Vivienne’s Diary: 1 – 26 July

I carry a scrap of paper around in my purse. It is my advance diary for the month – just a list of appointments and events. Then every two or three weeks I refer back to it, and pull out the main events for this Diary. Now I report less on a daily basis and concentrate more on the big issues and ideas – tell you what I’m thinking. Regarding my daily life and work you know how it goes and how we are constantly building a collection. It takes at least three days to get it up – I get it typed and then I check it and sort out the images, re-write a bit, check it, sort out the look sitting next to Computer Joe.

Monday, 1 July: Iris came yesterday for a week and we really concentrated on the Gold Label collection. We have been working with her on toiles and fittings. (toile = a sample garment made in calico) Then we had to fill in the charts while our other pattern cutters finished the toiles. To finish the charts means we have to choose the fabric for every design that exists as a toile. Many years ago when I worked on my own with a smaller collection this was not a problem, I designed together with the fabric as I went along. Now, the rush is to develop all the toiles and then choose the fabrics and if the fabric has arrived we do a prototype. I consider right use of fabric to be the hardest thing, often you’re working in the air with just a scrap of fabric. Andreas needs the fabric to hold it and see how it behaves; hard though it is he is a wizard. On Tuesday the 16^th we finished, we had worked Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Sandra took the charts and information to Italy so they could finish the sample collection. We had already sent the toiles and patterns. That was such a relief and for the moment we can take it easy, we have time to work on grand dresses and putting outfits together- styling, telling the story of the collection.

I am doing prints and embroidery designs and I have to finish the knitwear. I am waiting for a few more tests of different stitches – textures and colour combinations from Italy then I can finish it quickly. I find graphic design easy and therapeutic because it’s so intensely absorbing. I keep it in my head at night in bed and don’t want to go to sleep; also knitwear is something you build from two basic stitches – it’s binary like a computer – you pass the loop either to the front or the back, you can also knit two loops together or increase by making two loops on one stitch. That’s it! – You have lace or tweed, plain or jacquard. I feel guilty for having it so easy.

To those who today call themselves artists but who really do not go beyond the comfort of graphic art I say that the work of art is not easy therapy. Gary was a skilled artist: to watch him draw or paint was to see him first hold back like a conductor ready to produce the evening’s concert. He had once been a portrait painter and he described it as like walking a tight rope over the Niagara Falls. When I met him he had given it up because he got pissed off with agents. He had thrown his materials into the Thames. He just kept his hand in by doing a few studies in pastel.

During this time – Thursday 4^th we had a Climate Revolution event; we invited colleagues from work- any who wanted to come – and friends for drinks and a film at the Doodle Bar, across the road from our studio in Battersea. The film was Bill McKibben’s film, “Do the Math”, which he had sent to us; it illustrates the content of the article he wrote for “Rolling Stone” about big oil and the fossil fuel industry. (The best article this year perhaps best ever) The article got far more hits on the internet than Justin Bieber, who was on the cover. We enjoyed ourselves (free drinks) – discussions and suggestions chalked up on Doodle Bar’s big black board.

Saturday, 6 July: I went to Julian Assange’s birthday at the Ecuadorian embassy- he was wearing army camouflage, I was wearing my “I am Julian Assange” tee shirt. I met some great people, the lady ambassadors from Ecuador and Argentina, a beautiful girl called Angela, wife of German artist Daniel Richter, who has written and produced a play on Julian – just by supporting him she has received hate and threats from feminists, especially Austrian ones. These complacent wrong-headed Furies! My friend Gary used to call such women “Cunt Fu”. And I met the great John Pilger, Julians’ fellow countryman and supporter. I am also friends with Wikileaks and Julian’s sweet serious people. One lawyer said that when Edward Snowden flies to political asylum in South America, (Let’s all go and live there!) the route would normally fly over some American airspace which is dangerous because America could force the plane down.

