rest

A freezing dip followed by a hot sip

| Sheree

Yesterday after the school drop off, I braved the icy pavements ( you remember my fall last year right? year ago this weekend in fact!). Anyway walking like a duck with piles, I got down to my favourite beach and braved the icy metallic waves.

They say you never regret a sea swim. Well not so much swim, as the tide might have been going out but those waves were getting bigger coming in.

But it was worth it. This cold, freezing, numbing refreshing sea dip, skip, swear swim. Then it was back onto the icy pavement to the local coffee shop to warm up.

Got myself a seat by the radiator and enjoyed completing my visual journal spread for the day with an extra hot oat vanilla latte.

And this coffee comes courtesy of gift. I give thanks for the coffee to two people who kindly gifted me with ‘ buy me a coffee’ monthly subscriptions this week, responding to the post I put out this week asking for support, no doubt.

You know who you are and I’d like to thank you again for your generosity.

As you can see I’m putting your support to good use. I’d been sluggish all week as I get back into the school routine after the break. The sea woke me up. Fired me up and the coffee just kept the fires burning.

Thank you kindly ❤️

An Archives of Memories, Feelings and Skyr

| Sheree

This is one of my favourite images from my extensive collection.

I know exactly when and where it was taken. Westfjords Residency, Iceland, Feb/March 2017.

This was my go to breakfast. Coffee, cornflakes and Skyr, Icelandic protein enriched yogurt. I love the colours, the composition. The items included. But most of all, I love the memories and feelings just looking at this image evokes.

It takes me back to that time of wonder and discovery during my second time to Iceland. A residency I gifted to myself, writing the application while teaching temporally; frustrated, longing to get out and create.

I stayed for two weeks in the shadows of the mountains, knee deep in snow most days until the thaw came with some greening of the landscape.

I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing there back then. I just knew in my body that I needed to get away, gain inspiration from the landscape and {BE}.

I might not have completed much when I was out there, but I know when I returned the experience shifted my creativity and how I saw myself as a creative.

I saw glimmers of the Northern Lights during this retreat. Pale creamy wisps and trails in a dark navy sky. It was magical and a mystery.

This makes me think about my art-making practice and how most of the time I’m working in the dark, moving out of my comfort zone into the unknown, looking and listening hoping to catch a glimpses of magic and mystery in the process.

What’s created on the page, like this photography, is an archive, a record which when looked upon brings to the surface all the memories and feelings of the process, the experience once again experienced to the full with wonder and a smile.

art-making practice

| Sheree

I develop a stronger sense of myself through my art-making practice. Be that word, image, audio, collage, stitch and projects.

I’m getting stronger in myself through my art-making practice. Be that refusing, choosing, completing, rejecting, leaving and committments.

I develop a stronger trust in myself through my art-making practice. Be that intentions, goals, visions, dreams, rest and hibernations.

I’m getting stronger in risks in myself through my art-making practice. Be that edges, boundaries, messes, mistakes, failures, and breakthroughs.

I develop a stronger sense of myself through my art-making practice.

Be that listening to my needs and wants, and acting accordingly,

leaning towards what brings me joy,

allowing myself to imagine and play,

rather than chase my worth and permission in other people’s acknowledgments and attention.

I develop a stronger self through my art-making practice. be that {BE} that.

Living the dream

| Sheree

All last year I kept saying to myself, I desire to book a night’s stay at a Malmaison hotel.

Particularly the Newcastle one. Years ago I’d stayed in this very hotel, for different reasons at different times in my life.

I kept saying to myself book yourself in, as a treat. Rest up and enjoy the luxury. And it is a luxurious hotel chain. Decadent and opulent. And way out of my price range.

I couldn’t justify the cost. It was just to fulfil a whim.

When plans for the New Year changed and I found myself at a loss, I fulfilled my dream of 2025 on the first day of 2026.

I booked an overnight stay at Malmaison Newcastle. A Club Delux room, a free upgrade.

I didn’t do much while there except write, paint, shower and sleep.

I enjoyed the space, I enjoyed the nice smelling toiletries and the complimentary chocolates.

But …

I won’t be needing to book another night or two at a Malmaison hotel. I lived the dream. Enjoyed the dream.

But …

I much prefer the life I’ve cultivated in reality, in real life. Right now.

A Black WOmen’s Creative Retreat

| Sheree

I’m remembering the summer as well as archiving the events that went down @Earth Sea Love.

