Artist retreat 1 - Nell Lang
The narrowboat art retreat.
Below is the first public entry, by writer, Nell Lang.
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Nell Lang went to stay on Riff Raff for the first artist retreat. I left the keys somewhere safe, a book full of writing/drawing/painting/music/exploring/whittling/living/etc prompts, and all the materials needed for a creative week.
She let herself in, turned her phone off, and spent a few days floating around and typing entries on a little word processor. Here are some of her entries.
11/07/23. Entry 1.
Hello. This is my first entry into this odd typing tool thing that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, which makes me feel very young. It’s like a computer but without all the faff.
I arrived in Whitchurch around 5pm and did my best to get to RiffRaff without using my phone to plot a route (I did use it as a map but used my compass to orient myself and tried not to check it) and got immediately lost (twice!) and I was almost annoyed until I realised that it could be funny instead. What’s the rush, you know? Nowhere to be, with no one, no-when.
I definitely found it tricky to turn my phone off when I got to the boat, I found a few excuses to turn it back on quite quickly which is interesting. It’s on airplane mode now, I’m using it to play music from the speaker but when I’m not doing that I’ll be turning it off completely.
I’m wondering now if it would be helpful to give an idea of who I am, and where I am (in my life) and also what my relationship with my phone is like. Maybe I’ll also write a little about what I expect will be easy or difficult about the next few days/weeks so I can reflect on that at the end.
My name is Nell. I turned 23 last week, and the week before that I moved out of my uni flat, and in the weeks before that I graduated university after 4 years of study.
I’ve now moved back into my childhood bedroom in London, with my parents and younger brother.
I make music, poetry and I paint very badly (which is why I love to do it) and I am rarely bored because I am often doing — but I am not always being, and being often starts with being bored… Then being becomes making, or feeling, or both. I am trying to be and to make and to feel and I think that being here will help me to do all of those things.
I have only been here for a little while - offline and alone on Riff Raff - and already I’m thinking so much about my phone and my relationship to it. Everyone I love lives in it, as do many people I don’t, and both of those things pull me to it constantly. That stream of content helps me to float at the top of my own brain without having to focus much on swimming (or on anything at all), but keeps me treading water in the same place until I’m sick of it and stuck and tired. My phone gets me where I need to go, and while it can’t always get me there on time, it’s the one that tells me I’m late, or chides me with an alarm I set myself. It’s where I make my lists, jot down my thoughts, write poetry, songs, read chords and comics, look through little social media windows into my friends’ (and not-friends’) lives. It’s how I find new art, tattoo artists, read news, talk to the person I’m dating, figure out who in my family is in for dinner and how I find the recipe to cook that dinner. It’s an instant answer to every random question asked over a pub table, it’s the detailed wikipedia articles with the plot line of all the movies I like, my watch, my map, my eyes, my mouth.
Quite honestly, I am both nervous and relieved to be without it. Nervous because I rely on it so much, and relieved because it demands so much of me. Not having to reply to texts feels like an actual weight off my shoulders. At the same time, I know there will be people I’ll miss speaking to through it, especially being alone on the boat. Though I’ve always quite liked my own company, and find the idea of being able to wander about without deadline or expectation very liberating.
This has really been a big old busted chicken coop of thoughts and concepts, but it was nice to write and I feel like my head is screwed on a bit tighter and the knots in my chest are a little bit looser.
RIFF RAFF: Really I Feel Fine. Rarely, And Frequently, Fine.
Entry 2, Day 2 (12/07/23), ~9.15pm
I have just finished reading the first chapter of Jenny Odell’s “How to do Nothing” that Seb left me. In the middle of the chapter, she describes her fascination with birds in her local area. The birds created a sense of realness for her, and became a reminder of land that existed before; they represented the fundamental simplicity of existing as one entity as it witnesses and builds relationships with others.
After describing her fondness for two crows she often threw peanuts to, Crow and Crowson, Odell speaks straight to the reader to remind them that they are real and, she is real, and everything around us is real. In the middle of the paragraph, my reading was interrupted by a bundle of ducks, maybe five or six, who approached the side of the boat. 2-3 of them lined up and looked up at me expectantly. I had the same thought as Jenny - to these ducks I’m another human on something floating on the water and like many other humans in the same situation before me, I may have some crumbs which I might not mind sharing. However, once they realised the unfortunate truth of my crumblessness they swam off, pausing to jump to reach the weeds stretching over the waters edge or disappearing bum-in-air to grab a small something or other in the water. I watched them go, and enjoyed how much I was entertained by them and by the oddly narratively perfect timing of their arrival.
One thing I thought I was missing about my phone was the ability to share. But I was thinking about this earlier, and I wondered if actually, I was missing the ability to capture, which I would be able to do if I had film for the camera. Next time.
