Dwell Time

22/01/2024

Selftits by Lidia Lidia

www.lidialidia.com

22/01/2024

TOGETHER/APART by Natalie Christensen & Jim Eyre

Recently shown at Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, this composite series of surreal cityscapes from our respective communities embodies the disquieting experience of how our lives have been transformed by COVID-19. We retreated from our daily routines and into our homes for an unprecedented period of time. And during that time, there was a marked uptick in our reliance on digital technology. In response to the isolation, we created these enigmatic landscapes to reflect upon the experience of roaming inside our smartphones in the time of coronavirus. Architectural fragments and elements of the landscape are mingled to present a sense of psychological fragmentation and dissociation.

https://nataliechristensenphoto.com/

22/01/2024

The One Minute Hours by June Gersten Roberts

The One Minute Hours is a 24 minute video. From 8AM January 2020 until 7 AM December 2021, video maker June Gersten Roberts recorded one hour of the day or night, in her home, creating an collection of domestic intimacies, before, during and throughout the time of covid-19. The 24 minute hours was originally designed to be a include three dancers, a visual artist and a musician all to be recorded live , performing at different times of day. During covid the project transformed to become an intimate reflection on time, home and ageing with focus on one couple, the video artist and her husband, a visual artist husband, in their home.

Video: June Gersten RobertsMusic: Howard HaighPaintings: Tony Roberts 24 One Minute Hours 24 one minute contemplations on the time and a place Every month, f...

22/01/2024

Thomas Riesner

22/01/2024

The Importance of Colour by Sandra McInnes Scott

Walking along by the sea, enveloped in mist, Jay wondered if he too were disappearing. He had a feeling of being absorbed, wiped out, erased by particles of light and dark fighting over how much should be seen by others. He watched people move toward him on the promenade, shapes that morphed into what he thought they were or wanted them to be. If he wanted to see a monster, half human, half animal then he could. Limbs appeared and disappeared, taking on mysterious new forms...moving, evolving. He became aware that one of the figures moving toward him was vaguely familiar. Friend or foe? He began to recognise the walk, the shape and suddenly in front of the figure he recognised the small animal often linked to this familiar shape. Pepi recognised Jay too and bounded forward wagging his tail and barking out his greeting excitedly. ‘Oh hi there ‘, Pepi’s owner acknowledged Jay in a surprised way...as if he’d opened a door to an unexpected guest. ‘Awful weather isn't it?’ Marc grumbled, ‘Didn't recognise you there for a moment’

Marc was wearing a bright blue jacket which was more noticeable now that the mist had been pushed aside by his large frame. Marc was a larger-than-life character whose voice seemed to rumble from the pit of his rather large stomach. Blue kind of suited his character thought Jay. His presence had snapped Jay out of his drowsiness and brought a little bit of the sky back into his halfway world.

‘Wish this mist would clear’, said Marc, ‘Can't see a blooming thing’. Was going to drive out to mum's today but daren't. She needs some help with her garden but it’ll have to wait... damned weather’, and off he went, following Pepi’s doggy shape into the greyish void. Like being swallowed up by a cloud. Consumed by the same particles which would give birth to someone or something else soon. Like a great white black hole sucking in everything it came into contact with until it collides with another world and manifests something different.

This fog is having a weird effect on me , Jay thought. It seemed to him that because he couldn’t see very well on the outside that his mind was going into overdrive on the inside.

Life for Jay had become rather grey recently. The predictability of his life had gotten into his bones making him feel out of sorts with the larger world which he felt more and more cut off from. He had travelled a lot in his younger days as an engineer. He loved the sea and all her moods and listened avidly to the shipping forecast on the radio. It provided a thread to his previous life. The rewards of a land based life were different...they provided stability and predictability to some extent. He had eventually chosen this life for those very things when he married...but his soul remained at sea. His eyes had seen so many different countries and his ears had heard so many different languages. His senses had become attuned to when things were in harmony or discord....much like the different sounds of pipes when things went wrong in the engine room. He applied the same principle to his life and the people he met.

