when the world is burning, what can we do? we can make fucking art. that’s what we can do!
“You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.”
― Nina Simone
sometimes i feel so small and insignificant. and what can i do that would make a difference? the world is burning. people are being exterminated. genocide over and over around the world, not just Gaza.Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo. genocide is history repeating itself. just in the last few days, a landmark Aboriginal-led inquiry has found that british colonists committed genocide against australia’s Indigenous population in victoria in the 1830s. why has it taken so long for this to be vindicated when the people themselves know when they have been dehumanised and persecuted? nations/ governments commit genocide because they think they can get away with it. no one seems to hold them to account.
what can I do when, as an artist, when the world has gone to shit? make art. that’s what i can do and that’s what were supposed to do.
it’s out duty to reflect the times. but the world is making it really hard for us not to do this. the world is working really hard to silence us. to suppress us. to keep us operating on fear and to box us in. all these social media platforms are owned by oligarchs who own and control us. we are discouraged from telling the truth. and when we tell the truth is is filtered, distorted and manipulated.
and yet. i remember. we need art. people need art. art helps use process our feelings and emotions. through art we can learn, heal and feel. art helps us to be in touch with ourselves and each other. art connects. art helps us reflect.
art gives me the words or the language for the things i didn’t know i needed to express to process to reflect to share. here in my little space on tin-ternet, i’m not bought or controlled. i’m not silenced or afraid. i embrace my duty as an artist to make art by any means necessary.
i hope you will join me in creating and reflecting the times. let’s not sit in our fears but connect in our strengths.
It’s nothing major or anything spectacular. All the the time I’ve lived here which will be coming into it’s third year at the beginning of July, the yard hasn’t really featured on my radar. Yes maybe to put the washing out or store my bike. But as a place to hang out, like an extension my home, no way. Maybe having neighbours who allowed their dogs to pee and shit in their backyard which is joined to mine, separated only by a short fence, was a put off. It was a smelly place I didn’t want to be.
Now we have the sun, the fresh air and the morning bird song, I find myself flocking to the backyard as soon as I wake. I throw open the kitchen door and give thanks for seeing another day. I’m setting up a table and chair and having my morning coffee in the backyard while I visual journal. It’s helping me with my mood. I feel as if Mother Nature is holding me once more as I go through a health issue that is making me stay close to home.
I know I’m privileged to have an outdoor space which is private. It’s waiting for me to put my mark on it. Of course that will involve colour. But for the moment, with my permaculture hat on, I’m just observing and interacting within the space. I’m sitting in the backyard and marking where the sun is and moves. I’m dreaming into the space and opening up to how I want to feel while in this space.
At the moment, I’m feeling expansive within the space, within a contained way. It feels good to feel the sun on my skin and the breeze moving through my hair and clothes. It’s being outside as well as being inside, as my kitchen is just there for a refill. I’m also close to Miss Ella’s bedroom window and I can hear her talking to herself or watching TV, chatting to her friends. The backyard is my sanctuary and I want more.
There is something here in terms of fugitivity. There is a quote that I used just the other day when I finally completed my chapter on black mothering and fugitivity. Hold on let me find it …
In Stolen Life (2018), Moten writes, “Fugitivity … is a desire for and a spirit of escape and transgression of the proper and the proposed. It’s a desire for the outside, for a playing or being outside, an outlaw edge proper to the now always already improper voice or instrument” (131). BECOMING FUGITIVE: refusing what has been refused of us dr. sheree mack
That desire for the outside, I’m feeling it on so many levels. I’m choosing to lean into it. No matter where it leads, I’m enjoying how it feels. I’m enjoying that sense of freedom, out from the enclosure. Continue.
Summer Solstice came and gone. I had plans to hit the sea at sunrise, but didn’t make it because I had a restless night what with the heat and house and car alarms going off during the night? Are they sensitive to the heat? I do not know. I thought I was trapped in some kind of twilight zone with the incessant calling alarms and no one moving to switch them off. But I digress. maybe I’m just sensitive to senseless noise!
Mid-year reflections. What can I say? I’m not getting anywhere fast and I’m okay with that.
I FaceTimed with a very dear friend many miles away today and she asked and what’s happening with me. What’s happening in Sheree World?
At first I felt I needed to fill in the gaps with some of this shit and that. Or I’ve been asked to do this shit and that? That I had to show I was hustling and beating the grind real good. But shit ain’t happening in Sheree World and in all honesty I’m happy about that.
