Harry Giles : Home
the cyberpace home of the London-based theatre director, performance poet, and general doer of thingsArchive for September, 2011
Scared/Safe
My life, like that of many apparently highly driven people (especially, it seems, those in arts and politics), goes through tediouslessly repetitive cycles. I’ll be working incredibly hard and stressfully for a period, and then go into a period of faintly morbid self-analysis; I’ll be extroverted and excited and passionate for a couple of months, and then spend much of my time reading in bed for a few weeks. For theatre directors, these cycles often coincide with the rhythms of a performance: you have to be incredibly organised and passionate and dedicated to make a theatre run happen, and when it’s done you literally grieve, your life has this huge gap in it. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to plunge straight into the next project; if you’re unlucky, you’ll need to brood for a few weeks.
When these cycles first hit me, I found them difficult and frustrating to deal with: I wanted to be active and exciting all the time, and not have to be anxious and introverted for weeks on end. Now I’ve come to accept them, more or less, as part of the general creative/organisational process (though they’re still pretty painful to be in). Even though it hurts not to have the energy to go and socialise, or to do more than listlessly cross off two or three items from my To Do List a day, I can at least appreciate that this time allows me to do things like catch up on my reading, reflect on my ambitions, get a good night’s sleep &c.
So I’m in one of these down period right now, and one thing I’m reflecting on is exactly what stuff it is that makes me anxious. A lot of my acquaintances and colleagues won’t know that I’m suffering from crippling anxieties for much of my waking life — or maybe they do, because the older I get the more messed up and hurting I realise the general population is for most of the time. When I’m in a down period, the anxieties of course get worse, and I’m compelled more and more to seek out what makes me feel safe. I think it’s interesting as an exercise to try and catalogue both. There are clear dichotomies there, and also some weird things. I’m trying to work out what the common factors are — it’s something to do with expectation, with worrying about what’s expected of me versus what I’m confident in doing — but then that might be a tautological notion. Anyway, my hope is that by looking at it coolly I’ll develop another tool for coping with these inevitable slumps, and hopefully you’ll all be able to see me being much more confident and active again soon.
(This post also serves as a useful moment to “out” my anxiety, and an encouragement to myself and all my anxious friends not to hide it away. When I first started getting crippling anxiety, the most destructive thing was the feeling that I had to cover it up and continue to be the exuberant self I am sometimes, and like to be seen as. But really: everyone else feels as anxious as you.)
Things which make me feel scared
- Organising and planning events and performances
- Writing
- Spending time in commercial venues, eateries, shops &c.
- The week before a show opens
- Parties
- Spending time with acquaintances
- Sex (before)
- Forms, bank accounts, bureaucracies, automated telephone services
- Fixing mechanical things / DIY in general
- Making To Do lists
Things which make me feel safe
- Performing (while I’m doing it)
- Reading
- Spending time in social centres, second hand bookshops, and other warm community spaces
- Cuddling
- Working in a rehearsal room
- Conversation with trusted friends
- Scotch. Chocolate. Morning coffee.
- Sex (during and after)
- Editing, proofreading and commenting on friends’ writing
- Tidying up (both rooms and computers)
- Games (board, tabletop and computer)
- Crossing things off my To Do list
Literary Website Project Seeks Lovely Web Developer
The Scrawling project is a highly ambitious five year plan to create a comprehensive online portal for Scotland’s writing community. Starting in Edinburgh and then franchising out to other regions of Scotland. We are seeking a dedicated web developer to assist with design and build of an attractive, functional, responsive website with maximum optimisation. Excellent communication and organisational skills are necessary. An interest in writing would be considered an advantage.
We would like help specifically in the first year of this project, but if you would if you’d like to stick around for longer that’s cool. We can’t pay you, but what you will gain is excellent CV material and the experience of working from the ground up with a creative, flexible, relaxed yet determined group of people who all share a like minded intent. We will write you references, we will shower you with love, we will tell people you are brilliant, we will buy you drinks, if you’re
very lucky we might even bake you a cake.
