reflections

My Mother was the Moon, the Earth, the Song

| Sheree

As I pull into the roadside drenched in memory, I practice breathing. Cycle through the minutes trying to gain ground.

She was silence behind her smiles. Behind her ample flesh. I burnt down our bonds because she dropped before her time.

I’ve too much fire to ever accept her truth. Too much sense to feel the moon held her fullness.

Late into the night standing by the window, she waited for my return. Without fail. I took her love and joy without a backward glance.

I am dark. Too dark. But meaning comes with the light. My own light, learning to shine from the inside out.

I wish she had her chance. I take her picture sitting in the grass amongst the trees and seal it into memory.

The earth she could not give me. She didn’t know how as she laughed her soul into existence.

I am red. All of it. And not at all. But with eyes wide open, body claiming space daily, I listen to her song and bathe in the moonlight.

In the dark with my own sacredness

| Sheree

So I close my eyes. Allow the dark to fill. Feel flaky dust around my ankles and know they are ashes.

Everything has burnt down. To leave fertile ground from which to stand. To rise. But when?

I am indigo. I am not indigo. The stars are not enough. And yet they draw my eyes and heart.

I came close to love reaching from the shadows of a mountainside where women of my family fell.

Memories and pain etched on the skin of my bones, I know what I need and want but I don’t know how or who.

Raw, I cannot dream enough colour to hold me. And yet ripe full of longing, I walk the landscape holding my power with an open heart and listen to the blood rain blooming.

if Only I Was Creative

| Sheree

“A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life”

Elizabeth Gilbert

I do believe that we’re all creative at our core. It comes down to just some of us listening to our core, providing space and time for our creativity to makes itself known and seen.

So when I think how I’m expressing my creativity these days, straightway I think I’m not creative at the moment. Coming off the back of the BALTIC commission, I’m tired and exhausted. And I really don’t have an external deadline or event to be working towards. So the outward facing, showing some of creativity is not present. That is if I’m falling into the comparison trap or looking at what at the end product and not being satisfied with the result or allowing fear to creep in and ask, what am I doing?

At this point, I have to check myself, as this script I’m running is not necessarily true. I’m {BEING} creative everyday when I turn up to the page to write in my visual journal. I’m pushing around feelings, thoughts, ideas and inspiration within these pages that at some point morph into something else. I’m facing my fears on the page. I’m living a creative life through the conversations I have with strangers while walking a dog, to the food I put into a soup, to the choices I make around how I adorn my body each day.

All of these practices, ways of being, are nourishment for my soul, are creative endeavours to keep me honest with myself. make be vulnerable at the same time as empowering.

Defining My Focus – Trace Mentorship

| Sheree
Portfolio Review Sample, October 2022

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.