I love this simple mixture of greens. They say you only truly see a colour when it’s placed beside another colour. That’s when it really comes alive. These greens are alive for me here.
Shades of Green
green
Still/ Just Writing Out – Day 25
Going down is the sun. Still warmth to be had. Precious.
Let me sit in its grace and give thanks. A moment. Spring.
Blossom. Lambs. They look at me as if they want to say something.
Make a connection. I see you and you see me.
Running after mum, grabbing at her teat. Kids.
Always demanding something. Mine are both beautiful
inside and outside. I say this all the time. But what do I mean?
I take no credit in their beings.These birds are singing out
their lives, building nests before they can rest.
But when do you ever rest once you have kids?
What a worry. What a responsibility.
Yet, they have forced me to grow. To step into this thing called
mothering. Like a pink bud, still clinched like a fist, there is more
to learn upon this journey.
15 seconds of Trees
Spring Blossoms
I’m not sure when my love affair with cherry blossom came into being. I’m not sure where I was when my heart began to swell at the mere beginning buds of cherry blossom on the trees. Bradford, where I was born and stayed until I was 10? Or Newcastle, where I enjoyed my formative years before escaping to London for my degree?
I’m not really sure when or where my deep appreciation and joy at seeing these puff balls of pinks or white or cerise came to be part of my being. I just know that I experience a child-like delight when I come across a tree in full cherry blossom bloom. My heart skips a beat and I’m jumping with glee, inside and outside, when cherry blossom comes into view. And the blossom is never here long enough for my liking.
Using the delicate pinks of cherry blossom, collaging with the images of cherry blossom in my visual journal, is my way of keeping the blooms alive, in my eyes and in my heart. Not just the sight of cherry blossom in my journal keeps these fragile blooms alive, but the feelings of joy and delight that they bring to my heart is kept alive too.
I created a special spread of cherry blossom for the BALTIC commission last year, that ended up being blown up from an A3 spread in a journal to an A0 poster size on a gallery space wall. In the middle of that spread is a Black woman smiling, almost dancing between the blossom, exuberating lush joy. This is me sharing my jubilation and love of cherry blossom with others.
This is my love letter to cherry blossom as well as giving thanks for the beauty of nature and how we are connected. How we are one.
Ivy Bushes
Day 9 – Concrete Poem – being in the moment
I sit on the bed, cross legged,
window open. Hearing a kid
scream, a car engine revving.
And there, just then, a seagull
flies by carrying bunch of leaf
and twine in its beak. Say you,
what you building? Stealing?
It’s now I’m aware of the trees
trees outside coming into leaf.
Buds unfurling like green ton-
gues with beard and feathery
flower clusters. What tree are
you? And why do you reach so
to the sky as if all that matters
is to grow and thrive? Zooming
traffic, loud, draw my attention
away from nature, from inside
But that’s usually the case with
modern life: a distancing from
our true nature with incentive
of moving faster, go anywhere,
produce anything of fake worth
as if our life depends upon it.
Living Wild Studios 