changes

Shifting Energies

| Sheree

Last month this was my practice.

Stone Paper Journal, Paperchase

Straight forward writing on lined paper with a sticker here and there. I felt the need to get things out of me. I felt the need to get distractions out of the way and write from the heart.

Each day I turned up and completed three pages of long hand writing. Some days more. There was an outpouring. Leaning back into Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages helped.

This morning, the first day of April, this happened.

Altered book journal spread

My energies shifted. I wasn’t feeling the lined pages, black ink journaling this morning. I was feeling the need to slow down and wait for the paint to dry kind of feeling.

Yes Spring is here. And I’m embarking on a poetry challenge as well as my travels. But my body is saying there is wisdom to be gleamed if you take the time and space, now this morning, to slow down and listen.

So I listened. I have to slow down as I cover one page/ one spread at a time with paint to conceal the text underneath. Maybe still bleeding through in parts.

Altered book journal spreading drying!

While I wait for the paint to dry, I search for inspiration in images and texts. I don’t have any agenda and I don’t feel any frenzied feelings to get this done and done quick.

I’m taking my time because I have time to slow down, breathe, enjoying the grey light, the sweet vanilla latte, the birds making nests.

Thoughts come and go. Fleeting. And I don’t worry. If I need to capture them, they’ll come back around. The hairs on my forearm feel the draught coming in through the open curtains. Or is it from the open window in the kitchen?

My forefinger twists strands of hair into locks as I flick through a magazine, looking for images, text and colour. I take another sip of coffee, now cold because time has been slipping by.

Not away. As time spent in my creative process is time needed not wasted. It’s time I’m grateful for. But I can only mark this time, this gratitude, these feelings and sensations, when I slow down and be present.

Visual journaling, altered book or not, gifts me the luxury, no the necessity, of slowing down and {BEING}. Thank you x

PAD/001 – A Month of Poetry

| Sheree

Happy April. Time for showers, blossom and light. Oh and poetry.

Forsythia

As I mentioned last week, I’m honouring National Poetry Month with the challenge of writing a poem a day.

I’ve set myself this task many times over the years, and I’ve always been amazed at the creations along the way. Poems have emerged onto the page that I didn’t even know were in me and needed expressing.

So today I come to the page with an open heart and a rough idea of the themes or issues I want to explore. But who knows with the creative process. Anything could happen.

Anyway day 1 – PAD/ 001

Trying to understand “the difference between poetry and rhetoric”

After Audre Lorde

The contested site of black settlement in England

is shrouded a heavy fog of amnesia. The wrong colour,

the wrong body, the wrong sound.

Read the history books, you’d think we just landed

the day before last. 400 years of being here, lost

in the mire, weighted down with size 10, Dr. Martens.

Like transplanted birds of paradise, West Indians

struggled to put down roots. Alien soil. On corners,

skylarking and limin’, jobs, homes and a little bit of peace

denied; harsh whispers on the bitterly cold wind.

The contested site of black settlement in England

is captured in stills. Images speak for themselves.

Black faces filling the frame; black blooms pressed

against hothouse glass. But still an absent presence in failed memories.

Studio Notes Have Moved

| Sheree
In my Spring Colours collection

Hey, how you doin’?

I’m not going to take up much of your time. I just thought I’d pop on in here to let you know that Studios Notes have moved on over to Substack.

To be honest, I ran out of patience with Mailchimp like years ago but didn’t have the energy to suss out something better.

And then Substack came along and did all the heavy lifting behind the scenes for me. So job done.

If you’re not signed up then just go ahead and do so now. Studio Notes are mostly cling at ya, once or twice a month, detailing one i’ up to or pondering or planning.

Studio Notes are usually an intimate look into my practice and what’s up in Sheree’s world. Really informal, usually behind the scenes peeks and complaints

So if you fancy getting a little bit closer to me, then sign up. And if it’s not for you then you can always unsubscribe.

Next edition of Studio Notes is going out next week before the end of March. So get right on it so you get your copy too. Thanks 🙂

Black Motherhood, Conjure and Poetry

| Sheree
Wallpaper created for A Country Journal of a Blackwoman(Northumberland)

I recently talked about the coming of April and how more poetry would be appearing on here as I attempt to ‘play with words’.