Monday, 15 July: Andreas and I went to Bryan Adams’ for dinner. He is a friend of Alexandra Schulmann and as I have never really spent time with her he thinks I should

know her better. She came with her partner, David. Bryan and his wife Alicia have just had their second child, Lula Rosy Lee, born at tea time, the three year old is Bunny, born atEaster, but they were in bed. Brian’s mother, Jane was over to see him. She was born in Devon, married a Canadian. She loves driving around Vancouver where she sketches, at age eighty she learnt to fly. A lively mind and exuberant love of life, wonderful company.
Alexandra didn’t agree with some of my ideas but because she is intelligent and quite open and maybe I can half convince her that pop culture gets us nowhere and that if we had true culture we would have different values and we would not have climate change. But she did not accept my point that if we had evolved according to our human potential for true culture we would have been able to eliminate war. That, she could not take; we would never eliminate the “territorial imperative” meaning we cannot rid ourselves of the instinct to fight for and defend territory. If you read the chapter on Rwanda in Jared Diamonds book “Collapse” you would be forced to concede her point but people do have the potential for kindness, altruism and self-sacrifice – even some animals do. There was something involving a rather more personal situation we did not agree upon and when we kissed goodnight Alexandra said, “We’ll have to agree to differ.” I said “No, we won’t.”

Exquisite food, vegetarian. We ate on the balcony. I felt we’d had a really glamorous evening and Brian enjoyed the argument. You feel he’s up for anything.

Now we have to go to the thing I’ve been dying to tell you from the beginning. But it’s so important I didn’t want to present it cold. I had to warm you up a bit first with something a bit more chit-chat.

I have been re-reading “Culture and Anarchy”, Matthew Arnold 1869. (Arnold was the son of Dr Arnold who founded Rugby school)
What I am about to tell you is the wisest thing I have ever heard and it’s the greatest advice this diary can pass on to you. It is a star to live your life by: it is Arnold’s concept of the Best Self . This and the concept of Sweetness and Light are ideas I have carried with me since my first reading a good twenty years ago.
The concept of sweetness and light ( originally put forward in “The Battle of the Books”, Jonathan Swift) prepares the way for understanding the Best Self, these two passions are complements, the dynamics of the Best Self.
Sweetness is empathy, our heart.

Light is the scientific passion, our mind.

   We all know our Best Self, especially when we compare it to our ordinary self. Our ordinary self does what it likes: feeds on desire and wants immediate gratification – sucking up what it can – childish; it loves to act, often with passion but without much thought; it wants material success, is envious and gets its adrenalin through gossip, causing trouble and the “culprit” is punished. The cleverest thing to say about the Best Self is that you know it – it’s when you’re kind and brave and stand up for things.
Arnold elaborates on the passions of the Best Self.
Sweetness, the ancient Greeks had it:

   The moral fibre is light –that “desire for the things of the mind for their own sakes and for the pleasure of seeing things as they are”. Not simply as we would like them to be. This is intellectual bravery.
How do we cultivate our Best Self? I give you my own example; as a child I was not spiteful and because of the crucifixion I knew there was suffering in the world. I needed information. Although I read it was not until I was 11 and went to grammar school that I discovered literature. Aged 18 or 19 my friend Susan who I had met at teacher training college introduced me to theatre. In my late 20’s I started to understand politics, the hippies politicized us, there were “underground” bookshops. Malcom introduced me to modern art but no light went on. Then in my late 30’s I met my friend Gary Ness. He directed my reading, Bertrand Russell, Huxley, Proust, introduced me to art and music. I would not be the same person if I had not met Gary, he sparked off my vision of the world. My husband Andreas has an original view, no-one could tell you what he tells, he seems to see the soul of things.
When I was young I absorbed pop- culture which is fine. Teenagers have a great time running around but it can’t last. You need to inform yourself, find what you’re looking for. I am self- educated but until those introductions I didn’t know where to find it. When the lights switch on and you begin to see, you have to continue. Your authority is your Best Self: it’s a moral choice, an attempt to understand the world and be part of the great human drama.

TRUE CULTURE IS PRODUCED BY SWEETNESS AND LIGHT,
THE BEST SELF IS THE PROTAGONIST.

      Arnold’s talk of the pursuit of our perfection refers to each our fulfilment and to our evolution, our ability to become more human, more civilized through culture.
Leading up to and throughout the twentieth century the main ethos has been the cultivation of the ordinary self – doing as we like! This ethos is now global. We have been arrested in our development. This is why politicians cannot progress, they’re stuck in a trap, glued to the rotten old financial system. Progress is measured by consumption. This is why I say we’re dangerously short of culture. If our ethic was that of the Best Self we would have different values, we would not have Climate Change. It’s not that people don’t go to art galleries etc. and engage with our great cultural tradition. They do, but their passion is not aspirational for the public at large. They have been trained up as consumers, they do not engage with ‘the best that has ever been thought or said or shown’. Nevertheless the art lover is a freedom fighter for a better world.

