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Playful Palimpsests

| Sheree

I go to my local probably about once a week if not more. I was brought up next to a library, in Bradford and in Newburn. They were places I could go to for some sense of freedom and adventure.

The librarians knew me and would recommend books to me and events. They wouldn’t rush me, I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted.

Today, I love to pop in to see the book sales at my local libraries. As I have a few on my doorstep now. I flit between them, collecting worn and torn books that I repurpose.

I was brought up to know it was ‘wrong’ to write in books. They were sacred in our home. Probably because we were poor and if we bought books, usually from the indoor market in town, we knew it was money we couldn’t afford to spend on books. But my parents spent it anyway, as they valued books, learning and education. It was our way out of poverty.

I wonder what they would say now, if they saw what I did to books?

10p is all I pay for big, colourful children’s books, withdrawn from library stock. I have to feel the paper first though before I buy them. Even if only 10p, too shiny the page and the paint won’t grip it as well. The paint just swirls around and doesn’t stick.

I like my pages rough and matt finished. Ready to absorb whatever I put down on it.

This sketchbook was my side hustle for the last month. Side hustle to my main creative sketchbook. Here I just lay down colour and see what happens.

I like when what’s underneath the paint bleeds through. I like when the different layers of paint and pencil and pen bleeds through to the surface too.

It’s like a palimpsest. The marks beneath is the feeling I’m after. The haunting, the trace, the evidence of time and the passage of time. The archive is present now.

a morning well spent

| Sheree

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

| Sheree

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

The verdict is in about the word of the year, 2026

| Sheree
Damon Davis and Kiki Salem

If you’ve been around here for a few years then you’ll know that I choose a word each year to act as a guiding source for the year ahead.

I hold this word lightly as a beacon to support my movement through the year as I navigate through society, this world, with the ebb and flow of commitments, responsibilities, projects and inspirations. 

Last year, fugitivity took hold of me and kept me refusing those things that have already been refused of me throughout the year. 

Fugitivity and visual journaling went hand in hand in 2025 to the point that I was able to create a loophole of retreat, a space of freedom and play for most of 2025. No doubt fugitivity is changing my life and remains in my rucksack as I traverse into 2026. The year of the horse ( more on that later).

So what is my word of 2026? 

Usually I have something chosen at the back end of Oct moving into November. It just comes to me, lands and takes up root as something that just feels right. And something I want to carry for a year or more and explore.

That didn’t happen this year. 

I had the feeling of being ‘unapologetic’ to the max but that felt, as a word, so dated. I feel it has been co-opted by mainstream and capitalist culture that to hear it now feel so twee for me. It’s original radical power being neutered.

Then we had radicale ( with an ‘e’) meaning to get to the basic root of something. Its natural origin. It’s fundamental and essential, changing from the roots. As well as radical being judged as unconventional, pushing things to the limits.

But again this word didn’t sit well within my gut. I wasn’t feeling it.

For me my word of the year has to be embrewed with feelings as well as be able to stand the test of time, the year and beyond, as well as act as talisman, inspiration and haven. Words of the past has included voice, water, shakti, open, listen, love etc. 

I have a tall ask for my word of the year but none of my words of the year so far has let me down. I suppose it’s a difficult act to follow after fugitivity as this practice has changed my life in so many ways.

But choose a word of the year I will because after so long in this practice, I would feel naked walking into 2026 without some word(s) at my back as support and/both motivator.

I’m making the commitment here now to go with – AfroSurreal – as my words of 2026.

Of course AfroSurreal is much more than a word it’s a whole artist and literary movement which blends the weird and absurd with the reality of blackness. That the reality of blackness, being black today is  surreal. 

AfroSurreal is  also a way of {BEING} that roots me further into the RIGHT NOW. Creating the future that has to happen right now. 

I’ll be exploring more and sharing about AfroSurreal over the next couple of days to get my basis understanding and direction down. And then look out for more posts about how I’m moving and shaking with AfroSurreal(ism) for the coming year.

I’m excited to see where this word will take me. A good sign if any that I’m chosen the right word ( movement) for 2026. 

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.

i still ain’t smiling

| Sheree

i’ve been spending the last week or so really diving deep into what my word for 2026 will be.

