I am achieving my dream. I am the master of my craft. My style. My technique. A thing that is uniquely mine.  I am here. I am me. I have done it.

1.     Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman is a great play. How does each scene go from there to there? Why does it make so much sense to me? Every sentence is loaded. Metaphors all over the place. I don’t know how to see them. How to look for them. And then I do. It takes 3 months solid. I am 40. I am 40 when I begin my journey towards my 8-station mind-maps. I have no idea I am making this journey. At this time, I am not bothered about being published, produced, in print. I am bothered about craft. Technique. Genuinely. I begin my ascent. Similar to climbing Everest. Or walking across Africa. I know I will only do such a laborious task once. I may as well do it properly. It is probably on stolen Post Office pads — where I work. These pads don’t exist now. I will have thrown them away in one of my purges. I don’t care about books and books of paper. What is important is what it has done to my creative soul. Which will come to fruition this Thursday 21.08.25 in HOME.

2.     Jackson Pollock

Not that I see it then. I do not know I am making, building, my unique style. I feel like Jackson Pollock when I am sliding across my 8’ feet mind-maps on the floor. 8’ x 8’. I’ve only done that twice. Because I have to piece them together. I have done 4’ x 8’ multiple times in the last 6 weeks building up stamina. This mad feeling is happening. It is genuinely mine — this process. It belongs to me, no one else. The first time I feel the Jackson Pollock feeling I am stood on my 4’ x 8’ mind-map, and I draw a line from the top to the bottom. 8 feet long. Not faltering. Straight through what is already there. Making the connections. Like I do on the page in my A5 Moleskine. Mastering it. The paper is mine. The Posca paint pen is mine. The idea. The feeling. The essence is mine. I am here. I am achieving my dream. I am the master of my craft. My style. My technique. A thing that is uniquely mine. Like Miro’s red, black and yellow. Giacometti’s tall thin men. Caravaggio’s light. Bourgeois giant spiders. I am here. I am me. I have done it.

3.     Objects Carry Symbols That Hold Metaphors

In Death of a Salesman, I look for the metaphors. Using Tony Buzan’s mind-mapping revision technique. Christopher Columbus discovering America is remembered by drawing a galleon with 1492 written on the side. I adapt Tony Buzan. I read each Death of a Salesman sentence and picture it. Creating a dictionary. A dictionary of symbols I have evolved over 23 years and will use come this Thursday to digest the stories my mixed-race culture and creative practitioners tell in our mixed-race psychologist Adam’s psychology office in our HOME installation. I will do to the memoirs what I did to Death of a Salesman. No, I won’t. I begin there. Laboriously. Laboriously, I mind-map every single sentence of Death of a Salesman. I begin to learn that objects carry symbols that hold metaphors. So, Biff sees his dad give his fancy piece a new pair of stockings; but we have previously seen Biff’s mum mending her stockings. And now Biff’s life is in ruins because he cannot forgive his dad; and his dad cannot grow the carrots he has bought on the way to meet grown up Biff because the towering development is eating the sun that used to reach their little patch when they were kids. The private and the political side-by-side. It took 3 months. To layer the meaning of each sentence from each character’s perspective. Some areas of my mind-maps so overlain with pencil crayon I no longer know what is there.  But each unravelling is a stunning realisation. OMG. OMG. As I see how clever Arthur Miller is. How profound. How everyman Wiley is. How it is speaking to now. Even more now. It is even predicting global warming.

 4.     Bells Whiskey

I reverse mind-mapping to write What’s in the Cat. I draw what I want to say about my mum and dad. I draw the images. No matter what. No matter how ridiculous. Then translate that into text. Dialogue. Sometimes, just action. Like every morning when my dad comes down and puts a capful of Bell’s whiskey on his head. Removes his cap. Adds the Bells. Puts his cap back on. Put the Bells cap back on. Whoever has seen my first play never forgets it. Why? Why do they not forget it? Why does he do it? Both a mystery. But I begin to believe in myself. There is a language stronger than words. There is a way to reach my subconscious that will reach your subconscious. Like the fractals and the big-word-repeating-patterns that are in a Jackson Pollock. I have reached it. I am there. Like, no one could tell me my dad did not put Bells on his head — I witnessed it — you cannot tell me my 8-station mind-maps are not beautiful; do not speak to you; even though your mind to your mouth cannot articulate what they are saying.

6.     8 Images > 8-stations

These days I do not have to mind-map every sentence. I have a shorthand. I will only have to remember 8 images. The individual participant will reveal something profound when using my 12-words writing technique to answer what does a mixed-race sink look like. Adam will help them unpack what they have written. We will share a long lunch. And during these 4 hours together— I won’t cheat — I won’t write anything down — I will allow their story to pass through me like light passing through a prism.  When the participant is gone, I will retrieve 8 images they conjure that has left an imprint on me. And draw them in the order they come out around my 8 symbols with values like tarot cards.