The End of an altogether different challenge

On the stroke of midnight on Friday 30^th June 2006, a crowd gathered with anticipation. Big Ben chimed in the distance. After 25 days 10 hours, [which is virtually 27 days 19 hours!] my voyage to imagined America drew to a close. Land was nigh! [Admittedly, land had been nigh all along, static as I was on a concrete sea in the courtyard next to Tate Britain.] The midnight hour marked the end of my confinement onboard and the finale of my Degree show piece for Chelsea
College of Art. I may have come fifth in class in the Faraday Mill OSTAR 2005, but I got a first in BA [Hons] Fine Art Sculpture! 

A projector illuminated the mesh exhibition mainsail with my film of our voyage up to London. The web cam was focused in on it, so the champagne-and-Pimms drinkers in Galerie Mourlot in New York were tuning in. A trans-Atlantic party was going on over the internet! Then the camera swivelled, as Abraham stepped forward to pull one rip cord after another. The first flare burst into flames with a brilliant red light and a spray of sparks. My right hand outstretched, I held it aloft to illuminate the entire courtyard and the faces of those gathered. Then the second one blazed into action and there I was on the bow of the trimaran, ‘ProVu,’ still on its angled frame with exhibition mesh sails up, doing the “Ellen-Macarthur-crossing-the-finish-line-thing-with-the-flares!”

Without a sea in which to extinguish the flares [I had exchanged the sea of the Atlantic for a sea of people in central London!] the flares finally reduced to peachy orange sticks. They glowed in the dark as they rolled onto the ground safely away from the boat! Next came the customary bottle of Mumm Champage, which thanks to Mumm, we had been guzzling all night! After my abysmal performance at spraying Champagne on arrival in Newport, Rhode Island, I redeemed myself!Since the bubbles had already gone to my head, this time I was less torn by the dilemma of fizzing it into the air versus drinking what was perfectly good Champagne! I rained friends and onlookers satisfactorily! 

Now it was time to step off. Hurrah! Liberation was imminent and with it the ability to walk right up to the Barbeque and delve into the scrumptious-looking meats on its grill bed. Phrases such as “…if I ever see an instant pasta meal with broccoli and cheese again…” and “…not another silver packet of sausage and baked beans in tomato sauce…” had been emanating from ProVu’s galley over the final few days! I was nearly reduced to mono-flavour!  

Ironically I was only going to have to clamber back onboard to go to bed later, but in the meantime, I was greatly looking forward to a walk! Would I get my “land-legs” back or would I wobble and fall over?! “One small step for woman kind…” and there I was standing off the stern bent double in a fit of giggles! Everyone looked really small! The buildings were huge! Having spent 25 days elevated off the ground, conversing with visitors peering down through the trampoline nets or off the bows my sense of proportion was all over the place! Walking around the flood-lit boat offered a most-welcome new perspective. I was an actor off stage, an inconspicuous member of the audience.  

When a Brazilian art director asked me if I would re-enact the re-enactment outside a gallery in
Sao Paulo, I had to suppress the urge to laugh! Thinking back over both of my solo trans-atlantics, with the public asking questions of all sorts, has been an amazing experience. I have met some wonderful, entertaining and fascinating people. When I think of doing the exhibition again however, a five figure sum simultaneously pops into my head- you might have to pay me! For all those of you who bet that I would gain weight eating the same high-calorie, high-carb, freeze-dried meals as I did while racing the Atlantic, I lost 8lbs! Clearly my sea of people was taxing enough to keep me in trim! 

Despite my love of art; the ideas which colour my thoughts, ocean racing continues to hold an aura of mystique. When the wisp of smoke swept from the eye of the start gun of the Faraday Mill OSTAR 2005, I knew that I was embarking on an incredible adventure, the outcome of which held few certainties. It was with an adrenaline mix of fear and excitement that I ventured to meet the horizon. While concluding my degree at Chelsea College of Art, I reserved the desire to grapple another ocean challenge. The speed and pulse of that craving, is called racing.

The Strange Land Voyage of Lia Ditton, digested.

White-out head rushes- could this be land sickness, the result of living at an angle for 24 days in a row, without touching the ground? But then two days in 24 are not bad. The second was peppered with split-second moments of mental delusion- that the boat was in motion, a mal-equilibrium rather than biological imbalance, like sitting in a train while another rushes by.  

