As I mentioned earlier in the month, reading and writing/ writing and reading go hand in hand. As I’ve tasked myself with a poem a day this month, I’ve also tasked myself with reading poetry and wider as it all feeds into the creative process.
Dal Kular, a dear friend and awesome imagineer, brought Foluke Taylor and their writings to my attention. I’ve been taken by Foluke’s writing around creativity and repetition so when Dal mentioned the book, Unruly Therapeutic, I knew I had to pick this book up and read it. And I’m so glad I have done just that ( well still reading it in fact!).
This is a hybrid, break down the structures kind of book in terms of how it’s written but also how it centres the Black woman’s experience. It’s music to my ears on so many levels. More so in being real, and allowing the thoughts and concepts presented to meander. To double back and repeat. There’s even a music playlist at the end go each chapter as an indication of what Foluke was listening to while the book was under construction.
I’ll return here with a review of length, but for now I just wanted to mark the reading of this text and a recommendation to get out and buy your own copy, as I’m not lending mine out!
I think I heard back about my abstract being accepted for Demeter Press collection The Mother Wave: Matricentric Feminism as Theory, Activism, and Practice back in November 2022. And really haven’t engaged much with it since.
I wanted to continue this work as I felt as if I’d just got started mining this seam. But really I feel as if I’ve always been working with memory, family and archives throughout my whole creative journey. There’s always been a desire to fill in the gaps around my origins. Who be my people? Where did we come from? What makes us tick?
So I submitted the abstract changing Blackwoman to Black Mothers, as that’s what I’ve been exploring my matrilineage, our bodies with/in nature and healing. I just wanted to continue this through a different medium; before ‘art’ now ‘word’. But really all hybrid.
I’ve surrendered more and more with each creation, that to fully express myself, my identity, ideas, passions and preoccupations, hybridity, multidisciplinary creations/ renditions are a truer take on things. More of a fuller picture/ form is rendered.
My first draft of the essay has to be submitted by May 1st ( now changed to 10 June!). As it happens, I’ve been away house/ dog sitting for the first two weeks of April, alone in Buckinghamshire. Prime time I thought to dive deep and immerse myself in the writing process.
I’ve been using my Patreon supporters as accountability buddies, these past few weeks while working on this essay. I’ve been updating them on progress reports along the away. With my time coming to an end down here, I thought I’d use what time I have left to reflect on the process and progress so far. And I’m sharing the post with you here.
I’m using this reflection as a place marker for progress as well as evidence for when I go home and think I could have done more, or start to beat myself up about wasting time. At least I’ll have this reflection to fall back on.
If I was following the book along meticulous, then I’d be starting week 4, of the Julia Cameron book, Write for Life. But hey life gets in the way and SLOW is my mantra. I wouldn’t be digging deep if I was to rush through this text as it’s like mining gold really, there are gems everywhere.
What I’m reading is speaking to my soul. I mean receiving reminders that my best writing, the only good writing comes from being vulnerable. Which means I have to lead the own with my heart, through by heart, by my heart. Otherwise, it would be false, untrue, and boring.
Being vulnerable is my strength. It’s one of my superpowers!( You see what I did there, right? I said ‘one of’. Because I have many superpowers).
Being vulnerable on the page means writing what disturbs me, what fills me with fear and what I’m unwilling to say but will share it anyway.
Being vulnerable means being willing to spilt myself open again and again on the page as Natalie Goldberg says. Because then I’m being honest, daring and authentic. Writing how I really feel opens myself up to myself.
I might be behind in the book reading, but I’m not behind in terms of being vulnerable and writing from the heart. And this means I have to be patience with myself and tender. As writing with heart is a tender way of being. And takes care, attention and love.
Yesterday I shared the first page of a crime novel I’m attempting to write one page at a time. And who know when or where this is going to happen, I just know I’m going to try.
Page 1 – The redraft
The beach is empty. The sky cloudless, grey moving to blue with the sun being up for over an hour. The usual dog walkers are out marking the sand with prints and shit. Some clean up after their dogs like good citizens. While others never look back.
Littered with glossy seaweed and feathers, as if a bird battle has gone down, the beach is flanked by a rotting pier. Or wooden construction used in the past to mark out bays within the sea for long forgotten trade. Now just an eye sore and gathering point for the bored youth trapped in this seaside resort.
But down there within the shadows and the shallows is one naked white blue – black body. A woman, lying on her stomach, arms beside her sides, palms turned up. Her blond black head is turned towards the sea, tangled threaded with seaweed and sand. The sun beams down on her bare arse resembling a dark conch. Her swollen face reveals gaping blue lips around cracked teeth.