You can not imagine the delight as well as confirmation I received this morning while reading an article for the commissioned essay I’m writing at the moment around (Black) Motherhood.

A bone of contention with me is when I see the words ‘mother’ and ‘motherhood’, even though I have birthed children, I do not see these terms applied to me. ‘Mother’ and ‘motherhood’ come with the connotations of white and whiteness for me.

Test it yourself. Be honest. When I first mentioned ‘mother’, what image came to mind for you? If not a white woman and child. I’ve seen image after image of the idea of motherhood, the natural beauty of ‘The mother’ and nine times out of ten the image is of a white woman and child. As if a Black woman is not/ cannot be seen as a mother, even though a Black woman is the source of the whole human race. Go look that one up!

Anyway, I’m going off topic here ( but not in terms of the hybrid essay I’m writing for the forthcoming special Demeter Press collection, The Mother Wave: Matricentric Feminism as Theory, Activism, and Practice (2023)).

Reading this article this morning, ‘ Conjuring the Ghost: A Call and Response to Haints’ by drea brown, there is a mention of poetry lying in the body, coming from that dark place within where our true spirits lies hidden and growing, argues Audre Lorde. But poetry is also our way, Black people’s way, or theorising and making sense of things. Through our stories, narratives, riddles, poetry; playing with words and language, we not only gain an understanding and reimagining of our lives but these are also tools of surviving.

As Black women, speaking from my lived- experience here, through our creativity, through our playing with language in such a spirited way, we enter in the process of not just theorising and strategising but also self-making and through this practice passing this on to others. Passing on this power to others. It’s what we do, have been doing through time. Starting with the mothering we do of ours and others babies

we crave joy. we need safety

| Sheree

Words: adapted from ‘Conjuring Hands: The Art of Curious Women of Color’, by gloria j. wilson, Joni Body Acuff and Venessa Lopez

we crave joy. unmediated, defined by self, not by others.

for me, joy is intertwined with the idea of ‘safety’.

for me safety means not only protection from White hands that hold sticks, stones, batons, and guns.

but also safety from White minds and from White eyes.

in the past, in attempts at safety, i have resorted to running, literally and figuratively.

i fold in on myself to avoid harmful interactions. to keep myself safe.

i’m no longer prepared to relegate myself to the corner of the room. i go to the waters seeking guidance from the ancestors, seeking safety, seeking joy.

April – National Poetry Month (USA)

| Sheree

Spring’s in the air. Filled with love. There’s magic everywhere. When you’re young and in love- The Flying Pickets ( well that’s who I heard sing it first and I’m sticking to it!)

April is just around the corner. The blossom will be blossoming. And I’m returning to my first love; poetry.

We’ve been in and out of love over the years, poetry and I. Sometimes she hasn’t treated me well, while other times I’ve neglected her and gone off with some other genre of writing.

I don’t even know if we’re good together, as I was brought up on dead white men’s poetry and I could never measure up to them and their creations. And then somewhere along the way, I gave up trying to.

But when I’m facilitating writing workshops, I say poetry is just ‘playing with words’ in order to break down the fears and insecurities we may be bringing into the creative space. ‘Playing with words’ eases the pressure and injects a bit of fun into the proceedings.

So I’m taking my own advice and going to spend April playing with words each day on the hope of creating some kind of whole at the end of each day.

For more ease of creation, I’ve decided to base my creations around one theme/ focus/subject which is loosely around Black British history through the photographs of the past that are in the public domain along with an exploration of the Race Relations, Commonwealth and Immigration Laws which came into effect during the 60s and 70s.

I’ll also be touching upon the uprisings that also happened during these turbulent times as a demonstration of push back against the messages of go back home even though for the second generation of immigrants onwards this has been the only home most of us have known.

So this is the intention, as I also attempt to tap into the surging, fresh Spring energy of the season, to reconnect my ancestors’ bodies with nature through the process of playing with word to create poetry this April.

