I got out earlier than expected from my gig today. So I used the time to get to the library and pick up a book I’d spied
Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas.
I’ve seen the posters created by Emory Douglas as part of exhibitions such as in the Soul of the Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (2017), but never before have I seen his extensive artwork all together.
This monograph edited and introduced by Sam Durant is a gem.
Along with my exploration of Paul Amos Kennedy Jr. last year (and continuing into this year too) and this dive into the artworks of Douglas gets me thinking that I might be feeling the need to create some social justice/ black power artworks myself.
Who knows. My interest has been caught and this book is feeding me with inspiration to the max.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Living Wild Studios 