It’s a chocolate lab sniffing out crabs around the pier who finds her body. Barking to its owner to come see, gulls flocking down to squark the find too. Then they circle, eyes piercing the sea, maybe looking for her missing feet.
The Commentary
Redrafting page one was a no brainier for me. I didn’t want to follow the stereotypes of crime fiction. The white female victim found alone in her flat or down a dark alley.
Yes I’ve kept some of the usual characteristics of the genre, the victim is female but Black. This is what I crave in crime fiction, Black characters, be them the detective, the victims, the society.
I found a few. Like I love Elouise Norton, the Black female detective series by Rachel Howzell Hall. And then the books by Attica Locke. But I’m craving me some Black British crime fiction. On my doorstep.
It seems natural to base the novel within my region and my space of familiarity the seaside as then I don’t have to go to any far flung place for research and authenticity. If I’m walking the coast, all is fodder for the one image at a time process. #onwards.
I think from the time of my MA in Creative Writing, 2003 at Northumbria University, I’ve had the dream to write a crime novel.
Reading crime fiction is a guilty pleasure of mine from being young. They scare me and thrill me at the same time. I don’t try to guess who’s the killer or kidnapper or criminal. I’m just there in the thick of it; engrossed.
There has been times through the years, where I’ve said, this is the time, I’m going to write the crime novel. Start the reading and taking notes, fleshing out the story. Only to get a few weeks down the line and my patience has worn thin. I’ve lost the spark. I’m hit with the massive FEAR of failing.
It’s like a don’t give myself the time and space to crash and burn. That I jump to the end and make it all crap and useless, only after writing a few pages. That it’s okay to fail as nothing is perfect, super deluxe on the first pass.
But I think I’ve come up with an idea. What if I trick myself into thinking all I’m doing is writing a page. Not a whole crime novel, just a page. How would that work out for me?
Page 1
The beach is empty. The sky cloudless, grey moving to blue with the sun being up for over an hour. The usual dog walkers are out marking the sand with prints and shit. Some clean up after their dogs like good citizens. While others never look back.
Littered with glossy seaweed and feathers, as if a bird battle has gone down, the beach is flanked by a rotting pier. Or wooden construction used in the past to mark out bays within the sea for long forgotten trade. Now just an eye sore and gathering point for the bored youth trapped in this seaside resort.
But down there within the shadows and the shallows is one naked white body. A woman, lying on her stomach, arms beside her sides, palms turned up. Her blond head is turned towards the sea, tangled with seaweed and sand. The sun beams down on her bare arse resembling a conch. Her swollen face reveals gaping blue lips around cracked teeth.
It’s a chocolate lab sniffing out crabs around the pier who finds her body. Barking to its owner to come see, gulls flock down to squark the find too. Then they circle, eyes piercing the sea, maybe looking for her missing feet.
The days of March are blowing by quickly. Blink and I might miss them. I decided about a week ago now to not allow the present to slip on by unmarked.
I want to say probably over 20 years now, I have kept Morning Pages, in some form or other, inspired from Julia Cameron‘s The Artist’s Way.
I came to the pages broken, after my mother’s death, going through a difficult patch while full-time English teaching and trying to be the perfect wife and mother.
I was coming apart at the seams, trying to be everything to everyone and nothing to myself. I was hating on myself for not being good enough at anything, and trying to prove myself in an environment where I was always going to come up short.
But I didn’t know that then. I was on the sick from school, resting and re-evaluating my life and The Artist’s Way came into my life through community creative writing classes where I’d go weekly, grabbing a mocha coffee at Morrison’s beforehand. I felt like I was playing hooky from school. And in a way I was.
With practicing Morning Pages, I found a space where I could be. Allow all my mixed emotions and thoughts out in a safe space and not be judged or fail. I couldn’t fail at Morning Pages as all I had to do was keep my pen moving on the page, three pages, and never look back.
A window opened inside of me. Into a dream world. Into my childhood. Into my joys and pleasures. And I came to realise that I wasn’t happy with the life I was living. And change had to happen and happen straight away. I was impatient to start living my life on my own terms.
After being on the sick for half the year, I went back to school in the June. Had the summer holidays, went back after them and handed in my notice so I could finished in the December of that year. I didn’t have a net but I jumped anyway. That was 2003.
Fast forward to March 2023, and I’m marking the present, my life in all it’s fucked up glory, by working through Julia Cameron’s Write For Life.
