I don’t know about you but I am finding this world uncomfortable to live in, to say the least. Yesterday this was acute for me – a feeling of compression and deep sadness from thinking about the hold that big corporations have on the political sphere, freedom of speech and debate and enquiry.

The knowledge of the pain that so many people are going through, the role that hyper-capitalism and extractive growth plays in all of that and the deep lack of concern for the lives of innocent people by those motivated by power and greed is almost too much to bear.

Some people won’t even enter into any debate. It’s understandable. Numbing oneself is sometimes necessary to preserve a sense of being able to live in a more privileged world but I do feel we must face the situation, at least sometimes, and sit in the fire of the discomfort to see where we fit in to all of this by indirect complicity and think about what we can do about our (unintentional) contribution.

This interview with Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams helped me to think about my approach. She is a Buddhist priest and activist and the co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, published by North Atlantic Books and has been bridging the worlds of personal transformation and justice since the publication of her critically-acclaimed book, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace.

Then also yesterday I listened to Shaun McNiff talking about how art heals, the thrust of his 30 years of work in transformational potential that art can bring in this interview for Intellect, a publishing house for arts and health, particularly the Journal of Applied Arts and Health which has lots of, available to the commons, articles of interest, the editor in chief of which, Ross Prior, was my first Director of Studies in my PhD. 

My own work highlights the transformational power of art making through various projects but yesterday was just one of those low, low days of compression which are fortunately fairly rare for me. The wet and cold weather has contributed I’m sure because being out in the garden or walking always shifts things on better days. So anyway I just decided to draw how I felt; sort of pressed in from all these spheres of oppression from Big Tech, growth mindset, cancel culture, suppression of freedom of speech and non-democratic inducing powerlessness.

I wish I had photographed the process but I was engrossed in it for a while, finding a flow as, unintentionally, the drawing took a shift to the positive. I remembered my aphorism that nature shows us best how to operate when making difficult decisions or feeling disempowered and realised it was a full moon as lunar symbols appeared on the page weirdly seemingly without my own direction. I ended up with a positive image of myself, or some sort of being representing me, in play with the spheres which had morphed into representations of positivity and power. How nature and we humans (not that we are separate) must unite to work in harmony to keep this planet in some kind of balance.

Anyway!!! It felt like a positive transmutation and showed the power of making art for personal transformation in a simple, direct and profound way. It lifted the mood and today I have been out planting seeds, weeding and tidying in the garden. The situation of the world has not gone away but I have spent some time facing it and can work out other strategies going forward rather than feeling so disempowered. I can meet discomfort and have ways to work with it, meditation being one of them – listen to Angel Kyodo Williams when you have a moment.

Here is the result of a couple of hours at the sketchbook:

I put it here, though it was for private work, to inspire you to think about drawing how you feel and then to see where it takes you. This made its own transformation – the picture sometimes ‘tells us’ what it needs – and it doesn’t need to transform towards the positive to be effective – the most important thing is that you have EXPRESSED something. 

…and don’t think you are not good enough to draw – it’s for you to do and not to share unless you want to…

The issue of talent is the most effective defense against expression… Sit with what you already have and dream with it in a new way.
from Trust the Process – Shaun NcNiff

Lack of expression becomes repression/suppression and is the root of many an illness, physical and mental. I see that in my work as a homeopath in deep listening to people.

Whenever illness is associated with loss of soul, the arts emerge spontaneously as remedies, soul medicine.
from Art as Medicine – Shaun McNiff

Today I am more upbeat and feeling the interdependence of nature more and this is today’s offering:

I would love a conversation or to hear your thoughts about how you use art making to help yourself or if you would consider trying it.

Creativity is a force of nature, the mainstream of imagination accessible to all.
from Imagination in Action – Shaun McNiff

exhibition news

If you are in the Stourbridge area (central England) you are welcome to attend this lovely exhibition at The General Office. It takes place between 14th and 28th April 2024, Tuesday – Sundays 11am-4pm

Here is a flyer – please do bring friends – 10 artists made 52 pieces of work over the course of the year on a playing card and they are all presented here – 520 artworks!!!

Thank you to Julie Edwards who’s concept this was and her husband John who also takes part and did so much of the design work of the posters and backed Julie up wonderfully over the course of her illness.