Examples of the drawings I’ve made on the book pages…
A few months ago I applied to Visions at Bow Arts in London (with a proposal to do some of my ‘hollow bone’ work).
I was contacted soon after by Kamila Kuc and Tessa Galand to discuss Kamila’s film, book and project ‘I Was There.’
Kamila and I had a good conversation online in which we talked about drawing into books, the theme of her film, and how we might respond in a public performance/discussion setting – at the gallery.
I will be in London soon, and on December 13th in the evening there will be an evening of performance drawing, a panel discussion, and a screening of Kamila’s film.
It has been a joy to work with Kamila, Tessa, Jeremy Fernando (publisher https://www.delerepress.com/) and Ecka Mordecai (sound artist). Tickets for the evening event are available from Bow Arts. https://bowarts.org/ for tickets.
Books with hand-drawn pages will be available to purchase from the gallery on and after December 13th 2026.
I love my garden. I love to grow tomatoes, rocket, apples, raspberries and figs. Standing in the garden in bare feet in the early morning gives me great joy. and seeing the creatures who come. This morning it was a humming bird hawk moth which spent some time feeding on the nectar in my various sage plants. Later today a squirrel came and gnawed on the sheep and whale bones I have on my window sill.
Finches and blackbirds, sparrowhawks, sparrows, and blue tits come.
I took a small group of students to Venice last month. We had a wonderful week of blue skies and sunshine… and we visited the Biennale, Torcello, Fortuny Palace, and a small group also went to Padua.
Here is some text from two of the students:I’d asked them to imagine they were working for a arts publication, and to write something…( I did this several years ago, for a-n and for The International Times…)
>Venice Biennale 2024 – Foreigners Everywhere, 331 international, many identifying as diasporic artists offer their unique lens on varying themes such as displacement, belonging, identity, migration, and nationalism.
This was a profound and poignant celebration of marginalisation speaking and often screaming through, artworks that included contemporary, folk, sculpture, photography, textiles, craft, installations, and a strong focus on indigenous traditions, inviting the viewer to go beyond everyday held horizons.
I found myself easily being able to move between my own internal and external worlds, both real and imagined, where I floated and reflected on my own experiences of identifying as a ‘foreigner’ outsider, self taught artist, and the impact and influence this has had upon my work over the last 20 years. I visited in-seeing places and notions of fragility, rootlessness, othering, discrimination, destruction, loss, and grief, walking and waking on a path of respectful solidarity and into a place of exploration for new work.
My internal journey took me too dangerous and beautiful places, imagined universes, observational drones, robots intersecting with spirits and sacred rituals, supported with narratives held through ancestral memories and sacred knowledge.
There was a powerful sense of artists such as Madge Gill (1882-1961), Mounira Al Solh (b178), MAHKU Collective, Peter Hujar (1934-1987) and the collective circle of CATPC, using other worldly spirit guardians, as a way into unique visioning, setting their work within a context of ancestral and sacred knowledge, the eternal and the divine.
Foreigners Everywhere unleashed the silenced, unseen, unspoken voices, a wake-up call to all of us who are trying to make sense of and act upon reimagined futures where nothing that is human is foreign.
Sally Tripptree Artist.
……………..
From Dennis the Menace (Dundee) to Venice.
Everyone looks at me weird or cautious but I’m going anyway; two weeks in Venice with a group of artistic Brits. staying with an Italian B&B host who admittedly “hates tourists”
To me the Biennale can be an overproduced showcase of nationalistic and art market types, all framed, presented and hyped in a way that leaves you struggling to determine the art from the ‘artification’ or dressing of the display space? The artistic ideas presented in what feels somewhere between a theatre set and a wedding photographer’s tacky backdrop.
There’s paint, curtains, seats, sofas, glass cases, LED lamps, projectors, speakers, sound-proofing, screens, screens and more screens. Blackout screens, light diffusion screens, transparent Perspex screens, screens for posters, tables for business cards pamphlets, books, shelves, signage, barriers… and oh SUBTITLES, lots and lots of subtitles everywhere, in a barrage to help you KNOW / SEE???!!!!!
Sometimes the biennale feels more about the interior design and the packaging than the art. So, you need to be prepared and deterministic to navigate the noise. I suggest either follow the evidence / there’s guide books or take a meander and make a departure when something calls.
Gradually, after you’ve adjusted your sensory perception and tuned in or through there’s loads of interesting stuff to discover. For me the whole labyrinth of expo and ancient city revealing some really good art.
I found I was drawn to and stayed longest with the analogue pieces, art that was either paper-based, drawing, printing and painting or sculptural, made of resistant material. It’s not that I’m a traditionalist, I just felt the sound and ‘multi-media’ works were lacking and underwhelming (or had been overwhelmed by the producers !!!) but I did join in with the military karaoke in the Polish pavilion which was a worthy effort and suitably dark, actually made by a Ukrainian art collective I believe?
But Venice is a great venue, playful and mystical. I felt comfortable there and safe, inspired to interrogate my own preconceptions and make stuff. Weird actually became my way and I relaxed about others, making new friends and seeing beyond.
“Foreigners Everywhere” was the biennale theme and I unselfconsciously began to make responses in that vein realising as much as I wanted to be or stay outside as the outsider, I was hooked xx
Scott Hawkins, Artist.
Notes and Feedback from and about my course on creativity from shamanic and psychoanalytic perspectives.
Here are extracts from some of my teaching notes, made in preparation, which I didn’t follow exactly…
Creation: definition: each to define in notes what it means for them, and creativity. In themselves, in humans, in nature, and from divine perspective.
Definition: the act of producing or causing to exist. The act of creating the world.