Four things are the foundation of this creativity boost for the soul; Morning Pages, a daily quota towards my writing project, a daily walk and a weekly artist date.
I’ll follow up this post with a breakdown of what each one of these things entails. I’m just place marking this process here for a minute.
The image above is me out on my daily walk, with the sun shining but the wind blowing into my face. Nah, that’s not my new hairstyle but the fur on my hood. But can you see my inner shine. My light. That light comes from living in the moment. Marking the days with the simple delights of being present. Here and now.
I’m merging myself, self-portraiture, with nature. Self assimilated with nature. I’m exploring my connection with nature through photography( for now!).
I’m exploring the environment and the visibility of Blackwomen within the landscape. Using the photographic image to tell a story. In the process reclaiming the narrative of Blackwomen and nature and photography.
I’m exploring the Blackwoman’s space and visibility in love and in relationship with nature. My audience is the Blackwoman. I want her to enter the space I create through my practice and recognise herself there. I want her feel that she belongs, feel the joy and all the lushness created in that space.
This will be a multidisciplinary experience. This will be a celebration of mixness, hybridity and our bodies in love with nature.
A recent addition to my portfolio has been details about my Trace Mentorship opportunity. This was an applied for opportunity to experience the time and space to focus on my photography through a structured programme with other women over 35 years old.
Through a series of talks, presentations, peer and professional reviews, the aim is to gain confidence, knowledge, exposure and further opportunities to develop our skills and establish our practice.
I haven’t really been able to devote the required time and attention to this programme due to immersing myself within the BALTIC commission, it feels like for most of 2022. With this being complete and installed, back from Washington State, now I have the time to really get to grips with this opportunity.
It started with a portfolio review with three experts. I had the great pleasure and honour of talking one on one with Hettie Judah,Cindy Sissokho and Bindi Vora. And what a tremendous opportunity this was to sit down with them (virtually) and talk about my work, my vision, my mission etc.
Not only were they very positive and supportive about my work, but they also offered inspiration, encouragement, reassurance and permission. Yes from talking to these people within the know, my practice, what I’m doing, or trying to do was recognised and appreciated.
I was given back permission and the confidence to keep doing me. To keep pushing the boundaries, to not place limitations on myself, my practice, or what a photograph can be/ can do.
I’m in a much better place now to expand my way of being, seeing and doing, and continue to bring my mixness, hybridity to what I do. I’m excited to see where this takes me.
I’m enjoying the process as usual and not worrying about the end product. And I’m taking my time, embracing the slow. This feels nourishing and good for my soul.
A Visual Journal Spread from The Country Journal of a Blackwoman (Northumberland), archive
Right now my practice is on display within The BALTIC: Centre for Contemporary Art.
As I was out of the country when the group exhibition, Hinterlands, launched on Friday 22 October, 2022, I managed to get into seeing it after such event the following week.
I really didn’t know what to expect as you visualise the end result, the culmination of months of hard work, dreaming and winging it. But to actually see it all come together in a white cube space is another thing.
I visited my archive last week, with my daughter, excited and nervous and unsure. I got to see The Country Journal of a Blackwoman(Northumberland) exhibited on level 3 of The BALTIC. I was shocked and surprised to see my work out of context within this space. It was an emotional as well as nerve wracking experience.
Because of my absence, I had to leave instructions about the installation as well as extensive notes and labels for each art piece. There are about 50 items if not more within this creative archive. It’s to be expected that things got lost or mislaid in translation. So my focus for this trip was to make sure everything was how I wanted it to be.
After some discussion and sending of correct audio files, everything is now complete and as I want it to be presented to the world.
I’m not sure how I feel that during the launch of the whole exhibition, that things were wrong or missing. But I do know that after seeing everything in terms of my contribution and making things right after my visit, I felt great relief and was able to enjoy the achievement. It was also weird to be there at the same time as seeing peel interacting with my work. I’m not sure I want to have many experiences like that as their reactions did affect my state of mind, pride and achievement. And it would be very unsetting, I feel, to be there and witness someone laughing and disrespecting my work. I think this is something I need to gain a thicker skin for. But right now, my skin is thin for a number of reasons, tat I might explore here in time.
I know I have to return now, to take in the rest of the group show as well as the rest of The BALTIC’s exhibitions for this season, as this is a strong presentation.
I’m honoured to be showing at the same time with them.
Of course more reflection and images to come around this achievement.
HINTERLANDS 22 October 2022 – 30 April 2023, BALTIC: Centre for Contemporary
Living Wild Studios 