If interested, please email mairirrcampbelljack@gmail.com with Scrawling Forth Web Development in the title. Please tell us a bit about yourself and send us examples of recent work.
Helping Save the Forest Café
Dear friends, family, colleagues and allsorts,
As many of you will know, I’ve spent a good chunk of my time this year working for the Forest Café, an independent arts and social centre (and registered charity) in Edinburgh. Some of that’s been paid work, but most of it’s been voluntary — I’ve spent something like half of my waking hours this year in our home at 3 Bristo Place because I believe fervently in what we’ve been doing.
The heart of what Forest does is to provide free and open access events space: we offer a stage where anyone can book an event or see an event for free, along with tech and publicity support to make events happen. We’ve also run a visual arts galery, music studios, a dark room, meeting rooms, and a hundred and one other artistic and social projects, all funded mainly by the vegtarian café in our main events space. As well as being open to anyone to participate, we’re also run collectively: anyone who gets involved can be part of making decisions about what we do next.
The result of being free and open is that we’re extraordinarily exciting and innovative. We believe in providing space to artists who can’t afford it elsewhere, or who can’t find anywhere else to support their risks and experiments. We’re also exuberantly international, with more languages and cultures in one building than I think you’d find anywhere else in Scotland. On any given day in Forest, you might find a sound installation, a Belarusian experimental theatre performance, a gaelic workshop, a Spanish revolutionary meeting, a freeform jazz gig — or all of that at once.
Being such an exciting place to be also attracts some serious talent. This August alone, we’ve housed work from theatre and installation artist Tim Etchells, punk cabaret musician Amanda Palmer, award-winning comedian and storytelller Daniel Kitson, and bestselling author Neil Gaiman. Over the past few years, we’ve won a Peter Brook Empty Space Award, a Herald Angel, a Fringe First, and now a Total Theatre Award too.
I’m writing to you now because all of this is threatened with coming to an end. In October 2010 our landlords, the Edinburgh University Settlement (from whom I should stress we were financilly independent) were bankrupted. As a result, our home of 8 years — a beautiful three-storey church with B Listed Building status — was put up for sale and we were given our notice. No-one has yet bought the building, and at the moment there are no extant notes of interest. So when, this morning, we were forced to close our doors and hand the keys to the estate agents, it meant that 3 Bristo Place would be left empty for the foreseeable future, despite having tenants willing to pay a short-term lease.
Our response has been to run a massive pledge-drive — as far as we know, the biggest arts pledge drive Britain has ever seen — to raise £100,000, which would be enough, combined with the funds we’ve already raised, to put down the deposit on a mortgage for the building. We think we can buy it back.
That’s why I’m writing now. I have never before written a mass begging email, and never will again — it’s not something I generally believe in doing, preferring to work proactively for charities than to focus on the cash. But this isn’t an ordinary begging email, for two reasons:
Firstly, I’m not going to ask you to give money, but to pledge it. The way this works is, we’re trying to raise £100,000 of pledges, and no-one will have to give a penny unless we hit that target. That way, when you make a pledge, you’ll know you’re one of hundreds banding together to buy the building, hundreds pledging what they can, rather than just one of many anonymous people putting some change in a pot.
Secondly, you’re not buying a building for a charity, but for everyone who has ever passed through, lived in, or planned to live in Edinburgh. Forest is run by and for everyone who wants to be part of it. When we buy this building, we will once more be open to absolutely anyone to run events, and we will be run by everyone who takes an interest.
That’s my pitch. Thanks for reading, if you got this far. And now, please, visit our pledge drive at http://www.wefund.com/project/help-forest-cafe-buy-bristo-place and offer what you can. In just a few days we’ve already passed £7k, so we’re well on the way to hitting our target by October 1st, especially as these things grow exponentially. So join in!
If you want to find out more about Forest, do visit us at http://www.theforest.org.uk/. Sadly, as of today, you can no longer drop by and see what we’re like. But do write or give me a call if you’d like to ask anything about the project.
Thanks again,
Harry