I made a nice pasta dish, and then caught the last of the sun and twice I thought “ah, I want to take a picture of this”. The second time I thought, “but what would I do with that picture? It won’t do what I’m seeing any justice. But I guess it might remind me of this moment and how I feel in it - which was, by the way, overwhelmed by wonder at the ways the world insists on being so beautiful - so I can look back and always remember this moment and in some small way live in it. Now I’m unsure if that’s a) possible and b) something I would even want - why would I go back and live in that one, when I can live in the next one like it instead, and the next after that and so on and so on.
Today I did many things, and tried to produce only some of them. By which I mean, some of the things I did I recorded or wrote or made a record of in some way. But some music I played just to play, not to finish, some walks I walked just to walk not to get somewhere. In the spirit of that, I’ll keep back some of the life I lived today from this so it doesn’t feel like I did it just to write about it.
Something else Odell talks about in her book, that I’ve thought alot about before this, is the modern need for exponential growth and productivity. I think it’s interesting how busy I made myself today, and I wonder if I did too much, or how much I did just to be doing or growing or ticking the boxes. But also, I walked around an Antiques emporium with no way of buying anything, and I sat and held myself for a moment, and I painted a flower growing on the boat just so I could look at it a little closer and a little differently.
I do miss content a little bit this evening. I would love to watch a film right now, maybe this is because that’s something I enjoy but often feel I don’t have energy for (or am overwhelmed by choice on streaming services). Also, I am already beginning to feel a little bit lonely, and I wish I could call someone. I’m going to start a segment in either the residency sketch book or the little journalist notebook called “Questions for Seb” because I keep wondering about what it must be like to live like this (or in a similar way to this) alone for longer stretches of time.
I feel like I had so much more to say, and I kept thinking of all the things I would write here this evening throughout the day and now they all escape me. I had coffee and breakfast at the lock cafe this morning and didn't bring a book or anything, just sat and gosh I really liked that. I might start getting coffee alone more and stop taking my phone out with me (when I’m back home, I mean). An elderly couple sitting close by were doing crosswords and not speaking to each other, and at one point Adele’s rolling in the deep came on and the man got up to “Shazam'' it to find out what it was and I thought “I could have told you that, and maybe I would have if you hadn’t had your phone with you, and maybe we would have had a nice chat”. And then a few minutes later he asked me if I knew the wifi password (i pointed him to the sign on the wall) and thought how funny it was that despite the fact I had no phone of my own in sight, he asked me that. I suppose it was my age, probably.
Right then, I’m going to tidy up my dinner and make my bed. Maybe tomorrow I will write a short story or a dialogue or something else here to break up the diary style. We shall see.
RIFF RAFF
Riot If Feeling Frustrated. Real Artists Fan Flames.
Day 3, ~8.30am
Good Morning!
I didn’t write about this yesterday ( I don’t think?) but in the morning I spent the first hour dusting RiffRaff, which I am now realising was perhaps an unwise endeavour as I am asthmatic, allergic to dust and also have had a cough for the last few weeks. All to say that my throat was hurting all day, which got worse last night. I assumed it was a temporary dust thing, but it woke me up last night a few times because it’s so painful to swallow… and sure enough, this morning I had a look and one of my tonsils is swollen & infected (yum). I’ve had a bit of a small child who wants their mum moment- I tried to put my phone’s SIM in Seb’s flip phone (Haven’t had a chance to buy one) so I could avoid turning my phone on but it didn't work, so I turned my phone on to text her. Being miserable, ill and socially isolated doesn’t really seem in the spirit of this retreat so I’m going to call her in a bit and discuss what to do. I’m enjoying being removed from the pressures of social media, and I feel like I am back in rhythm with my body already - eating when I need to, sleeping when I need to, walking everywhere. But, I’m finding being alone without being able to call a friend very difficult, and I’m not sure I’m in a place in my own life where I can comfortably be away from my support network for this long, particularly when something goes wrong (i.e. I get unwell), a fact which I’m finding a bit upsetting but am trying to forgive myself for.
I think part of me feels like this has been a failed experiment, like going home is giving up and showing that I will never be strong enough to resist the constant pull of the complexity of modern life, that I am too far gone to just sit in the simplicity. The other part of me thinks my throat hurts and I’m in an emotionally painful transition period and I don’t want to be alone and that maybe that’s okay and doesn’t mean anything bigger than that, and that I don’t have to leave the ideas and concepts from this retreat in this space. I can go home and read the rest of How to Do Nothing. I can go home and delete my social media. I can go home and turn off my phone for a few days.
Anyways, my head is a bit torn (clearly). I’m going to make some breakfast and will update this log when I’ve made a decision about what to do.
~15:15, same day.