So the die has been cast, the jury is out, the final critique was held. The students gathered round to question. ‘We will never know the mind-blowing experience of crossing an ocean single-handed,’ said Lisa. At the end of a year of trying, I concede- I could spend my whole artistic life offering insights, boiling down one element after another of what it was like. It perplexes me that somehow they want the essence all at once, as a single fragrance of something so complex riddled with motives unknown and stimuli yet to be interpreted: the experience of racing the Atlantic alone. ‘What did you think when the boat arrived?’ I asked. ‘Wow!’ Responded Maxine and then there was pity, a sense of sadness for me that Graham’s house cluttered or overshadowed- his wooden debris spoiling the sweeping surface of my concrete sea. ‘What do you think of Graham being there?’ I paused. Had I thought about Graham being there? At the beginning, yes, but now I was used to his presence, his scrap yard of materials. I watch him daily, work. Yet juxtaposed, there I was in perspective, just a piece for a Degree show. Disappointed might now be my more composed, digested answer- but then was it reasonable to expect the courtyard to myself?  

Emma’s mum raised a brow in surprise that pulling of this exhibition is the hardest thing I have ever done- trying to fund it, then doing it anyway and now living with those consequences. “…but surely, traversing oceans?’ My stomach rumbled one too many add-water meal. ‘When you cross an ocean with other people, you see the other people, intensely, which is why some don’t get on…! But when you cross it by yourself it is just you and the sea, like a looking glass holding up a reflection of yourself, with whom you must communicate.’ On average I would say 15 people have quizzed me per day; more when I was open and welcoming to it. Times 25 days and sooner or later, I was going to come up with some answers, answers that would evolve and change shape, to an increasing depth to satisfy the whys. ‘I consider there to be 3 levels of interpretation- why is there a boat here- on the surface it’s a placed object, a Marcel Duchamp, but then on a higher level, I have installed it in such a way- at an angle with sails, to give an impression, to encourage your imagination to cross an ocean- and then on another plane altogether, there may be interaction with me- my answers according to the questioner.’ ‘You’re so PR!’ Spat Julia- maybe I have become a reel.

‘Without the boat, what are you?’ The boat was referenced as a prop. I didn’t necessarily agree- boats of all sorts having been my home, my floating studios- vessels to take my imagination on adventures static or far-flung. I love inhabiting small, cramped, ridiculous poky spaces. Me this time: ‘Do you think I will ever have a divorce from boats?’ The answer was unequivocal. ‘Perhaps I will move on…’ amused the group. I spoke of no longer wanting to be “the girl who…” A tutor proceeded to get hung up on how the piece translated, although ‘into the real world’ seemed to be missing from her sentence. Round we went again- the same query in disguise- translate, translate, how? As if my art career was over, my sailing desires hung out to dry, my future destined to lie elsewhere, doing what?! The question shrilled with an uncanny similarity to my father’s favourite catchphrase- ‘What are your marketable skills? What are you going to do now?’  

‘We are all alone at night.’ ‘Is it safer to be alone?’ These questions offered a glimpse of the person asking, but how did they relate to me? We were talking broadly about solitude. I read between the lines of my self-imposed isolation- ‘Are you afraid?’ ‘What are you afraid of?’ Back to the un/believability of having crossed an ocean, the quest, the feat; the goddamn extraordinariness which drags the whole art down. Robinson Crusoe and prisons; self-discipline and the writing on the wall- messages illuminated in the darkness, we brushed on these, the points vague and not quite sure. ‘Were they aware of the college by night and how its characteristics changed- alarms sounding, students breaking in to crash and a security guard who gets in his car to drive the [laughable] length of the parade ground?’ No, it was with my experience that the interest sparked- the squishy part of me inside the protective shell of boat. ‘I’ve done a little bit of sailing…’ a waiting visitor denied a pause to reflect and launched into his yarn.

The End is nigh- land is in sight!

 

Credit: http://www.gbphotos.com

I am twenty-four days into my odyssey to “virtual”America. With a week of high winds and many reefs, the boat has moved maybe an inch, the stretching of trucking strops audibly rasping against the beams at night, as the boat attempts to make a desperate dash for freedom. There is a crack around one of the anchors which pins the trucking strops to the ground. While I physically travel nowhere, images of onboard activities are beamed via the internet to Galerie Mourlot in New York, [www.1Woman1Boat.com > Live Webcam] – it is the event this time which is trans-Atlantic.

 

‘What is it like here at night?’ Said the actress passing by, to the single-handed sailing sculptress, [as coined by TheDailySail.com]. Turning sideways, her eyes scanned the three buildings and scoured the courtyard. The sea voyage sparked a similar question, ‘What do you do at night?’ For a moment I compare the two, before answering, ‘Quiet.’ In that famous photograph of a major intersection shot at night, where the car headlights stream into each other from long exposure, I am like the photographer, standing still, observing. When the college empties at the end of the day and the students who initially loiter and chatter on the steps finally drift away, there is a comparable stillness, as if the cars in the photograph had parked and turned off their headlights. Yet the soundtrack plays merrily on- the ambient noise of sirens wailing in the distance and the low rumble of traffic hurtling by. Life is simply elsewhere.

