February 2023

I like to take every opportunity to share the work of Faith Ringgold, I really would consider her my hero as an artist. So much of her work is about telling stories, human history through her eyes and her peoples experiences in the USA. She trained in european historical painting but yearned to reflect her African heritage authentically, so she pursued ways of making such as masks, colour palettes and patterns from different African nations. This pair of artworks reflects that approach to art where she tackles the issue of how African American and Black people globally have been stereotyped. The Women: Mask Face Quilt No. 1 And The Men: Mask Face Quilt No. 2 were made in 1986 and are part of the International Quilt Museum’s collection. They were the first two works she made for her first solo show. She said "I was trying to say something, I was trying to use this, this African vision, but I was trying to tell an American story. I guess I had fun doing it but it has hard memories for me. I was pleased with the results but every time I look at both of those pictures, I feel a little bit of the pain I felt in trying to put it together. I had something I was trying to say and sometimes the message is an easy transmission and sometimes it's a difficult one but I love the power of saying it so I'm gonna do it whether it's hard or easy. Because I just love the idea that I can, I can say it!”

Ive spent the past two months focussing on a commission (which will launch next month) but it was quite a stressful process in which I overworked my hands. I wanted to create something small, sweet and simple to celebrate my precious hands so I designed an individual quilt block (3 x 3 squares), using red bandanas and calico. I was inspired by my friend Kate (artwork featured in the Humanity exhibition I saw last month) and my mama to incorporate some glass beads into my art, this time to represents sparkly glowing light surrounding my hands. It was nice for my brain to make something from start to finish with no stress, just a pretty straight forward process and testing what I have learnt about quilting and patchwork over the past year. My hands were always my favourite feature, and then in 2017 they started cramping and aching and giving me pain doing daily tasks so my love dwindled into resentment and fear. I wanted to take this moment to simply say “thank you” to my hands, something I think all people should tae time to appreciate. When your body works how you want it to, it is truly a blessing and gratitude should be felt.

This time 14 years ago I was in a short term mental health unit after my first attempt to end my life. I was 14, depressed, full of self hatred and believed my family hated me and I didnt deserve anything good in life. I didnt know I was struggling so badly because of being undiagnosed Autistic and ADHD mixed with hormones and PMDD, I still didnt know until I was 26. Now that Im 28 I have lived twice as long as my first attempt which is somewhat of a haunting feeling. Especially because Im still very depressed (now due to chronic pain) but i know im surrounded by love and my brain couldnt convince me otherwise. I do have moments where I want to die because life is such a struggle and you cant think straight when youre in constant pain, but Im not suicidal, more existential. 

Ableism can massively contribute to suicide, with people lacking resources to live, thrive and strive and seeing no other options. Undiagnosed Autism, ADHD and other neurodivergence's can be deadly due to internalising feelings of failure and not being able to function in society, or making decisions which impact our own safety trying to fit in. Immunocompromised/disabled people who have been isolated throughout the pandemic and continue to be are suffering from loneliness on top of trying to cope with eugenics and the rest of the world moving on without us. 

Understandably I was getting upset looking at photos I took from the mental health ward, some included in this newsletter, but its a good time to reflect. I was so lucky to be there with the people I was with, two older girls who took me under their wing and so many staff who believed in me and supported and cared for me. Troubled kids but it was actually like a family for those few months. So many people poured love into me, to the point where when I was discharged from the unit, everyone filled out a book of notes about how amazing i am 😭 At that time I created Superhan, an alter ego who allowed me to see the good inside me again. Art has always been my life and saviour and the fact chronic pain has taken so much of my freedom to be an artist has really affected my mental health all over again. The light box installation in the photographs was a group project, and a physical and metaphorical representation of the light which art brings to my life in the saddest times. 

I made this digital illustration to visualise the fact I have survived double the age of my first attempt, my turbulent emotional state over the years, as well as my recent chronic pain and isolation via broken skulls and cobwebs. I feel so grateful that I have the ability to express myself through art and thats why its so hard that chronic pain has taken so much of that freedom away from me.

