Sources of Pleasure

I enjoy hearing Roni Horn talk about her work. I haven't seen much of her work in galleries but I love her books and those about her art. When I watched the video below I was reminded of the description of the river in Herman Hesse's Siddhartha
"the river flowed and flowed, flowed ever onward, and yet was always there, was always the same yet every moment new. ..... the river is everywhere at once......everywhere at the same time" *
I first read the book in my early 20s and I've carried the words with me all my life often making work about these ideas.

A few mornings ago I was reading Gay Bilson's book Plenty when I found this exquisite description of a nest
"Another nest ('from my family's home:N'), is the same size as the first, but it's sides are higher and it is more cup shaped. It still sits in the fork of the small branch that held it in the tree. If I tried to take the nest from the branch, it would probable fall apart. The foundation (but once again the word is wrong, suggesting concreteness and solidity) is of dried grass. A large piece of faded wrapping tape is caught on one side, along with some now-brittle bubble-wrap: the presence of this unfitting human debris in nests always makes me smile. The crowning glory is a garland of leaves, built in a space made by the point where five smaller branches grew and which still retain foliage. Because of this, the nest is prettily crowned with this garland, still green although dulled, as if some bird saw that grass cup wanted for decoration and made play on classical Greek figures or Hedda Gabler." **
* Hesse,H., Siddhartha. Shambala.2002. excerpts from chapter 9.
** Bilson, Gay, Plenty. Digressions on Food. Penguin Lantern. 2004.