 

Credit: http://www.gbphotos.com

‘Every 20 something student does that!’ My uncle had laughed when I told him that my offshore sleeping pattern was as follows: I stay awake all night and go to bed just after sunrise. There was an indescribable temptation to do that here- like Tilda Swindon sleeping in a glass case at the Serpentine Gallery for Damien Hirst. One, two, three am, I potter around the cockpit, in full foul weather gear when it is cold, a witness to the fact that never the same windows of the college are illuminated with blue hues of projectors and computer screens; always different hallway lights left blazing. READY TO EAT REAL MEALS it states on my packet of lunch: ‘Beans and Sausage in tomato sauce,’ from Wayfayrers. As of yesterday I began to interpret this is in a new way, [Are you] ‘READY TO EAT REAL MEALS? To which the answer is definitely, ‘Oh yeah!’ On an instant diet that contains far too many phaseolus vulgaris [baked beans] and MSGlue, I am extremely grateful to the continuous high performance of the12V CPU extractor fan. However much I may try and convince you, that peering inside the composting wonder-loo is nearly as rewarding as opening the oven door to inspect rising bread, my own personal brand of fertiliser is developing nicely! Both Boris [the fly] and his girlfriend Becka [the smaller fly] have on these grounds sadly departed!

Alone offshore, my dreams consisted of food fantasies [being air-dropped Dominos pizza for example] mingled with almost comic human action; my dreams here, to pardon the pun, are far more grounded! I have been writing them up on the inside skin of the hull with a whiteboard marker. I have nearly run out of space. The three most laughable were related to my current state of living- in the dream I was having a wash with a water allowance of one 2 litre bottle. This was outside a building. Someone came out of the building and pointed out that there was a shower inside the building and that I could use it! In the second I was sleeping in the forepeak sail locker as I have been, except that the rest of the boat had transformed into an Oyster 82, also on the hard at an angle- but why was I sleeping on the floor in discomfort when there were perfectly good cabins with “proper” beds and white sheets?! The third was a hyper-active dream, where I was in a Mini Transat yet re-enacting my OSTAR experience blow by blow with a hydraulic set up to tilt the boat for port or starboard tack; the log book [which I didn’t keep] open and used for reference.

Credit: http://www.gbphotos.com

Aside from climbing the mast at least once, my goal everyday is to remove the peel of each orange in one piece. [Oh my, what has my life come to?!] My strange land voyage has forced me to live with the waste I would otherwise deposit over the side and so cleaner, more-intact rubbish is easier to string together and hang out on the stern safety rail. One visitor proclaimed that my daily rubbish hangings were the “real work of art” and that the boat with its mesh sails at an impressionistic angle, was merely the frame! I was a captive audience! ‘WATER FINDS

                 ITS OWN LEVEL,’ reads the illuminated text on the glass front of the ‘Chelsea Space’ Gallery. I’m not sure what it means or why it is there and I can’t visit the exhibition to satisfy my curiosity, but glowing in luminous orange letters, it seems prophetic; a message beaming out of the darkness. The tide is rising. The Tate likewise has a sign, where the letters swell into barely legible and then shrink back to re-form the word TATE. 2250.9 virtual nautical miles have passed under the dagger board! Perhaps it is time to reach land, safely home and dry.

  

As a result of the exhibition, ‘Absolute Solitude: One Woman, One Boat,’ I have been invited to dine on a “Slice of Reality.” This is not an insanity pill contra the effects of self-confinement on a boat in Westminster, but the sculpture on the Thames, by the artist Richard Wilson.

Surf Naked!

Today, tomorrow, yesterday- they all merge seamlessly into one. People come, people go- some of them I remember, some of them were entertaining, interesting.

The hull knuckle-rapping phase is over, or perhaps I don’t notice any more. The questions have stopped flying like driving sea spray- or maybe I just answer them now, in a continuous loop as second nature as brushing teeth or taking a shower. Drum beat echoes from my laptop inside: Daft Punk, ‘Around the World.’

Since the Degree Show opened to the public, the days have slipped by in a surreal haze; not achieving much; getting up late, going to bed even later. I see no point in climbing the mast. I spend more and more time down below, except for Monday when Abe and I dressed up in full foul weather gear and stood around in the rain.

