I'm working hard on my new exhibition 'The One I Love' which explores the relationship people with long term invisible conditions have with their pets.
Where : Free Space Project, Kentish Town Health Centre, 2 Bartholomew Road NW5 2BX
When : October 23rd - December 14th
Private View : October 23rd at 6.30pm to 8.30pm
Hope to see you there !
Naomi x
I have been living with CFS/ME since last year. My good friend Mark has arranged a fundraiser, Festival of Us, for me so I can get some essential tests which are not available on the NHS. It would be great if you could come along/spread the word.
Festival of Us - a night of the very best in spoken word plus dancing until late
When: Friday August 17th 7pm Where: Cottons, 70 Exmouth Market EC1 Tickets: £6/5 and £11/10 with food
Artists on the night include: Tshaka Campbell Courttia Newland Dzifa Benson Paul Cree Leila Segal Esther Poyer LyricL Joelle Taylor Jill Abram Dean Atta Agnes Meadows Musa Okwonga Dan Cockrill
Hosted by poet Mark 'Mr T' Thompson and with soul filled tunes from Jazz FM's Chris Philips, this one off event promises to an unmissable night.
This is the first in an occasional series where I'll be looking at the work of writers, performers and artists I admire. This week it's esteemed poet Karen McCarthy Woolf whose upcoming workshop, 'Inside Art, Writing with Letters' will give experienced and less experienced writers a chance to explore how letter writing can contribute to the creative process. You can hear some of her work on a recent edition of my radio show 'The Conversational'.
Karen has been working with fellow poet Miriam Nash in a creative correspondence. I asked Karen a little about letter writing and what promises to be a very rewarding workshop. What is it about letter writing that is so freeing and expressive for the creative process ?
Writing a letter is inherently intimate and also direct. A letter is about something and addressed to a person. Letters also meander, often quite beautifully. The form seems to prompt people to talk in detail about their surroundings, their emotions, opinions, hopes and desires. I think this happens because letters are like conversations, but they happen over long periods of time. One of the joys of a letter is you get to have your say without interruption! Unlike email, or even text these days, you can't see a trail, and most importantly you have to wait. When you work with letter writing creatively, that waiting, and the letting go of the content as you send something off with no copies, can feel quite liberating.
How did the idea for this workshop come about ?
Miriam sent me an email about some 'snail mail' letter writing workshops she was running and I was immediately drawn to the idea. At the time I was recovering from a traumatic bereavement, and could barely go online. I received many cards and letters from people and I was deeply touched and also inspired by their content. I was also fascinated by the idea that people tend to send a physical object - a letter, card or flowers at these times. So I emailed Miriam with a note and invited her to collaborate with me in a creative correspondence on my blog (which was a commission from Spread the Word), which explores what happens when we share our creative process online. Our correspondence soon became one of the most important elements in my writing practice and Miriam and I have become dear friends. We send each other notes, poems, freewrites, drawings (mainly Miriam's, it's not my strongest suit) and lots of little presents and objects. The other day I sent Miriam a little packet of saffron from Spain. She has sent me sachets of sugar she collected from cafes in Geneva. We both wrote poems about our grandfathers. We also talk about our preoccupations as writers and it has been a very useful process in terms of identifying ongoing themes and concerns in my work. One of my letter poems, 'Wing', was recently published in Poetry Review and the poem only really 'found itself' once it was in the letter form. What can participants expect to get from the workshop ?
I can't promise people will write poems that get published in Poetry Review (!) but I do think that the workshops will be a rich creative springboard that will help writers of all genres develop their voice and to write pieces that are more intimate and authentic in tone. I hope that over the course of the workshops we will kickstart lots of new drafts or ideas for new poems, stories or creative collaborations. We will be corresponding with a group of writers from Singapore who are attending Miriam's mirror workshop. So we will send and receive letters to and from strangers overseas and there will be an opportunity to showcase some of our work on Open Notebooks. I am very excited about the opportunity to introduce letter writing as a creative practice and explore it a little as a form.
Dzifa and I (under our collective title Word Migrants) had a great time hosting our book event, The Book Salon, last week featuring
Leila Segal, Gemma Weekes , Agnes Meadows, Rachel Rose Reid, Courttia Newland and singer/songwriter Marcus Begg whose photo you can see here.
It was taken by photographer Rob Covell whose portfolio is becoming increasingly impressive. I have really been enjoying Rob's live shots as well as his stunning photographs of his partner, writer and performer extraordinaire Kat Francois.
Having recently picked up the camera again (it's been just over a year since I have entered the digital realm busying myself with portraits and more) I asked Rob about what photography meant to him.
Art to me is a tool. I see art as a means to convey something. For me that is the most important part, not necessarily the art itself. Like true hip hop or poetry I like it when it teaches me, when it's revolutionary and empowers people. It still has to be good artistically, but if the message is missing or is hidden in too abstract a way, then it’s not easy to grab me.
Photography is the same. Yes, a beautiful landscape, nature pic or portrait will grab me. A gratuitous shot of suffering will not. If I’m taking a portrait, I would like the subject to look at the photo afterwards and feel empowered by it, that they see something beautiful about themselves that they hadn’t seen before.
A lot of discussion around photography understandably focuses on the image. I am very interested in the interaction between the photographer and the subject especially when it comes to more personal and meaningful relationships. Rob told me a little about the role taking pictures played in the relationship with his daughter.
I have a teenage daughter who has autism. I wondered if the relaxation I feel taking photos would help her, so I’ve started taking her out to parks and zoos, and just letting her loose with my camera. She loves nature and has told me how she too finds it relaxing. Photography totally de-stresses her.
So, what's next ?
I really want to get to a point where I can be semi-professional. I work as part of Zupakat Productions, run by Kat Francois and would like to develop the photography arm of that along with my own music production and writing. I’m working on some ideas for combining my three art forms. As with my writing, a main focus of my work will be to re-address euro centric perspectives and history.
As photographers, we have the ability to record the legacies of others, and I think that is a beautiful opportunity to create history that otherwise would go untold. I don’t want to specialise in one type of photography, there’s too much to see out there.
But what’s really next - Keep learning !
It's to my great joy that there are an increasing number of high calibre book nights in London. Two of my all time favourites are the Book Club Boutique curated, designed and presented by the inexhaustible Salena Godden and Book Slam, hosted with effortless charm by Patrick Neate. Inspired by the success of these two very enjoyable evenings Dzifa Benson and I have decided to plunge in to the heady world of book nights with our very own 'The Book Salon'. The first night has a line-up so good that it makes me blush. Well almost.