Whenever he thought of Elsa this principle came to mind. Elsa had been warm and friendly initially. Now she made cold sounds and seemed so distant. Jay had been impressed by her breadth of knowledge on many subjects and the way she did not hold back from expressing them. However, when Jay had a chance to stand back and reflect, he discovered that her knowledge base was rather shallow. Quick to anger, her tongue often caught fire. She had turned from friend to foe. Perhaps the grim weather of the maritime climate had had this effect on her...like rocking a boat out of mischief to test its effects. He had pulled back.... unsure he wanted to be rocked.

He looked up and glimpsed a tiny piece of blue sky ...like a c***k in the armour of the northern landscape. He had started to think a lot about colours recently with all the grey weather. He had been reading about Vantablack, the worlds darkest material, so dark that it doesn’t really exist. The light just goes in and bounces around and doesn’t come back out. In China, he had read that white is the colour of mourning...the opposite of here in the west. Both these extremes of white and black made the colour grey, yet black could totally consume any light so seemed to have the upper hand.
He looked down at his damp trousers and feeling chilly, he pulled his jacket collar closer around his neck, harbouring his chin. Everything felt damp. This had never really bothered him before. He realised he could see a little further now. Was the fog beginning to clear?

More figures loomed out of the mist, nodded their acknowledgement of his existence and disappeared again. He could still see no further than a few feet really. Much like my life now, he thought.

Things hadn't worked out the way he had hoped or expected...but that’s life he thought. Life hadn't seemed the same since he lost his partner a few years ago. He’d had a few short relationships since, nothing serious. He felt lost these days and this grim weather seemed a likely analogy, yet at the same time was like a blanket of cold comfort, erasing him from sight.... yet...didn't artists use grey as a background to highlight other colours he remembered? Different events in his life began to stand out now and gain new significance. Like a painting being revealed, he became aware that he was seeing things more clearly now.

He could clearly see the path to his cottage , more people were beginning to become visible. There were so many more people on the path than he’d realised. He felt he knew what he needed to do now as the fog seemed to part and blue sky became more visible.

11/01/2024

In Difring by Dominic Andrew

The pain came and went. It permeated and seeped into the fabric of my skin like a stain. Bubbling and spreading like an expanding puddle that consumes and drowns any who dare peruse its depths.

I needed to find him. I almost wanted to find him. I wanted to be with him. He was to be my end and my glorious beginning. A rebirth, a new page, a fresh canvas. A life bleached white, without the marks, without the lines, without the scratches and the scars and the mistakes.

His embrace would be divine.

Down through dark halls is where he lives, that’s what they told me. They say a lot in the darkness of those halls, whispering untruths and singing sad songs.

I visited that forsaken place long ago. I silently crept down the sloping path to my own end, scared of the jagged blackness around me. I was eager to find him, apprehensive at our impending meeting, mystified by the tales that shrouded his visage.

Could he truly be what I had sought for so long? Could he truly envelop me in his crooked arms? Take me into the folds of his cloying breath?

These thoughts led me blindly through the endless tunnel of night; until I came to the door. It had no lock nor handle and was lit only by a dim candle casting its sad yellow glow.

I knocked.

It opened and I stepped into the room.

There were no candles here, only the dying embers of a fire, orange amongst white coals, illuminating the face of an old man.

It was him. I knew that, not by his appearance but by his feel. His aura stunk of the end, spoke of the collapse, it was fetid with the corpses of those who had taken their early exit.

His eyes shone dark and placid like the still water of a lake and his rough face haunted me with bared white teeth in that hallowed place.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"To stop the darkness, to stop feeling this way," I answered back.

He pursed his age-old lips at that. Huffing and fussing until he could no longer find distractions in not answering my plea.

"It's not your time yet," he said. "It is not your time, the light lives whence you came from, it is still there. You have only to find it."

This is the website for fantasy author Dominic Andrew. He is currently looking for a literary agent to represent his debut novel A Better Crown; a tale of revenge, treachery and heroism in the harsh world of Earthguard.

05/01/2024

Immortal Clay by Dr Lula Buzz

In summer 2020, amidst the uncertainty of lockdown and the pandemic, I created a quiet intimate piece called Clay Cradling. This piece made over seven days, involved holding and gently rocking a mass of wet clay in my arms. It was a tender reflection on human mortality, and our relationship to the Earth. In the months following Clay Cradling I continued to keep the clay moist and pliant. I knew the clay held some latent meaning - that its story was yet to unfold, but at that point I didn't know how painful it would be.