“All around me are familiar faces, worn out places…bright and early for the daily races, going nowhere, going nowhere…” “I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take, when people run in circles it’s a very very…. Mad world” [From the film Donnie Darko]

 

Credit: www.gbphotos.com

Rubbish piled up in the cockpit over the weekend. My plastic waste hoarded to remind myself of how many days I have been here; strung up or threaded together for public view. Why leave the matt on the forepeak sail locker and get out of my sailing thermals and waterproof sleeping and poke my head up through the forward hatch to face the day? There is no longer anything sensible for breakfast. The mash potato is smash at that, which coagulates in my stomach to protest against MSG and all the other “instant” noodle and pasta meals consumed; one after the other. 

“I waited ‘til I saw the sun, I don’t know why I didn’t come, I left you by the house of fun, don’t know why I didn’t come; don’t know why I didn’t come… when I saw the break of day, wish that I could fly away, ‘stead I’m kneeling in the sand, catching tear drops in my hand…” [Come Away with Me, Norah Jones]

 

Notice of Race [End]

On Friday 30^th June we will be having a *Barbeque Drinks

Party* from 8pm, to celebrate the end of my “virtual” trans-Atlantic race.

Credit: www.AndyDarePhotography.com

I hope you can join us! Bring a message in a bottle + R.S.V.P!

I will be doing the Ellen-MacArthur-thing-with-the-flares and casting my mooring lines onto dry land [I know, I know, which has been there the whole time!]  

The Show goes on

Poem lyrics of The Lake Isle Of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

 

Credit: http://www.gbphotos.com 

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Friends and Family Day- Private view II

'Sea-Fever'

Credit: www.gbphotos.com

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

Credit: www.gbphotos.com

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. [John Masefield]

Credit: www.gbphotos.com

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Credit: http://www.gbphotos.com

The Private View

When my artist friends were graduating, I used to go to lots of Degree Shows. How your own show will look and how it will feel to be one of the graduating students in the show can only be imagined. Would I have suspected that the evening would pass without a drop of alcohol to my lips?! On the contrary! I wouldn’t have guessed it would be jaded by discussions re: the future of a boat either and that the Degree show would be one of 28 days where I would be living on a boat in relative self-confinement.  

The highlights of my evening were laughing with Emma and her mother and meeting a guy who sells art space in the London underground [“Art Below”] to whom I sang the tunes which pop in my head to self-motivate or celebrate the little highs and lows of trans-Atlantic solo sailing.At the end of the night, feeling slightly sick- from “just add milk” chocolate desert or the aftermath of nervous excitement, I crawled into my hole. The forward sail locker adds a whole new meaning to the term ‘V’ berth! I literally sleep in the cradle of the V. The boat was my outer skin; the hard shell of a human crustacean and curled up like a foetus, inside I was squishy and vulnerable.

Credit: www.gbphotos.com

Credit: www.gbphotos.com

Brimming with dreams: Chelsea College of Art fences up for the Degree Show on Friday

The longest day

 

 

Credit: www.gbphotos.com

‘Ex’cus mee. Where can I buy somet’ing in respe’t to Ellen MacArt’er?’ Inquired my first visitor of the day! ‘Like a dee vee dee or book?’ He prompted. I recommended a book shop and so directed him to the Tate!

‘Are you the woman who set a record sailing round the world the wrong way?!’ Two hits in one day!

‘They’re here to talk about your brother’s driving!’ [Guy I will get you back!] And so after this introduction, I start rambling to a community police man and community police woman, asking if they were the ones to whom my brother had fed a chipolata sandwich! Jasper, Abraham and co. had been having a barbeque on the viewing platform when a community police van parked in front of the exhibition. My brother, being my brother or simply to use up the sausages had kindly gone down and asked the community police people if they were hungry! One of them accepted and then they drove off! Fortunately they weren’t the sausage-eaters, they were just satisfying the usual “Why is there a boat here?” curiosity! We talked about HF radios and local cafes- they’re on duty on Saturday July 1^st when we rotate the boat to near vertical for transport over Vauxhall Bridge.

A psychologist interested not in the single-handed sailing, but the 28 days of solitary isolation; a detective who left the office for a walk because his case was getting intense; a retired lawyer, doctor and candle-stick maker [okay, maybe not the last one, but how do I know?!] peppered my afternoon.

Meagan in Galerie Mourlot in New York [the gallery recipient of our 24/7 web stream footage] gave me a call. The next hour or so was spent in “virtual communication” which was highly entertaining. They decided to ring after watching me make Angel Delight, a pudding I cannot describe as “strawberry flavour” but simply as “pink mousse!”