Derek Jarman was canonised by the Sister’s of Perpetual Indugence in 1991 thereafter Saint Derek Jarman of Dungeness.

His followers, I’ve noticed, come to him from many peculiar places each with their own … and together united in fascination for the elusive saint who always seems to defy definition.

I however came to Jarman through the colour blue. I bought the transcript for Blue, Jarman’s 1993 film the same day that I bought my first swimming pool postcard.

Gathering material

Jarman’s way of living, playful, non linear

find words from Blue

Through the Billboard promised land

read Olivia Laing’s chapter on Jarman, make notes

james fox blue

integrate poems into article, jarmans and mine

talk about artwork:

• unpredictable constraints
• non linear

crit notes

• difference in perspective- pressure from behind
• photographic light leak
• surveillance feeling underwater
• circus tricks, pushing on the tightrope
• old technology
• feels like a submarine
• fish eye feels
• aquarium for people
• element of pride yet privacy when swimming
• privacy to play
• synchronised swimming
• staging
• whimsy
• photo come to life
• memory coming to life
• goldfish in a bag
• nostalgic feeling
• two images in one way
• theatrical staging
• playing in the pool as kids
• childhood memory
• mystical with clothing
• sometimes cool and grungy
• pleasure
• solitary but serious
• intimate
• not smooth/ non linear
• good work on process in creation
• meditative, having to leave feels like playtime in over
• physical freedom underwater
• safety in the space
• care in the image
• Charlie Prodger- both film and drawings
• acts of translation
• the word poem became useful in the room
• can use romance to effect
• experiment with sounds
• hydraphones could be interesting to look at
• impulse with materials
• surface & divers colour guides
• lina lapelyte, sun and sea, other works
• power of trees by Eija-Liisa Ahtila