Then boom - my husband Manfred died and my world fell apart. Nothing was recognisable except the clay. I clung onto it through the shock and pain. it offered a 'living' link from one world to the next. Half the clay was formed into a heart and placed on his coffin. The other half I continued to water. As long as the clay remained wet it was still 'alive' - it was still responsive to my touch. By tending to the clay in this way, a physical link between myself and Manfred has been maintained. One that continues to develop and evolve through the making of grief dolls. These tiny prehistoric looking forms consist of two clay figures bound together as one. Even though Manfred is no longer physically here, I continue to feel his presence. I sense his touch on my shoulder - I see us dancing effortlessly through the sky. These feelings and visions are embedded within the clay. Each grief doll (of which there are now 43) is made with love and intention - each one brings an element of beauty to the harsh reality of loss and bereavement.

I am a British artist with over 25 years experience of working with raw clay. My practise explores the primal, tactile nature of clay through performance and ritual. I also make sculptural objects relating to loss and grief. I am a member of the Ball Clay Heritage Society and hold a PhD in Arts Practice.

https://www.claysidecallings.com/journal

05/01/2024

Not Like It's Gonna Kill Ya by Gemma Lees

Not Like It’s Gonna Kill You

Not like it’s gonna kill you, is it?
They scoff, laugh-cough, self-righteous sniff,
Tight-lipped smile stretched over clenched teeth,
Simmering indignation scarcely disguised beneath,
Their belief, as soon I know OCD is senseless, I’ll be repaired,
No longer a sneak thief pussyfooting up my spine, no longer scared,
No longer creeped out, prickled skin, hairs stood erect,
I’m stupefied, I know it lies, with the stress and the check and the stress and the check,
There’s no evidence, but OCD’s mentality overtakes rationality,
Fight or flight, stuck fast with fright, it’s dastardly,
Clammy shakes, skin vibrates, piercing headache, perspirate,
Notwithstanding understanding, it’s real yet fake, hyperventilate, I break,
Not like it’s gonna kill you, is it?
As if mere mockery could cure this lunatic.

Not like it’s gonna kill you, is it?
So long as you commit to sit indoors for a bit,
Bubbled, confined, one walk, one time, no more,
Hand gel in every store, get in line just to get through the door,
Bacterial warfare festers in every hand,
Serial killers stand in doorways, banging on pans,
Cover both mouth and nose, change contaminated clothes,
Humming Happy Birthday, deterge those microbes,
Every public cough and sneeze, that’s someone dropping to their knees,
But there’s no god could extricate from a sickness carried on the breeze,
Pathetic fallacy, it’s after me, it knows what I already knew,
That there’s death in our breath, in what we do and don’t do,
Not like it’s gonna kill you, is it?
But it might, and it can, and it did.

A poem about my experiences of living through Covid, a pandemic which took my beloved Grandad from me, as a person with severe OCD. I'd been mocked, scolded and chastised for years by healthcare professionals about my over the top hygiene practices, then all of the sudden the script flipped and I wasn't the crazy one any more in a world that had turned crazy around me.

Poetry, Theatre, Journalism & Art. Gypsy, Homelessness & Disability Advocate.

05/01/2024

Haram by ILHAN

Haram, the Arabic word that means ‘prohibited’, given the nature shared by some authors of su***de in Islam being impermissible, is a project that aims to show suicidal ideation from an artistic, raw, anti-police, and anti-institutional perspective.

