Somerset Art Weeks 2022
Sanctuary / Alchemy :: 'your grief is welcome here'
Next week sees the beginning of this year’s Somerset Art Weeks
County wide exibitions will be running from Saturday 24th September to Sunday 9th October, and I will be showing working at Dove Studios on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through the event.
You are welcome for a glass of vino and the private. We will be open for the not-so-private view 4 - 7pm on Friday 23rd September.
If you’re south-west based, do plan a day or two to come and jaunt around Somerset and soak up the work. After two years away, there is much to see and experience.
My laptop is grinding to a halt, after over a decade of solid service, so I will keep this INKLINGS short and look up where my local Currys is….
Somerset Art Weeks 2022
Alongside NATURAL INK., works on paper and a selection of hand lettered cards, I am also showing a site responsive installation.
Work in Progress
‘your grief is welcome here’
Rather than outcasting the parts of ourselves that are afraid of being seen, hurt, or left behind. We allow and include them, moment by moment, strengtheing our capacity for inclusion, for belonging. It is the practice of bringing the fullness of our presence to a moment, whether it’s filled with rage or sadness, to say, “This too belongs.
Toko Pa Turner - Belonging.
I have been working on this piece for several months and as the life cycles keep shifting, more loss and more love have emerged.
‘your grief is welcome here’ has been a process of unfolding and making space.
A soft invitation for personal and collective grief.
A treehouse sanctuary.
A moment of attention.
No answers among the tree boughs.
A welcome for all that sits within.
A quiet pause.
As I write, the final stages of this making process still sit in the unknown, but the intention is strong.
I am asking the question of how we create space for what is here, how do we welcome what so dearly wishes to belong, but can find itself outcast.
The NATURAL INK. Project on the surface has been rooted in exploring making colour from the landscape and what is found. Underneath this layer of earth lies a white hot magma. An ongoing questioning, a practice, a resistance, a messy unravelling. How do we welcome all that sits within us? How do we make space for our emotional experience? How do we shine a light on the mental landscapes that undulate? How do we touch the truth of belonging? What supports us to connect and unwind from that which binds us tightly in fear? How do we make space for all that is natural within us?
I am ever curious about how the art of bringing attention can alchemise our pain into compassion.
That which isolates becomes a path of connection.
You are invited to spend time in the treehouse. Clamber in and take a minute to be held in the boughs of the trees.
THE BOOK OF LOVE AND LOSS is available to you to write anything you wish to, anonymously or not.
We all have stories of loss and love and there is a sweet medicine in sharing these in some small way.
May your utterance be a defiance.
May it be an honouring.
May it be a thread of connection.
With no expecations, and only an invitation.
You are simply welcome here.
Things I have been listening to:
A Winged Victory For The Sullen on Spotify
David Whyte. On Being with Krista Tippett
Rachel Naomi Remen - How We Live With Loss. On Being with Krista Tippett