In August we managed to pull off a black women’s creative retreat. A weekend of creative camping in the middle of a forest. We cooked, and created, shared stories and slept under the stars. It was a magical time as we stepped out of time, to steal our lives back on our own terms. We laughed and cried and sang and walked and reconnected with ourselves, each other and nature.

I’ve just spent some time, updating the Earth Sea Love website with some events that took place over the summer, this retreat included because it’s important to have a record, an archives of these happenings. My heart and body remembers these days, these events because they have a profound effect on my {BEING}. Events like these reinforces everything that I {BE} and do for myself and others. And it is finding those ways of getting free, more often and for longer stretches of time.

This image above is of Pauline Mayers, one of the women to come on the retreat. And as you can see from her facial expression, and the sheer glow coming off her being, we had fun out there in nature together.

I’m now fixing to create more opportunities like this one. It was a dream come true, a dream started in a visual journal spread one day a few years ago. And who says dreams don’t come true. All you have to do is believe. Believe in yourself and the community around you and all will come to fruition.

A Creative Sketchbook, Dec 2025

| Sheree
My creative sketchbook
My creative sketchbook rules

I’m not sure how my creative sketchbook differs from my visual journal. Intention maybe.

Perhaps, I think , I’m attempting to develop my art practice within a designated space. A study maybe.

I haven’t really been in the thick of my art making practice since the preparation for my Baltic exhibition back in 2022-3.

This was quickly followed with the writings and (re)drafts of Darkling, my poetry/hybrid collection published in October 2024.

After this 2025 has been a period of extended rest and refusal.

But something has been niggling me. The desire to create with paint again. the desire to play without expectations and outcomes/ products.

I’ve just scratched the itch through scrolling through Pinterest. Adding another abstract or landscape painting to a board that I’ll probably not look at again.

But it satisfied this niggling feeling. Until it didn’t.

It was going back into the classroom. Completing a few days of supply that pushed me over the edge.

The time I gave away for money. The time I’d lost pursuing my own pursuits. And realising that I wasn’t pursuing all the pursuits I wanted to pursue in the time I had/have.

So out came a creative sketchbook, inspired by the 30 days sketchbook challenge created by Cheryl Taves over at Insight Creative.

This is as much as I’m willing to share for now about the challenge, my creative sketchbook, processes and insights.

One of my rules is that it’s just for my eyes only. I want to see how this rule changes my practice. I want to create without fear but with curiosity. I want to give myself all the freedom without worrying about what others will think or say or comment on.

It’s not like I’m hanging on other people’s responses and reactions but I have gotten into a habit of just sharing anything and everything on my blog and I’m curious to see what happens when I keep things to myself.

Just for my eyes, heart, and soul only.

So far I’m enjoying the process of the challenge and I’m reflecting and paying attention to what makes my heart sing, what’s my creative vocabulary, what pushes my energies.

Do doubt whatever I explore within my creative sketchbook will be showing up in everything that I create. In everything who I {BE}. For sure.

Well it happened …

| Sheree
Jug, Simeon Leigh, Loophole of Retreat Exhibition

I come here with a heart filled with joy, love and gratitude.

I put my heart, soul, care and dreams into the WOC Azadi Collective fugitivity visual journaling retreat today.

The time/space we created together was magical. We’re becoming a fugitive collective, creating mischief as we steal ourselves away. Steal our lives back from systems of oppression, systems we never consented to but find ourselves subjected it.

We refuse.

I have so much love and gratitude for Dal Kular who got me back to work with the collective. Dal sees my practices and processes around my visual journaling and fugitivity and constantly cheers me on, holds space and supports me to explore these further in collective/ collaboration with beautiful people.

What we created was powerful and ripe with possibilities. What we can do together is empowering and criminal. Disorderly and messy and so much needed.

There are other ways to {BE} and I’m all for exploring these further, deeper, together.

MORE.

Ring Shout

| Sheree

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark is a book I can’t get out of my head since I finished reading it.

A dark gothic southern historical fantasy novella set in 1920s Macon, Alabama, just after the 1915 film The Birth of the Nation which is being used to grow the KKK but to another level of Ku Kluxes. Monsters upon monsters.

And who is there to fight them and save the day if not three black women armed with blade, bullets and bomb. Helped with special powers and kinship with Gullah women and the supernatural.

Published on October 13, ( my birthday) 2020, this book blurred all the genres, redefines narratives and timelines and had me hooked from start to finish. It messed with my expectations and just left me wanting more.

I hope there’s going to be a sequel as these characters are too powerful and inspiring to be left in one novella.

More, I want more!