Creativity/Serendipity Tag

04 Dec Welcome

This is one of many postcard sized images which comprises ‘Wish You Were Here’, an exhibition and raffle in aid of Art Refuge. I collaged together prints of my feet and hands with the message ‘WELCOME’. My humble artwork will be raffled alongside pieces by artists like Grayson Perry.

Recent surges of people running the dangerous gauntlet to cross the channel in small boats, regularly hits the news. I listen to reports on the radio in my comfortable kitchen while I eat a nutritious organic lunch. Many do not survive the journey.

Art Refuge work on both sides of the channel with people who are displaced, to provide art and art therapy, and offer crisis support. They also offer training to frontline workers. Their skilful and imaginative projects often begin with a welcome at one of their ‘community tables.’ These are covered with printed maps, which may represent former homes and travel routes, and aid conversations.

The team use a profoundly simple but effective way of embodied creative making to invite people into connection. “The Community Table model – originally developed by Art Refuge in Calais to welcome those who find themselves displaced – alongside volunteers, local staff, interpreters and visitors – to sit around a table and share spaces through art making.”

For me, welcoming someone has become an essential practice. In Grief Tending, we aim to welcome both people, and feelings which may not feel invited elsewhere. In some grief rituals, after expressing emotions, there is a moment of return, where the person is welcomed back into the holding support of the group. This can be a strong experience, especially for those who have rarely experienced an authentic welcome.

My inspiration for this image was to offer an open-armed welcome to those who step onto British shores. Many of the displaced have lost everything, and bring a history of trauma and struggle. Creativity is one way to begin a journey of repair – to connect, to find respite, to tell your story, and eventually to make meaning.

Sarah Pletts is a Grief Tender and Artist who offers workshops in London and online, sharing rituals where grief on all themes is welcome.  For more information about Grief Tending events see here. 

27 Nov Wet Feather

Living creatively is an invitation to walk through the world with eyes open to wonder. There is a quality of presence, of being in the moment, which ushers in a way of looking, unhindered by too much thinking. Whenever I travel to somewhere new, I put on this way of seeing like invisible glasses. But I also try to remain open to looking with my ‘travelling eyes’ in my every day places.

The serendipity of light, weather, season, and other chance encounters give endless variations to my daily walking route, and the kaleidoscope of natural patterns. To see like this is a commitment to curiosity. I urge myself to notice and follow the energy that is alive for me in everything. ‘Where is the juice in this subject, this conversation, or in the dance between us?’

I find a leaf, an insect, a feather, a puddle, examine the details with ‘mouse view’. Here sit droplets of water on a pigeon feather. Vast elements encapsulated in feather, grass, rain and light – air, earth, water and fire. Here lies beauty and simplicity.

06 Oct Broken China

Advertising plays on Mimetic Theory, (the impulse and consequences of envy), to tap into our desire for what someone else has. We are sold images and ideals of perfection that are unrealistic. Our role models: family members, media images, cultural leaders, TV heroes, teachers, and friends on social media in-still standards to aspire to, that we internalise.

“In the absence of adequate rites of passage, ad-men become the high priests of an initiation into the addictions of consumerism”, Marion Woodman warns in ‘The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation.’ Failing to measure up to these ideals causes shame and erodes our sense of self-worth.

Until I was 29, I sucked up magazine images, fed my fantasy life, was a ghost in the world. I developed a longing to become as wise as the Dalai Lama, while mining my creative potential like Frida Kahlo. In fact, I have had to lower my standards and to be content with being my ordinary self.

Letting go of my grandiose expectations of myself is painful, over and over again. I make mistakes, get things wrong, and despite my longing to be perfect, I never am. Like the Japanese art of ‘Kintsugi’, I am learning to celebrate my cracks, to make their scars visible, rather than hidden. My experience comes from this process of break and repair.

Embracing incompetency in creative work makes it more relatable. “The good thing about incompetency is it makes other people feel less shame”, says Tony Gammidge. Tony encourages my journey of making images that includes mistakes and the serendipity of accident. I notice that welcoming the probability of getting things wrong makes space for collaboration, and opens up possibilities. Increasingly surrounded by slick digital images, I yearn for the rustic simplicity of hand-made objects, with all their imperfections, made by real people, full of flaws.

