10 Feb 2017

How do You Fealh? Lying Fallow for a Season.


Question: Is an artist a machine?

fal·low

(făl′ō) adj.
fal′low·ness n.

To rest is to gather energy and ideas, does this make you a better human, a better artist? If output is continuous, are you an unthinking machine. It's a bit of a leap, to let go of continuous action, to pause creative output. Like a library taking time to restock itself.
The age old wisdom of 'lying fallow' for a season, which was 4 months in London, has been most instructive.
A period of gathering.  It has been both wonderful and a chore.
As a result I'm able to say, one does not waste talent lying fallow, but instead, one allows it to deepen.

A fallow field is:
1. Plowed and left unseeded during one growing season.
2. Characterized by apparent inactivity: a fallow gold market.
3. Plowed and tilled (land), time taken to eradicate or reduce weeds.

[Middle English falow, from Old English fealh, fallow land.]


How do you fealh?
Harvest will be around March, with a series of surround sound performances in Sharjah in the UAE for Maraya Art Centre, a solo showing of my work in Dubai at The Mine and a short music residency at New York University in Abu Dhabi in February.

February also sees the launch of our radio works for Sharjah Art Foundation, When the Near Becomes Far.

Meanwhile my two weekly radio shows on Resonance 104.4FM and Resonance Extra have continued, so perhaps it wasn't a completely fallow period: Six Pillars and Free Lab Radio.