2025 was all about fugitivity, dreaming and conjuring. And this will continue into 2026. But i need some direction. Something that will encompass my purpose with room enough to expand and explore.

i learnt a few lessons in 2025 in adopting a persona/ a mask in order to protect myself / to create some safe space for myself so ‘ i may not see myself as others see me.’ Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

i’m fixing to create ( or is it continuing to create?) new narratives around blackness in order to expunge the past dominant narratives we’ve been fed around blackness up until NOW.

i think i’ve found my word for 2026 – AFROSURREAL.

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.

LUSH Life

| Sheree

Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?

As I’ve recently shared my word of the year is LUSH. I love this word. It reminds me of my childhood when everything was LUSH; a way of expressing my enthusiasm and my curiosity. When it wasn’t shunned to be in your feelings. When it was natural to full of awe and wonder.

I’m evoking LUSH this year to get back to that state. To foster these feelings more in my every day. I want to feel the LUSHness of life.

And yes I have been in my feelings this week, even if those feelings have been of pain and annoyance and regret towards my recent accident. But you have to experience all the feels in order to appreciate the joy and pleasure.

As a way of anchoring myself into this LUSH life. In order to have a reminder of where I am, what feelings I really want to wallow in, within joy and pleasure and self-love, I have this green ring I wear on my left hand. It’s a commitment from myself to myself. It’s a reminder of the love I am fostering and leaning into towards myself.

The ring has weight to it. The ring is beautiful. When I wear it I’m feeling it’s there on my ring finger and it’s reminding me I am loved and cared for. I am enough as I am, no conditions. This green ring, significant LUSH, is unconditional love for myself.

My word of 2025

| Sheree

Last year’s word of the year got lost in the mix. It was ‘self-authority’. Not sovereignty as that has colonial connotations for me.

I might not have been intently focused on the word – ‘self-authority’- throughout 2024. But I feel as if by the year’s end I have come to some new understanding of this way of being. I have a new kind of clarity around my own power and grace and being for sure.

As always I will continue to carry my word of the year along with me for the rest of my life and practice. My words of each year do become part of my arsenal, part of my way of moving through this world for ever more.

So what is my word for 2025.

LUSH.

Lush is my word for 2025. I’ve always loved the word ‘lush’ since I was a child. Especially after I moved up to the North -East of England when I was 10. Lush was the in word and it was used to describe anything that we thought was good, and inspiring and exciting. It was our go to word to describe anything that was positive and good. Lush has stayed with me, even though it might have fallen out of fashion over the years with others.

What do I mean now though when I use the word ‘lush’? First of all I just love the song of the word as it sizzles off my tongue. LUSH. LUSH. LUSH. So even the word itself is lush to me. But why do I mean when I use it in my life?

Lush usually refers to nature. To the lavishness of the vegetation. Green is the colour that comes to mind for lush. There’s a sense of abundance to it. Lush can also refer to the loveliness of a a person, their vitality as well as their sensuality and sexuality. Back in the 18th century say, lush also referred to a person who was in the habit of getting drunk. Maybe this gives the impression of lushness being to the excess. Like too much, too green, too beautiful.

For me, I’m picking up lushness for its sense of vitality and abundance. It’s innocence and child-like wonder and pleasure it brings me when I say the word as well as use it to refer to something as being ‘lush’. It could be a lush vista while I’m out with nature. It could be a lush colour. It could be a lush feeling. And this is where I’m starting with lush within my feelings.

This year, with carrying lush with me, I want to feel the thrills and pleasures of lushness. I want to feel the joy and exuberance of lushness. I want to feel the sparkle and abundance in everything and everyone I come into contact with.

This image is lush. Lush because of the way the water reflects the blue of the sky. Lush because of the dusting of snow on the mountain peaks. Lush because it is a moment of stillness and beauty and I’m part of it. Lush because I am present in the moment. Lush because I’ve grateful to be there. Lush because it’s the start of a new day. So much lushness to draw upon within each moment, each snapshot of my life and this is what I want to be tapping into more times than not. Lush is my anchor, my reminder, my mantra.

LUSH. LUSH. LUSH.

Do you have a word for the year? Please share in the comments if you do, I’d love to hear about it.