In this INKLINGS
A cup of tea and toast at the kitchen table.
Bursary funding news for neurodivergent artist support.
Extended introductory offer for the NATURAL INK. Course and initial feedback from folks.
An invitation to Tir Cwiar//Queer Land opening night in Swansea.
Update to INKLINGS structure and subscriptions for 2025.
Hello folks.
It’s rolling up to the end of January and I am peeking back into the digital connection realms. Twitching nose held high to pick up the scents on the air, and woof is it moist and musky.
What a fortnight we’re navigating as a species. I don’t have the written words or hot takes on what is happening. The pressure I can feel to somehow form a congruent and stable written position on things in these digital realms can often feel stifling.
I would like to sit with you around a worn, wooden kitchen table in the late afternoon dusk light and feed you toast and refill your tea cup again and again as we spoke of what it felt like in our hearts and minds right now. Our fears and hopes for the future of our own small, deep lives and that of our world. Coupled with laughing at the daft dog (there always needs to be a daft dog), the amusing minutiae of our days and the quick-witted response from the one of us who is on a roll and energised to play. To hold the lightness and the heaviness together. Knee to knee, palms of our hands cupping warm crockery. Bodies together in time and place.
This January I am planting the seeds for more of this. In this strange, often socially isolating home I have with this rural, coastal place, I am planting seeds for more connection in person. For place and people and process to sit at the heart of not just the art making but the wider practice of bringing folks together. In the local. The global local. The distinctions of flavour and flow that happen just here. To not give in to the dominance of media, commercial and political power that seeks to shame and eradicate difference, to homogenise, distract and displace. To also be affected and informed by the collective.
I am honoured and excited to be being supported by a bursary from a-n The Artists Information Company to begin researching and developing a neurodivergent artist support network here in rural west Wales. This will look like heading off to the shiny lights of other urban spaces and projects and speaking to folks, gathering ideas and inspiration, bringing local folks together, attending disability access training and the all-important creative evaluation training that will bring together key feedback from folks to then support with future funding applications.
If you know of any groups/projects etc., you think would be a good fit for this in Wales or beyond, please do let me know at hello@kathrynjohn.co.uk.
NATURAL INK. Course.
The remotely held web of places and people that is NATURAL INK. Course is a genuine joy to have shared with you all. A delightful bunch of humans is already involved, and I will soon have a date in the diary for our first real-time online gathering. Coming together from our own square miles across the globe to share tea, plants, colour, and conversation.
I have extended the introductory offer for the course at £110—payable in one or two instalments—until 10th February in honour of Imbolc and the very beginnings of new life emerging, for those who are gently finding their way into the year.
After this, I will be increasing the tiered pricing significantly to honour the depth of this offering. There will also be an allocated amount of continued £110 spaces for marginalised folks in financial need. Full details of this will be available after the introductory offer period.
Some things folks have said already:
“I just wanted to say thank you so much for the wonderful kit you sent to me last week - I can't wait to get myself organised and get stuck into this new creative activity.”
“I’ve already begun to dip into the course offerings and it is a beautiful thing you have put together. I am very glad to be embarking on this adventure.”
Exhibition Invite
The group exhibition Tir Cwiar//Queer Land opens next Friday 7th February at 6 pm at Elysium Gallery, Swansea.
Ten queer Welsh artists (myself included) brought together and supported by OYF Collective and a superb curatorial team are exhibiting new work celebrating the vitality and resilience of the queer community in Wales, nurture by land and collective identity.
The exhibition runs until 22nd March and it would be great to see you there. In person events will be running during this time too that I will let you know about when confirmed.
Also, if you are available this evening the splendid Skye Kember is hosting a free-to-attend online talk at 6 pm - The Land is Queer - as part of this project.
The land is queer is a collaborative workshop where we will explore queer ecology and dream up spaces that reconnect us in community with our human and nonhuman kin. In the same way queerness is not one way of being, queer ecology understands there is not one way of knowing. Queer ecology is a questioning, an unravelling of the dominant colonial narrative. A part of it researches non-human lgbtq folk but it is also a deeper nonlinear understanding. Colonialism uses binaries as a tool of oppression and alienation. By building reciprocal relationships in community with the understanding that our queerness is natural and we are nature we can work to heal our alienation. We will start the session with a working agreement for the online space we will be sharing. This will be followed by a short talk where I will share my understanding of queer ecology. Then together we will work with some prompts to imagine queer ecological spaces.
Skye Kember.
Substack Updates
After much reflection and percolation, I am experimenting with a new way of structuring and sharing things here on Substack.
This space, and previous newsletters, have become a key part of my practice over the last few years. Spending time writing long-form, digesting and disseminating practice and putting together podcasts is a delight and naturally a lot of work. As I have moved more away from social media it is also how I connect with folks who follow my work and market what I do. I am also sharing more openly about neurodivergent and queer life things as I endeavour to allow myself the grace of being who I am more fully in my life and work, and to be a comrade for others navigating these things, in an increasingly hostile and simultaneously loving and emergent world. These things can get caught up together in a brain-mashing way here so I have decided to experiment with a different structure through the seasons ahead. Subject to change, of course.
Monthly newsletters with news, practice insights and care-based goodness will continue to be free and open access. From time to time there will be other sharing here too.
I have decided to put the following offerings behind a paywall to support and honour the energy and work these take to bring together and to support my navigation of being active and visible on the internet and allow me to share more freely with a smaller group of folks. Should you wish to access these offerings and finances are a barrier I heartily welcome you to drop me an email simply asking me to add you to this subscriber list and I will do that, no questions asked.
Seasonal guided voice notes for journalling and reflection practices on each of the eight fire festivals.
Voice notes on navigating creative practice and freelance life as a neurodivergent artist, amongst other things.
Long-form written INKLINGS.
I have thought long and hard about the paywall conundrum and this feels like a really good fit right now, honouring my own need to be paid for my work, and creating a safer container for sharing, alongside honouring the access needs of others and inviting you to engage in whatever way feels good to you.
I feel inspired and excited about this, and as an inspiration-driven human this is vital! More to say on this at a later date.
I will be back in your inboxes with the IMBOLC INKLINGS this weekend.
Warm wintering well wishes to you.
In creative camaraderie,
✺ Karn
✺ g e n t l e a t t e n t i o n✺
✺ ‘Experiments in Unmasking’ from
at For The Birds.
✺ Music for indoor days
✺The American Life’s episode ‘Try a Little Tenderness’
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