I hibernated well into April this year what with going to Paris and celebrating my babies’ birthdays. By the time I came out of my cave, everyone was well into their year, well into 2025. And I could do one of two things ( probably other things too but focusing on just the two for now!).
I could drop everything my heart desired and focused on catching up with everyone else. Max out my diary with jobs and commitments and watch the money roll in.
Or two, I could, continue to roll out of my SheCave slowly and mindfully, carefully and with a whole heap of love and grace for myself and just take things on a day to day basis. No rush no sense of urgency and definitely no panicking.
Which option do you think I chose to follow?
I’m not even sure it was a viable choice because I’m so used to practicing Slow Fugitivity now that it’s the only way I can operate and keep myself sane, safe and thriving.
I’m not measuring my success by how much my bank balance is telling me or more like alerting me to. I’m not measuring my success by how many people are singing my praises. By how many people have my name on this lips and are ready and willing to work with me. Promote me, award me, accept me.
I’m measuring my success on how good I feel moment to moment. How much joy and love am I feeling now? How much care am I giving to my self and those around me? How much am I showing up into situations, gatherings and meetings as myself? Transparent, honest, earnest and hopeful?
How much am I being open hearted, loved, loveable and loving towards myself and those around me?
This is my measure of success.
I’m not turning away from all the shit and cruelty and destruction that is happening around me and in this world. I’m feeling it for the people who are getting caught in the middle of men with big egos who are playing at being leaders and pretending to protect their people. I know what is happening in the name of religion, or history or land and justice. I’m listening and seeing genocide after genocide happening and those responsible not being held to account. I see it and feel it and I want to do more to stop it, to fight against it. So trust me when I say, I do not turn away or ignore it when I choose joy and care and love as my weapons of choice. I’m not living in a fantasy land of all happy happy joy Joy. I’m not being naive or flippant.
I’m choosing to refuse the stories we are being told. I’m refusing to perpetuate the capitalist structures and feed into the patriarchy and imperialist tendencies. I’m choosing to refuse the roles assigned to me as a black woman as just another body to be used and abused and disposed of after I’m no longer useful.
Fuck that fuckery.
So mid-year reflection is that:
* I’ve got no regular working gig on the horizon.
* I’m searching for my tribe.
* I’m dreaming of other possibilities, another way of being.
* I’m refusing the shit sandwich that is offer me again and again.
* I’m refusing what has already been refused of me.
* I’m creating spaces for creative fugitivity.
* I’m creating gaps or breaks in the capitalist dome from which we can break free into the land of possibilities filled with imagination and play.
* I’m embracing craftivism. My word are my weapons. Always have been, always will be.
* I’m lingering in the midst of flight.
* I’m taking MY TIME to stretch OUT my tired limbs. Limbs reaching for the sky, eyes focused on the stars above as I’m breathing deeply, and allowing my deep belly laugh to roll out over the landscape as I pick a rhythm to my own beat and I’m shaking shake shake shaking OUT by big beautiful black behind.
Come join me if you dare. Make sure to bring a plate of food and story to tell as we gonna be gathering around the fire soon to build a free community, or as my dear friend Dal was saying just the other day, build a village. Yes thank you, indeedy!
Let’s get to shaking, shake shake, shaking this shit up!
“This week I’m joined by the inspirational Sheree – writer, creatrix, and space holder – whose work is steeped in ancestral memory, fierce tenderness, and a deep reverence for the wild, both within and around us.
Sheree walks the edge between the personal and political, the sacred and the embodied, calling forth the untold stories that live in Black women’s bodies and lineages.
In this soul-stirring conversation, we explore:
🌿 Honouring a daily writing practice while moving with the seasons of creativity 🔥 Reclaiming voice – how writing can be both resistance and healing 🖤 The story behind for black birds pushing against glass 🌊 Writing beyond structure, beyond ‘shoulds’ – from a place of truth and essence
This episode is a balm and a call to courage for anyone who longs to write from the wild, rooted place within.
🎧 Tune in now wherever you listen to podcasts or head straight to the Feral Words page.
And don’t forget to explore more of Sheree’s work over at Living Wild Studios – especially her regularly updated blog, which is a rich and reflective companion to her creative work”.
The second time I went to see Sinners, again it was fitting it in before going away somewhere else. But I knew I had to see it again.
A different cinema, and much fuller this time. I was sat between two black women out for one of theirs birthday’s and a white couple.