Earlier in Feb I went to Wolves Lane Centre to meet Viss and Antonia for a nice catch up. They showed me around the cacti room and the palm house and then they ate some lunch from the vegan cafe while i explained my latest commission from start to finish. I love them so much, they believe in me and understand me. As we ordered tea and choc chip cookies Antonia and Viss got chatting to a local woman who volunteers and used to work for the NHS, she was talking about nature and plants and healing and community. Then Antonia got chatting to a guy known as The Cactus Man of London. He’s from Mexico and was studying cacti in Spain when the pandemic hit and his funding was cut. He came back to North London, where he saw some foxes who guided him to the entrance of these deserted (due to lockdown) greenhouses and found a room full of cacti not in a good way. He suddenly found his meaning again and his connection to cacti came back in his life. This must have been a few years ago now and he has been singing and playing music to the cacti. He has performances where people visit from all over and play their classical instruments in this calming and spiritual place. He played us some wind instruments from Mexico and it sounded so soft like fairy dust. It was beautiful to hear how he learned from his Grandma at a very young age, she would take him from the land to the kitchen and back and fourth. Caring and valuing and respecting nature is a practice and lifestyle as old as time, it is western capitalist society which has made us stray away from nature and its healing qualities. I felt so calm, light and lifted from the stress and spirals I had felt just the few days prior. Whether that was from seeing my girls or being surrounded by plants or meeting people who care so much about nature, I felt rejuvenated.

From following Moya Lothian-Mclean (journalist), I saw that she was taking part in a panel discussion with Thomas J Price (artist), Dr Nicholas Cullinan (Director of the National Portrait Gallery) and David Lascelles (Earl of Harewood) based in Harewood House chaired by Yassmin Abdel-Magied. Faces of Britain: Missing Portraits and the Gaps in British History sounded like it was right up my alley.

I love visiting stately homes across the country, but have an inner conflict about the colonial roots of the wealth which allowed for them to be built and filled with artefacts. For Harewood House in particular, that family wealth was acquired by Henry Lascelles through the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Barbados and Jamaica. The current Earl of Harewood, David Lascelles was part of this talk, and has a passion for trying to right some of the wrongs of his ancestors by championing equality now. He has done this by commissioning portraits of Afro-Caribbean people with connections to the house and Leeds surrounding area for an ongoing project. He said the portraits in his house, hundreds of them, are of rich white privileged men, showing only a small point of view of history. I thought it was really interesting, and that the general public have no excuse to be so defensive over sharing the true history of the british empire, which included slavery, theft, genocide, violence and so much more. Here is a descendant and benefactor of the riches of empire, and he is not shy to admit or connect the dots between his family wealth and the exploitation of enslaved and colonised people. David is a filmmaker and says the art hes surrounded by was contemporary at the time, and now art still has an important roll to play in the present and future. 

This was echoed by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan who reiterated the gallery’s founding principles which is 'to promote through the medium of portraits the appreciation and understanding of the men and women who have made and are making British history and culture, and ... to promote the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media'. He said this means sharing stories of Black and Brown people with connections to britain, not just in terms of abolition and emancipation but also breakthroughs in talent such as sports, music, science and culture. Interesting he mentioned that the repeat audience who are white, older and middle class are the people who have requested to see a more diverse and honest curation of the artworks on display. The most searched artwork on their website is the portrait of Sarah Forbes Bonneta which shows how much people want to see a wider range of representations and narratives. Nicholas said the more backlash the gallery get in this “culture war” the more he thinks its important for the gallery to push back. That was reassuring to hear, especially as our own government are the ones pushing a made up culture war to divide people further. Art can heal people and be catharsis. 

Artist Thomas J Price creates larger than life sculptures of fictional Black Brits, the everyday not exotified but incorporating stories and familiar traits. Theyre not on plinths theyre on our level, theyre made of bronze a historical material. He is interested in the desire to be portrayed, being included, who decides whos existence is valued enough to be portrayed in stoned or paint or other medium. Who gets to create the “importance” and who gets to represent themselves. He said that “When you suppress the history/story of britain you know the foundations are built on lies they wanna grasp at straws to protect. History cant be changed but it can be illuminated” And through art these histories can be represented in way that makes people stop and think, give them a moment to gather their thoughts and digest them, to have an interaction and connect to an idea in a way that is different to just reading about the history. 

Moya Lothian-McLean said the desire to be portrayed is also the desire to be remembered. Who gets represented and how? Oral histories are very different to western histories, told through a different lens. How can the history of Black people in the UK be told? Walking tours, oral histories, interactive, sound, touch, texture beyond just reading history from a plaque/infographic. History can be brought to life through our senses. Art and culture is world opening, but horizons need to be widened even further to show the gaps in the archives and gallery walls. The histories of ordinary people, working class people, immigrants, the grassroots, local, DIY stories. 

I found it fascinating to hear so many different perspectives about portraiture, colonial history, the role of museums and galleries in contemporary times. For hundreds of years the narrative was rich white men are the most important and the world revolves around them. Well we do not accept that, we fight for our ancestors who were oppressed by those very people and the current state where those powers hold on tight while many stand up for human rights for all.