03 Sep ‘HELLO’ Bunting

My summer usually includes working and playing at several festivals. Long weekends under canvas bring me happiness. The effort of gathering all the paraphernalia for comfortable, dry nights includes digging wellies out of the cellar, rummaging at the bottom of my wardrobe for sequin hot-pants, fishing tents out of the attic, and then playing packing ‘Tetris’.

My reward is sitting on a sheepskin, kettle on the boil, looking out at trees in a field of tents. This is a pre-requisite for shaking off my city shell. Festivals mean diving into an environment where creativity is celebrated; including music, dancing, and having fun with people. But this is 2020, during a pandemic, and things are different.

At the Medicine Festival, it feels special to be able to gather. ‘HELLO’ this bright orange tent announces, welcoming us back into some semblance of festival culture. There are canopies, beautiful installations, shamanic drums, onesies, but no hugs in sight. Dancing happens in my individual portion of field. My extrovert stays at home, while my introvert tries to navigate the socially distanced crowd. Seeing friends and familiar faces at arms length is both a joy, and an impediment. Instead of becoming wild and feral, I use hand sanitizer at regular intervals.

The programme, despite holes, (a consequence of indigenous participants remaining in other places), is still full. We follow a random trajectory through ceremony with some of the ‘Wisdom Keepers’, talks, performances, and workshops, via skinny-dipping in the lake. We connect with the very alive woodland, shared intentions, live music and each-other in hands off ways.

27 Aug Victoria Park

We admire the clouds in Victoria Park. They are worthy of John Constable’s paintbrush. With my ‘Romanticist’ eye, I see Tony and Monique, standing heroic against the tumultuous sky. We three share a love of words.

“Most of my students use too many adjectives,” says Monique. I wonder how to find the words that might describe this bold scene with pithy nouns and verbs. Writers stand in sunlight. Wordsmiths walk under a dark cloud. Friends look for change.

From our different perspectives, we search for words that expand our conversation, avoid those that close down communication. We discuss the tensions, which spring up from assumptions, judgements, and lack of information or imagination. How do we find the right words, use skilful speech, embrace complexity, debate with nuance? Can we encourage ways to reflect our experiences to increase our ability to understand one another?

06 Jul Sky Over Hackney Marshes

“Everyone is broadcasting. I’m seeing what comes when I listen,” Julie says, in one of our characteristically candid conversations. I like to think of my time, energy and expression in terms of ‘input’ and ‘output’. I try to find a balance. There are times to speak out, to be heard, and there are times to receive. However, what I heard in Julie’s words is a more provocative enquiry. What happens when I listen more deeply? How can I sit with what’s uncomfortable in me enough to hear the other fully? How can I tune in to the voice of the unheard? What happens when I make space to listen to the unknown? At home I listen to a muffled city scape of footsteps, distant shouts, rumbles of passing cars, and fragments of electronic beats. Out on the marshes, I listen to birdsong, weather and the rustle of leaves. I open my ears to inspiration that blows in on the wind, and the energies of the land.

06 Jun Strawberry Yoghurt

As an only child, I struggled to learn the rules of play. My games were often solitary imaginings of ‘house’, dolls being ‘mothered’ my way. Eventually I developed impulses to create – ‘Spirogyro’ patterns, badly spelled poems and an illustrated story about ‘My Aunt’. Dexter has always been more hands on. He introduced me to his games of make-believe, where he imagined, dressed up, and we acted out his devisings with him. “You be the shark, and now you fight me…” From an early age, he would suggest costume ideas, “fun-fur patchwork hoody?”, which I would procure. His eyes blazed then, as they do now, with fierce intensity as he conjured up worlds to escape into. He taught me to play, helped me to bring forth some of my reticence to get involved. We are still playing together. “It’s going to be a story, where I get messier and messier. I’ll wear my pink fluffy jacket. Can you find me a table cloth?” Each of us has a part to play. We all revel with delight, in the creative process, and it’s fun. I source the yoghurt.