being told, not to believe our own lying eyes
Find your safe spaces
patience
At last, let’s explore time
When a planned work gig falls through, time can take on a precious meaning.
Instead of attempting to fill time with all the things I ‘should’ do, I’m choosing to rest and finally bury my nose in a book I’ve been itching to read all last year. But some how shit got in the way.
You know the feeling when you find a book that is probably going to speak to your soul and underline all the arguments you’ve been putting forward in the last couple of years but you procrastinate in the reading of it.
For me maybe there’s been a fear factor. That I’ll have more evidence and weapons to add to my arsenal that makes me even more ‘other’, on the edges outside the mainstreams.
And just sometimes occupying this space and moving against the grain is tiring.
It’s like when your eyes have been opened, once you’ve seen it, once you’ve seen those zeroes and ones of the system behind the surface fake-arse narrative, you can’t unsee it and you can’t continue to move and act in ways that support and perpetuate the systems of oppression and hierarchy.
Yes that kind of reading and knowledge. That kind of book. Well that’s what I feel Dismantling The Master’s Clock: on race, space and time by Rasheedah Phillips will do to/for me.
I’ll let you know how I get on!
Mood
Walking into North Shields to attend a useless ‘interview’, I gave thanks for the light after days of grey rain.
Walking and listening to music,and this song comes on and acts as a reminder.
I’ve been forgetting myself, forgetting who I come from.
What would my life feel like if I prioritised my creativity, always. That the risk taking I’m exploring in my creative sketchbook spread into my reality, my day to day life? What would my life feel like then?
I was thinking today …
While completing my visual journaling this morning, at my old wooden table moved in front of my bedroom bay window looking out onto my rainy, foggy street, I had the thought that I’ve lived most of my life already.
This year I’ll turn 55 in October and it just struck me how the majority of my life/ living is behind me.
Then it got me thinking about how many years do I have left. I played with the idea of thinking, what if I’m just reaching the mid-point of my life? What if I have another 55 years of living ahead of me?
How would I feel about that? What would I need to do now to make that happen? Do I want to live to 110 years?
It has been done. It can be done even though those ‘blue zones’ where the majority ofcentenarians live are shrinking.
I feel I’d have to change a few habits first to give it a good shot at living until 110.
I know I could have been looking after my body better up until this point. But it’s never too late right, to start using food as medicine and to stop punishing my body for being black fat and ageing.
There’s still time right? There’s still a lot of twists and turns and bumps in this road left of this journey, right?
I’m not sure as nothings certain. But what if …
a morning well spent
Visual journaling in community is always time well spent.
Even if it’s their first rodeo, to witness the freedom, the mess, the expansion as paint meets paper meets card. Bliss. Magic. A gift.
Walking out with their own visual journals clutched close to their chests, promising to carry on the practice themselves, now they’ve got the power within their hands, hearts and soul.
A job well done any time the visual journaling practice is passed on.
I do believe it makes us better human beings. Better to each other and ourselves. Softer, caring and well-nourished.
Healing.
we warned you
we have always been experimented on
they experimented on us
and then rolled it out to everyone
we warned you
but you didn’t listen
we were just the beginning
the prototype
they perfected their violence on us
and now it’s reaching everyone
no escaping now
there’s nothing more dangerous and hideous than whiteness
A archive of dreams
In preparation for a visual journaling workshop over the weekend, I’ve been going through past journal spreads.
I started visual journaling in August 2015. This image above is from a journal I created later that year. Back then visual journaling was a life line. It provided me with a path out of rock bottom and all it was, was dreaming on paper. Creating a safe space where I wouldn’t be judged or dismissed but where I was held.
Since this time, my visual journaling has morphed and changed. It’s needed to because my life and circumstances have changed so much since then. The world has also.
But the main premise remains – it’s a simple but powerful tool of connection with myself. It supports me in turning up in this world in all my fullness.
Wanted or not, I’m here and this practice keeps me present. Makes me present. Makes me pay attention and breathe.
Challenge completion, continue
A couple of days ago, I completed the 30 day sketchbook challenge, successfully. Not a day missed.
