was so lovely to bring together a group of people made up of friends and strangers in my life and see them come together to discover Holly’s work. Also a delight to continue to get a deeper insight into Holly’s process and take some nuggets of joy with me.

I’m in a strange little process at the moment. I’m in between various things. I’m creating space and gentleness for myself around creativity and making things. I’ve had two enjoyable performance experiences (huzzah) prepping for this WIP show. I’m excited to bring what I have to offer, and to find the balance between preparing and purchasing some little bits to support my creative vision, and also to not go all in as I have other things in my life that also need my attention. Such as: working 4 days a week in an admin job, seeing friends, taking care of myself! Woah. But also it feels like a very slow process, especially as I have nothing else booked for this show. I’m unable to contemplate so far ahead, and unable to do the administration involved to keep the show on the road. It creates a lot of stress and expectation and I’d need to be able to stop the bus and say, ‘actually I’m getting off here, thanks though’ and give the next person I see my day ticket pass (is this a thing people still do?). But also, now it’s enjoyable and I kinda want it to grow and go somewhere. They’ll be more thoughts and reflection come the end of the week I’m sure.

I’m also doing a stand-up course, though unsure if i’ll see it through to its end. It’s been a real up and down journey, but I have learnt some valuable lesson. Such as structure is ok and valid as is taking time to go over and tighten up material. But also I really hate learning lines if I don’t absolutely know it’s going to be killer and I resent pretending to be a normally normal person. And I love flaking out at the last second. Such a different attitude to when I was younger and I had to go and I had to see it through and I had to push and do more. Sometimes I do need to go and not procrastinate and avoid, but also sometimes I am a tired little boy who needs to go to bed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about creative process during this time. One other things that has been slowly emerging has been this archivist approach to my work and life. I’m beginning to re-visit and piece together works, writings, and makings, figuring out where they fit physically in my house and in the cloud/digital. And making this part of my process: it goes into this both of mess here and then gets looked at and then re-written etc. (Though even that sounds much more organised than my actual process). But figuring that out is having a slow but delightful effect on my mindset and the need to be great NOW, I’m starting to rediscover things that felt at the time awful but now I find little delights in them. Also I’m seeing myself as a whole, and not just a performer or whatever kind of maker a person is. And finding new processing for things I never considered, such as how to catch the little songs I make up for myself and where to put them so I find them again. I honestly believe that the best “artists” are just really good at catching, collating, and re-visiting their work. It’s like an ongoing and weird chat with oneself this creative process. And I have opinions about the focus on “creative process” but that’s for another day. In short, we all need to be alive and express ourselves, and no one person is a greater artist than another. But it can be useful to reflect on the lived experience and grow, and sometimes share that with others. It just a shame that money and power and values get added on to it, like some kind of horrible tax that really stings ya.

Delightful readings and viewings:

The Philosopher’s Kitchen Jeong Kwan – beautiful Seon Buddist nun’s reflection on cooking. Will uplift you and make you want to prepare delicious food. Made me wonder about play as a life philosophy and how it ties into Buddhist ideology.

Vincent Dreary’s – How We Are. Such a compelling reflection of what makes people people by a health psychologist and spectacular thinker. Here’s a quote to wet your appetite: ‘Meaningful parts of us really are millions of years old. Science tries to point out what is only fact, but must also struggle to make us feel the weight of years that it took to reach a point when a couple of buckets of water and a bag of earth became this you, here now, so blithely reading, turning pages, this earth made flesh, this fleshy come alive with vision and reason, this reasonable meat conjured from dust’ p. 16 – Vincent Dreary, How We Are, Penguin Books 2014.

Also excited to read more of this book a friend bought me: David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuos: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. Feels especially relatable to me at the moment – I’ve been trying to make crow friends at work on my lunch break, feeding them bits of Biltong jerky – and so far it’s going well. But they did try to steal my tofu so maybe I need to switch proteins.

Links to my various offerings here, please help spread the word: https://charlie-hammond.com/events/