The black women introduced themselves to me. Something that has never happened before to me in the pictures. I thought it was a lovely gesture. It meant I could also tell them that they were in for a treat.
Again I got lost in the world of Sinners. Even thought I’d seen it before, I still jumped at the frightening bits. And I say frightening bits, the bits that are in there to make you jump. There’s blood but most of time the biting by the vampires is done off screen or you see it from behind and hear the noises.
I love this movie for so many reasons but I think the first thing is how Coogler plays with the genres and conventions and expectations. This is a mixture of genres ; horror, action, romance, musical etc. Coogler takes creative liberties with what’s gone before to create something rich, unique and full.
I love how this is a massive permission slip to any creative to go with their own flow. Bring in all the possibilities you want to express your point. It applies to the Creatrix in me because when the energy flows, when I’m in the zone and listening, the creations knows no boundaries or limits or rules. It just be.
Sinners is just that. And more. It’s layered , culturally and spiritually explorative and travels through time and space with music as the connection.
This second viewing of Sinners was important because for the first viewing, I had to rush off into try dark and catch a bus, therefore missing the multiple endings. So this time, I stayed put and also told those around who were fixing to leave, ‘there’s more.’
I’m not going to spoil the film for you by telling you what happens in the multiple endings but please don’t leave until the very end. Even if the lights come up, hang on in there to the very end. Even if they’re coming in to clean up after you, hang on in there to the very ends.
Laughter and fun, with trust and communication, honesty and commitment but not in a heavy sense but much love and affection and respect and joy, I spent a long time in a relationship that wasn’t joyful and really what’s the point, life’s too short to waste time and energy on people who don’t treat you right or who aren’t happy in themselves, I want to be with someone who makes time for me and us, just like I make time for them and us, hey I get it, people are busy, leading busy lives but I’m of the belief that if you want to be with someone you make time and effort to be/do just that.
For those of us who live at the shoreline… Audre Lorde
It will be 10 years this August that I started my visual journaling practice.
Then it was called Dreaming on Paper, as I completed the course of the same name by Lisa Sonora.
I needed a safe space to explore the tumult of my feelings and thoughts. I was going through a traumatic experience of escape really. Escape from the life I’d spent the past 12 years building up, that was took away in the flick of a Facebook post.
I ran away from the public, the writing community, my home as I travelled into the Scottish Highlands and Islands. To heal.
Visual journaling helped me heal. Helps me continue to heal.
Overtime, I’ve come to understand my visual journal practice as a fugitive practice. Within these paints, images and words, dreams of freedom are planned out and eventually come to fruition. Projects, happenings, events – all on my own terms.
I mean, the whole point about escape is that it’s an activity. It’s not an achievement. You don’t ever get escaped. – Fred Moten
Within these visual journal spreads, I work out how to escape, how to get outside white supremacy culture while still having to be living on the inside. Coming to terms with the thought of that the outside can only occur from the inside. Being here.
Visual journaling is me trying to create an opening, a break in the fabric in which to slip on through into the otherside/ outside, into the woods running between the trees with the dogs barking at my feet. Creating beauty, creating a beautiful space in which to linger in while the terror rages around me.
Visual journaling is a safe space, is a nurturing space, is a free space.
I’ve got a chapter to write and it’s going nowhere fast.
I hate it when I think I have all the time in the world to complete a writing task and then I procrastinate.
I know I procrastinate because it’s important to me. Very important to me and I don’t want to get it wrong. So I do nothing instead.
Well not really nothing. This is my bedroom wall, where I’ve started to put up post-it notes to help me with the chapter on fugitivity.
This makes me feel as if I’m doing something. Seeing this everyday also, I hope, makes something go into my creative brain subconsciously. I’m hoping that living with it makes the wheels start turning and connections being made.
What I’m learning with fugitivity is that is’s not linear. Not a straight line from captivity to freedom, from unfreedom to freedom. It is argued that fugitivity performs freedom ‘as a constant struggle’ ( R. Slavitt cited in Davis, 2016).
This I hold close as I attempt ( struggle!) to write this chapter around fugitivity as this is not going to be a linear chapter from A to B to C etc. This chapter with its content and structure and form will be dancing with unfreedom and freedom, constantly struggling to convey meaning around fugitivity at the same time as remaining free from the academic frameworks and restricts and expectations.
In order to write about fugitivity I need to take on board fugitive methods and practices.
I’m spiralling and circling back and forth in a good way, in an honest way and hopefully the chapter will be the result.
Living Wild Studios 