What can you do?
In 2020, I found myself shifting towards a creative expression that felt unknown yet familiar. I began a period of intense writing in my studio, which led to writing workshops and performance workshops.
Art/Creative
︎ Art Works
︎ Art Studio
︎ info@joannehynes.com
︎ Art Works
︎ Art Studio
︎ info@joannehynes.com
‘What can you do, that no one else can do?’ was the first piece of writing I offered out and beyond me as a recalling of my creative past in London (1999) - part truth, part autofiction, part therapy.
What did I do? I concocted a plan of sorts. It was my first London winter in 1999. My eyes could see things. I could start a dialogue with clothes. What WAS it I should not do with them? And what is it that makes me Irish and does it matter?
A parade of ghosts accompanied me on my search, all of the women that once wore these garments perhaps not yet dead. How will I ever know? Like a procession of creative possibilities they exhaust and attract me, they dress me, educate me, question me, guide me.
So I start to collect broken chandeliers all across London by travelling on the tube to far out places leading me to quiet streets. Streets of unknown concrete landscapes, prisoner of my own restless desire for creativity. I use whatever cash I have from reselling second-hand cashmere found and bought on trips to charity shops, from places like Chelsea and all across West London, with a tube pass and empty suitcase I am in cold early mornings.
And the clothes research days were midweek. Mondays were best. The sorting days were Wednesday. Come early for the best pieces. My eyes followed rails and shelves, long rooms; little old women with clean fingernails behind their counters. Handwritten receipts, the smell of cedar balls, mold rising, washing powder, lovely fake flowers, lamp shades in a room at the back, more upstairs, so many books that no one seems to want these anymore, floral house coats, woven gabardine 1970s Germany, air hostess teal and blue, pillar box red patent heel shoes with mud tipped heels to make me homesick for Ireland.
A parade of ghosts accompanied me on my search, all of the women that once wore these garments perhaps not yet dead. How will I ever know? Like a procession of creative possibilities they exhaust and attract me, they dress me, educate me, question me, guide me.
So I start to collect broken chandeliers all across London by travelling on the tube to far out places leading me to quiet streets. Streets of unknown concrete landscapes, prisoner of my own restless desire for creativity. I use whatever cash I have from reselling second-hand cashmere found and bought on trips to charity shops, from places like Chelsea and all across West London, with a tube pass and empty suitcase I am in cold early mornings.
And the clothes research days were midweek. Mondays were best. The sorting days were Wednesday. Come early for the best pieces. My eyes followed rails and shelves, long rooms; little old women with clean fingernails behind their counters. Handwritten receipts, the smell of cedar balls, mold rising, washing powder, lovely fake flowers, lamp shades in a room at the back, more upstairs, so many books that no one seems to want these anymore, floral house coats, woven gabardine 1970s Germany, air hostess teal and blue, pillar box red patent heel shoes with mud tipped heels to make me homesick for Ireland.
Extract from
“What can you do?’
“What can you do?’
Then she says it. The line that changes everything
“What can you do that no one else can do?“
This was what I could do. Feeling so lost, still, but deep down,
I was finding my way.’
“What can you do that no one else can do?“
This was what I could do. Feeling so lost, still, but deep down,
I was finding my way.’