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I will tell you more in future about the ideas in this momentous essay but right now I want to stop because  the best self is the important thing.

Friday, 19July:   Renee Fleming invited Andreas and me to the Royal Opera House where she was starring in a concert presentation of Richard Strauss’s “Capriccio” we had done her dress and it was the coolest look ever- beyond elegant and she is one of those few people who really knows how to wear clothes: She uses the dress to express herself emotionally and aesthetically, this is the true meaning of the word, “chic”, it means what you’re wearing has your signature.

The opera was unimaginable – meaning I am still astonished that such a thing could exist. How did it happen? Because a genius did it. There was no plot, just an argument about which was more important to an opera, the words or the music, the heroine, Renee had two lovers one who wrote the words, and the other wrote the music. There were other arguments all personified by the role of each singer: bel canto v plain speaking, elaborate stage effect v the bare minimum, modernity v tradition. Andreas marvelled that Renee could remember all these words and in a foreign language, all the shifts and subtleties of argument. No plot, much passion and we were enthralled – for two hours and twenty minutes with no interval. Everything fitted together. It was so delightfully hyperbolic. The music: was out of this world.

At the end Renee didn’t choose either of the lovers- to choose was too banal. What would she now do?

Saturday, 22/Sunday, 23:Andreas left home this morning for the Tyrol – at five am. I didn’t go back to sleep. I stayed at home because I want to deal with a few outstanding things. Some meetings, some writing. I tried to write; I stayed confused and tired all the hot weekend.

I went to see Shami Chakrabarti. I haven’t seen her for ages and I was so excited and so looking forward to it. It was lovely talking to her and I feel affected by having seen her and happy just thinking about her now. I am a director of “Liberty” I wanted to know Liberty’s position with Julian Assange. Liberty has to fight within the law (though they can challenge laws). For example, Sweden is legally able to ask for extradition even though this is unprecedented for an alleged offence that even if it were proven would not carry a jail sentence. If Sweden were then to send him to America this would break international law – you can’t ask for extradition for one reason and then change the goal posts and extradite him for another reason (whistleblowing). And Britain would have to agree. I wouldn’t trust them – once they’ve got you they do what they want. Liberty cannot acknowledge this danger because if it happened it would contravene international law. If America requested extradition then Liberty would oppose it on the grounds of freedom of speech. Liberty did support Julian’s lawyer at his appeal before the European Court. They too were of the opinion that the Swedish prosecutor who signed the European arrest warrant for Julian was  not “judicial authority” entrusted to issue such warrants.

On Monday night was the full moon. Now I realize why I have been so sluggish. So on Tuesday I was all fit and active again. I’m at home a bit this week doing my writing for the diary and continuing the embroidery designs.

Thursday, 25 July: Went to visit my neighbour Julian Hall. He’s part of a housing co-operative and Lambeth Council want to evict the members and sell their houses. Climate Revolution isn’t just about a green economy, it’s about short term policies storing up trouble and cost for the future, in this case breaking up communities and adding to the queue for social housing.  I wrote to Lambeth Council. 

We have started a library on the window ledge in reception. Regarding fiction: these are the introductions I stuck in ”Brave New World” and “1984”. These two books are socio-political satires; there are other books which are just stories. I love these stories because it is like carrying another person’s life along with your own, adding to your experience of the world; it could have been you. I included one or two such books, e.g. “The Catcher in the Rye” but also a humble story by Alison Uttley, “The Country Child”. It has no plot. It is just the experience of a child living on a remote farm in the Pennines in the mid-19^th century, one or two generations before Alison Uttley but from the same area and as it happens where I come from.

I also put it in the library because of the illustrations by C. F. Tunnicliffe; a much needed want of an idea for a job for a creative person: today the illustrations in children’s books are an insult to the intelligence of a child, trying to keep them infantile.

I remember as a child of eight my dear mother coming home on a Friday from her work at the mill- she made herself ill with asthma worrying about us having to stay with our neighbour until she came home. This was when the aspirations of mothers were to stay at home and look after the family- with her wage she brought us a cake, sometimes a present. I always had a ginger biscuit and one day she brought me a children’s book by Alison Uttley – one of her series on “Little Grey Rabbit”- It must be the most treasured gift I ever received. And there were other books in the series. I want to finish with a poem about Alysoun. In the time of Chaucer the name was popular like Sharon or Tracey and it signified a sweet nubile girl. (hot!)

Read it fast to get the rhythm  – it was sung.