Okay, so, since I wrote that a few things have happened. One, I called my mum and had a couple key realisations. Firstly, that I was lonelier than I realised, and that what I thought I needed was to be away from everyone and have space to process all the change in my life, and while that is true in some ways, in many ways this has made me realise that what I need right now is to be amongst friends and in a familiar environment. It’s a bit of a classic, “hey you had what you needed right in front of you the whole time but you couldn’t see it” type situation. Following that thought, then, it was essential that I come here because I needed to see that and couldn’t, and now I can. I also realised that I am more self sufficient and less reliant on my phone than I predicted I was. I really did not find it as much of an adjustment as I expected, and have quite enjoyed navigating around with a physical map, walking without music in my ears and sitting watching the world pass me by. My favourite moments in the last two days have been sitting on top of/on the edge of the boat, just watching the ripples of the fish, or the wind in the trees. This, I will miss very much.
(two) The second thing that happened is my illness got worse. Now, my lymph nodes are swollen and I think I also have a mild fever. I bought some drugs in town and feel a bit better now but I am certainly not well.
Three, informed by both the realisations and the illness worsening, I have decided to go home today. I asked my mum to look up train times for Crewe —> London so I didn't have to switch my data on and use any apps, and then used a printed train timetable to figure out trains from Whitchurch to Crewe. I’m heading off in under an hour.
In the day since that phone conversation, around 9am, I have eaten porridge, read quite a bit more of How to Do Nothing, (fittingly, the bit about how “dropping out” of normal life with no plan of return is not generally the most satisfying solutions to the ails of the human condition) mostly in the local McDonalds which is honestly a very fun location to sit and ponder life in as it feels like the inside of a strange playground that has no fun toys and many sad adults. I adventured around Whitchurch (which I already have my bearings of) and bought bits and bobs from charity shops- including a few cool postcards and a little ornate box as a gift for my friend Julia at the antiques emporium (thanks for the prompt, Seb). I thought of and added some more questions to “my questions for Seb” page in the journalist notebook (sidenote: Seb if you ever have the chance to read them I would love to know your answers). I tidied up RiffRaff, weeded some of the plant pots a little bit, and sat and just existed for a while on the boat roof in the sun and later on a deliciously warm wooden bench. I wonder if people wonder about me as they drive their boats past me, in the same way that I wonder about them.
Since I am leaving, I have a few final thoughts on this experience.
I am very glad I was here. Although in some ways I’m frustrated with myself that I’m leaving, and I’m worried I’ve taken an opportunity from someone who might have stayed longer, I think 48 hours was enough to prove to myself that I am more capable than I thought, that I am more easily entertained than my content consumption would have suggested, and that I can comfortably get into a rhythm within my own body (e.g. sleep, hunger, walking) and perhaps need to remove myself from the city/ be alone to do this if I ever need to in the future.
Gender & safety. I walked past a man on my way to the boat bathrooms yesterday evening who was mooring his boat, and he called out “You’ve walked a lot today!” at me with a smile. When I stopped to chat, he said he’d seen me earlier walking around Whitchurch. We chatted briefly and I walked off, and while he did not make me feel unsafe there was an uneasiness to the realisation that people were noticing and recognising me and my movements, and I became very suddenly extra aware that I am a young woman on my own who is very visible. I just wanted to flag that experience for future iterations of this residency, I’m not sure if it would be better or worse to be moored nearer or further from others. However, a positive of this experience that also (in my mind) relates at least a little to gender, is how nice it was to not give a single fuck what I looked like. If anything, I cared more about not looking good than the other direction to avoid unwanted attention. It was really nice to root myself back in my body in a way that was not at all aesthetic.
I relied a lot on signs, public maps, visitors centres etc. to get around, and I wonder if there will come a time that smart tech is so integrated cross-generationally and globally that this will no longer be considered necessary by local councils etc. and it will therefore be impossible (or at least significantly more difficult) to get around without technology. Food for thought, I'm not sure it’ll happen in the next 20 years and we’ll have bigger problems then I’m sure.
I think my inner voice is a bit pretentious and writing these entries is making me self conscious, as someone who occasionally journals and never has to worry about anyone else reading what they think. So there’s a strong chance very little of this makes sense, has value or is insightful at all. However, I wrote it anyway. Since I’m trying not to read any of this back as I write, I might have repeated myself or missed important things, but that’s just part of it isn’t it really. Right then, with that I’m going to go finish packing my stuff. Here’s my last acronym (I’ve been enjoying thinking of these while I walk places).
RIFF RAFF
Reality is Fucking Funny- Rally Against Fear, Friends.
Thank you, Nell.
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I have a bunch more artist retreats coming up, and will be publishing them here. If you want to do one, respond to this email and let me know.