My artwork puts a full flashlight on the inclusion of gender and ethnic diversity —on all those bodies that have been traversed by social stigma. It proposes a reflection and questioning of the status quo and at the same time suggests another perspective of the world through my own experience as a Muslim, transgender, non-binary, and polyamorous person. The particular use of color is by excellence the formal element present in all of my artworks, which inescapably reinforces the image. My goals when making collages are to make a statement about gender identities and about bodies who love, who choose, who have something to say, and who are often discarded by hegemonic representation. I want to send the message that we exist, we’re here, and our existence is beautiful.
My work is highly influenced by the musical education I received based on the technique created by Shin’ichi Suzuki where teaching happens the same way as the acquisition of the mother tongue. I studied piano from ages 4-9 and 14-17, and I became a teacher. This contact with music and the internalization of art at a very early age, plus the influence of my father —who was a painter and a sculptor —woke a very curious and artistic personality in me. He worked as a salesman but he wanted to make a living out of his art, although he couldn’t make it —maybe that’s a legacy that fell on to me. Through time, I leaned towards visual arts and I discovered my passion for digital collage at age 21 in the pandemic when I ran out of photographs to work with —I’m a photographer — and I started editing stock pictures. I also conceive art production as a moment of contact with my deity, where I can get in touch with what I believe is my mission on this Earth — to make art and to create some kind of visual healing in the process, both for me and for others. This integration of my spirituality, my feelings, and my values is very important to me.
I discovered a brand new world of stock photographs during the pandemic that inevitably kept growing and growing when the health restrictions held by each country around the world started to be removed. What I found, though, and I still find, is the fact that there is still very little representation of the LGBT+, disabled, and BIPOC community, both in stock pictures and figurative art. I understood that I would have to create art that would merge those limits and talk about the un-talked. For instance, I would grab a stock photo of two orthodox Jewish men about to cross a street and I would make them get closer so the head of one of them would rest in the other man’s shoulder. I would then add small hearts so it would have a general meaning of love. Or I would grab three different photographs of hijabi brides and I would cut them off the images and bring them all together recreating a scene of a polyamorous Muslim le***an wedding.

https://www.behance.net/ilhan_mzd

05/01/2024

4 Seasons of Covid by Steve Allen

I used Covid as a catalyst to fight the mundane boredom attached to the lockdowns. This piece was my seasonal understanding of the virus and it's spread across our collective psyche and indeed the spread across the country.

I am a professional artist who specialises in large vivid abstract paintings that are usually statement pieces for peoples homes. I currently show my work via my website, exhibitions, social media, (details below) and in several high-end restaurant locations around the Cotswolds. I also work extensively with interior designers to produce tailored and bespoke commissions to specific styles and colour pallets for their clients.
My work covers a multitude of techniques from abstract paintwork to pigmented power to metallic leaf work to epoxy resin use. You’ll also see from the website that the artwork covers multiple contemporary styles and topics which is my passion. Trying different production methods and styles is equally important to me as the use of bright vivid colours is.
https://www.instagram.com/creations.from.the.studio/ #

https://www.creations-cotswolds.com/

05/01/2024

Broken by Hilary Watkinson

Broken

Take the pieces
That make me

Take these pieces
And hold them together
With sympathy
And caring looks
And texts
With beating hearts
And kisses
And thumbs up

Take the pieces
That make me
Hold them
Hold them
Tenderly

Keep them safe
Within your heart
Keep me safe
That is your part

And mine is strength
And mine is hope

The pieces left
That once made me
Hold them
Hold me
Tenderly

Please

I write from the heart. My poems give you a window to my heart.
I paint in acrylic s. I can't use a paintbrush because of arthritis so use a kitchen spatula and for this painting, cardboard and cling film. Painting engulfs me and makes me happy. I came to painting in my late 60 s when I was ill and given a small painting set. I can escape from the world through painting. Everyone should look for an escape through a hobby. Try.

www.hilarywatkinson.com

05/01/2024

Vertigo by Michelle Vara

16” x 8”, "Vertigo" is a sculpture that was created with recycled materials and welded together. "Vertigo" is finished in detailed enamel paint and an industrial clear coat.
This work is the culmination of the artist considering the effects of the pandemic, and how that impacted the individual human- mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.

My life is filled with reoccurring questions manifesting in a deluge of artistic output. One of these questions concerns the feeling of displacement, motivating my search for connections I find in the personalities of objects and materials. Questioning and searching stimulate my creative actions and further contemplations. Coining objects soothes the discomfort of extreme events in my life. Doing feeds and satiates my curiosity and provides a means of connecting and communicating ideas beyond myself, which these uncanny objects expose. The temperament of materials is accentuated in a dance of space, using line and color to connect emotion with the beauty of a balance discovered in the quiet of negative space and the security of the action of doing, which creates my being. Creating is magically prepared by technique, practice, and wisdom. My life-work is no straight line, yet a graph of time well experienced and practised.

www.michellevara.com