I’m really proud of this achievement as it proves to myself that I can turn up for my art-making consistently. That I can use my sketchbook as a place of play and wonder. A place to take risks, safely.
The importance I place on the creative sketchbook practice is immense but not to the point of paralysing myself and then not creating out of fear of failure.
The plan is to continue the practice. And I have been turning up each day since. I’ve been using my own prompts, following my curiosity, leaning into my own style. Listening to my voice.
The original course came with an additional 30 prompts. So I’ll start them when I run out of my own ideas. Then I can also restart the original course again and then explore a comparison between the creations and reflections of the first round with the second.
This is definitely, at the point, turning into an 100 days project, an just saying that as another milestone to meet and to keep myself accountable.
And again, I’ll keep the pages for my eyes only, not ready or even wanting/needing to share the pages I create or to move onto larger, external canvas or panels.
I do not feel the need or the call to create any formal work as yet or share. I’m happy exploring within my sketchbook and following where that takes me within the pages.
I realise that has been where I’ve gone wrong in the past. Skipping the sketchbook phase which I’m thinking is simply like the drafting stage of writing. The loose, trial and error phase, where we’re just playing. I’ve been missing out this phase and going straight to the big stuff, the art put into the world. The exhibitions, the judgments and appreciations.
And what I’ve produced mainly carried little meaning for me or messages for the viewer. I feel that it’s fallen flat and felt like a void. And I think this is because I wasn’t sure of my voice, my style, my meanings and messages.
This is what I’m taking away from this sketchbook practice now. And I’m so enjoying the process and I’m open to what surfaces. But I’m also patient and loyal in terms of showing up and doing the work. I trust all will become clear and strong and full in the process.
Deciding ahead of time to navigate the discomfort
I would say for the last quarter of 2025, I was getting myself into a spin because I wanted to get back to painting but wasn’t.
I was spending my spare time on Pinterest scrolling through all these beautiful artworks wishing I was painting and knowing that when I did, my work was never that good. I’d fail and fall into the comparison trap.
The more I spent on Pinterest the more I longed to be painting but the further away I became from my practice.
Until … as I mentioned in a previous post, I gifted myself the 30 Day Sketchbook Challenge with Insight Creative created by Cheryl Taves.
At day 26 yesterday, and I came to the page late as it was the first day back at school after the Christmas break and girl was I tired. Still am and it was touch and go if I was going to make it to the sketchbook. But I thought to myself if I can get up and do the fucking dishes, then that shift of energy is going to get me into my cave a create.
And so be it. The focus was about risk taking. How we might be okay with it at the beginning of a piece, be loose and alive but to hold this energy to the end of the process, not to overwork things by holding on too tight but maybe take some risks was the challenge.
Using browns was the first risk for me – I’ve probably shared it before how I have a hating relationship with brown. But not so much now. My feelings are softening towards the colour. Practice using browns helps.
And then when I thought I was finishing up with this piece I just stopped. I didn’t carry on to complete or tidy up but left it edgy and raw in a way because I feel it still has a fresh energy and isn’t overworked or tight.
Keeping my sketchbook practice isn’t about making good or bad art pieces. It’s about information. What am I learning as a result of the time spent within my creative sketchbook?
Like yesterday, what have I learnt or better understand about the role risk-taking plays in the creative process? Keeping a creative sketchbook practice isn’t a great, safe space to take risks, explore my style and voice at the same time as really leaning into this place of discovery for me and of me.
I know for a fact that knowing this creative sketchbook is for my eyes only means I’m not performing or looking for feedback or admiration or criticism. It reduces the pressure to make art, formal art-making, good or bad art. It’s play and exploratory feeding my curiosity rather than my ego.
It’s a place where I can be alone in the company of my thoughts and feelings and offer myself kindness and compassion and no judgment at the same time.
I’m glad I said ‘yes’ to myself and my art-making practice. It’s strengthening that muscle of saying ‘yes’ to my art-making rather than ‘no’, more often than not.
Living Wild Studios 