Performance Art

Difficulties with drawing and painting made me so impatient in early 80´s. There has to be some faster way to get in living contact with all these pictures and feelings inside and around me! Should I start as a photographer? Or a filmmaker? Isn´t that too technical for me? Maybe an actor?

As a musician my only possibility was punk. But even it I felt a short path to a dead end. It´s true that I had inspiring vibes with electric bass or drums although I had no talents at all to play in a band. But I had some strange idea to make something with voice and sounds. My "playing" was like drawing lines on the air or spreading colors in space. Maybe I could form kind of invisible tonal sculptures. After all everything leaded to visions. So, it has to be visual art...but what kind of art is including music, pictures, dance, theatre...punk and symphony? It should not be dependent on money, expensive materials and studios, high tech instruments or slow drying oil colors! It should be free and easy like dreaming! 

I tried to find my way thru fatal, happy, ridiculous and dramatic periods of my young life. Once I was wandering around in Helsinki and when searching some certain restaurant I hit my head to a column beside a pavement. Accompanied by huge bong and furious cry I lifted my eyes to a poster: Performance Art Course. Come and see, don´t hesitate! 

With deep disrespect for the message of the poster I continued my walk and cursed the persons behind the art course. Something shouted inside me: Performance art can´t be taught! I´ve been wondering afterwords, where was this unconditional opinion from, because the fact was that I knew nothing about performance art. Later, as an art teacher, I found out that everything with a history can be taught. But, of course, I didn´t even know that performance art had some history. 

But I had a clue, performance art happens intuitively. And it is for me!