I hope to document some, if not all of my creations here as a means of accountability and in the spirit of sharing stories.

Gratitude Journaling – Part 001

| Sheree
My little book of gratitude

From time to time, I’ve tried to keep a gratitude journal. I’ve read the research and heard the stories about expressing gratitude for your life and what is part of it, here and now. This is a great practice in order to be more present in your life as well as be happier.

I saw expressing gratitude and writing it down as just another thing to add to my to-do list mostly. I resented the time spent on it as as well as beating myself up for the times I missed a day or two. I felt like this was just another indication of me failing.

I think as part of my intentional healing journey of 2023 ( have I talked here about it?) I brought gratitude back into my day, or I’m trying to. Offering myself grace and compassion when there are times I forget to complete it some days, I allowed myself to start small.

Today, I am grateful for …

This is how I start each entry and I allow myself to just mark one thing I’m grateful for. One thing. One sentence. Most days it’s doable. Most days I remember. Some days there’s more than one think, more than one thing to be grateful for. But there are still some days I forget and the days run away from me. But I do not sweat it. I pick it back up when I remember.

I keep this little notebook with the image of Frida Kahlo on my bedside table. I love this little notebook. I love Frida Kahlo but I also love how I feel when I write in this book. I feel better. I feel present. I feel grateful for what I have, how I feel, what I experience. Fostering positive energy for the here and now rather than energy wasted on what I don’t have or want instead.

The research is right. Practicing gratitude does foster appreciation and happiness for the things and people in your life. Now. Simples.

Here are a few gratitude moments captured in this little book of gratitudes from the beginning of the year so far:

Today I am grateful for the reminder that I am loving, loved and loveable.

Today I am grateful for the time and space to create a vision board for the year ahead.

Today I am grateful for my body to be able to walk and get into the sea.

Today I am grateful for my lie in. For rest and sleep.

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to put things right .

Today I am grateful for the connections I am making, with myself and others.

Expect to see more posts about gratitude as I delve deeper into the practice and the effects it is having on my life. What contributions it is making to my healing journey?

Hinterlands Finissage

| Sheree
Blessed Martin

As you know, I had the honour of being part of a group exhibition at the BALTIC this winter, Hinterlands, with my creative archive titled, A Country Journal of a Blackwoman( Northumberland).

I’ve enjoyed revisiting the exhibition throughout it’s installation, alone and with others. What has been so rewarding has been the responses I’ve received from individual directly, as well as through the BALTIC in relation to the exhibition and my contribution.

Once such response or experience really made me laugh out loud with joy and surprise and involved the statue of Blessed Martin, pictured above.

I argue that creating alternative labels for each item within my archive as a must, as a means of extending the conversation, bringing in a chorus of diverse voices into the white cube space as well as pushing back against the standard, expected practice and pushing back to decolonising the space.

The label assigned to this artefact of Blessed Martin reads:

“Blessed Martin ~ Patron Saint of Racial Harmony

“Take Blessed Martin with you. In your pocket in you bag, whatever. Whenever you go outside, traveling or just walking. Take Blessed Martin with you. He will protect your journey. Keeping you safe with the ancestors as you journey through this world as a Black woman; present and absent.” Advice from Mother given to her sojourning Daughter.”

On one visit to the exhibition, I was told the story around one woman who took the time to really read this label and then proceeded to take the statue down from display, place him in their bad and walk out with him. Luckily, they were spotted doing this and were stopped before they could leave the building.

This individual believed that if they literally took this saint and carried him with them that they would be safe and protected. My response to hearing this tail, after a full belly laugh, was that they must have needed him, at this time. And I felt humbled that they wanted to be part, gain something from this archive also.

The exhibition ends April 30 and to mark it there will be a closing event at the BALTIC.

Hinterlands Finissage

Saturday 29 April 11am, Donation & free tickets available. This is going to be a whole day event where you’ll get to hear from the artist who have been part of the exhibition. Some will be performing, reading work and sharing natural rituals.

I think I’ll be sharing around building an archive for ourselves so we start taking back the power around who gets to decide what is collected and preserved for future generations. Who’s histories and stories are worthy of being part of an archive?