The Creative Act A Way of Being : Rick Rubin:
quote at beginning: ‘the object isn’t to make art/its to be in that wonderful state/ which makes art inevitable’. ( rather like meditation). “Creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human.’ Rubin p1. ‘Think of the universe as an eternal creative unfolding.’ P5
‘To live as an artist is a way of being in the world…Practice of paying attention.’ P2
‘Just as trees form flowers and fruits, humanity creates worlds of art.’ P 5
Creation myths. Von Franz, Jungian interpretation. Read one…All to listen and doodle as they listen. Maybe with closed eyes.
Power animal. Teach about shamanic journeying. Journey to find power animal. Another journey to ask what their focus should be regarding their own creativity/these 3 days. Mind map, notes, from rational perspective. Meditation to tune into inner child, access her/him and ask for their view on creativity too. Introduce aspect relating to expansion of awareness. Frequencies. Protection and high frequency.
Go into nature. Soft vision. Spend time gazing softly at a plant, or flower or tree. Being receptive, not penetrative. Write and draw what you receive, and your feelings about that time being in nature. What can nature tell us about creation and creativity? Where does it’s roots seek for nourishment? And our place within it?draw and write. Tune into our own root. What is it like? Where is it?
If time, ask a question inwardly and spend 30 mins or so walking the labyrinth, seeking/tracking/waiting for soft answers. Is this more of a shamanic or psychoanalytic way? Why?
Creativity from shamanic perspective: “the creative is round, the creative is heaven.” Roundness – Bachelard, the nest, the womb, inside the body, the dream, the breath, the cell, the cycles of things, the cosmic egg, sol et Luna, uruborus, the connection to nature and the cycles we find there endlessly unless destroyed by human behavior… drawings about circularity, looking at poems about circularity in Tech of the Sacred.
Studio. They draw as I read poems aloud. Notes in immediate response. Pictographs, ideograms. Abstract. The language of form. The Chinese language. David Hinton. Hunger Mountain and bowing, prayerfulness, humbleness.
Workroom. 4 pm Dreaming as a circular way of being? How we are held.
Journey to ask what holds us when we dream , and to draw this. From psychoanalytic perspective ? Every aspect in a dream is an aspect of the self. Not the same as shamanic. Psychic structure? Structure of the psyche/soul. The soul’s path. Individuation. Alchemy as a way of working with this. Also mythology. Aphrodite. Bringer of change. My dream of the needle in my throat. Throat as centre of self-expression. The symbol of the needle – Louise Bourgeois.
Show pics and look at work of Louise Bourgeois, how it all came, most of her mature work, from those early woundings. She found a wound, a fruitful fissure, and she stayed with it. How much healing occurred? Did she want healing? Or did the artist in her want to keep the wound open, so it would keep bleeding/nourishing her creative fire?
Journey: what wound do I keep open to draw on creatively? Draw and write about.
Third day. Meditation with water. Long row.
Shamanic walk around the sites…what are you drawn to? What do you feel, hear?
The Transcendent Function
Some psychoanalysts describe artistic creation as a ‘controlled madness’, a momentary delirium which is finally resolved by a recent earring and reinforcement of the ego. “We may speak here, writes Ernst Kris, ‘of a shift in psychic level, consisting in the fluctuation of functional regression and control.’
P82 the absent father effect “The TF bridges the border between self and other, psyche and body, guiding the psyche towards individuation. The word ‘function’ derives from the Latin verb ‘fungere’, to perform. Transcend is a compound of of two Latin words: the prefix Tran, beyond, across, and the verb scandere, to climb. When something transcends, it goes above, beyond or below…the process is an active confrontation between conscious and unconscious, resulting in the emergence of new symbolic forms. Dreams and the complexities and dissociations of the psyche reveal the transcendent function in therapeutic work. They transcend internal conflicts and, by doing so, lead to increased psychic wholeness.
The transcendent function describes the psychic functioning necessary for meaning to emerge from suffering and loss.”
Jung said:
“The shuttling to and fro of arguments and affects between conscious and unconscious represents the transcendent function of opposites. The confrontation of the two positions generates a tension charged with energy and creates a living, third thing….a living birth that leads to a new level of being, a new situation. So long as these are kept apart – naturally for the purpose of avoiding conflict – they do not function and remain inert.”
‘No law shall be passed that will harm the child’. Native American lore. And ‘everything is born of woman.’
………..
Feedback:From Simon Bird.
As this communication is, at heart, a thank you, a reflection, and an opportunity to consolidate and learn some more for me, I am sending this longer note.
Questions surface but they are for me to hold and resolve; and you will see from my comments that you have given me the tools to practice and use to do so. They are doors opening not problems to be sorted.
It has been a weekend of continuous, groundbreaking but delightful surprises. I cannot thank you enough. I decided to document them on the final page. They are numbered. I wanted to show you how many gifts you have enabled and given. And I also commented briefly on the shape of each so that I could show you the power of the course you have just run, in detail, as I experienced it. I will never lose them.
You have given me a toolbox to unlock, not what I recogniseas a new or different me, but an authentic, unencumbered one. I can explore from my unconscious, my subconscious, the sensed and felt and (for me a breakthrough) avoid the analysis, contextualisation and effort to ‘make good and meaningful art’ that just burdened me before.
In 3 days I have learned more and discovered more than I have in the mid 80s when I was an undergraduate and in the early stages of my working life; which, as I approach my 6thdecade, is a wonderful gift and immeasurably exciting.
I can feel how this will boost my work. It will not make it brilliant or compelling overnight, but without angst on my part, with excitement for the process of getting there and without getting in my own way I will make things I can be proud of.
Which brings me to my guide, and probably the richest experience I had. So I singled it out and I did want to tell you but you looked so tired that day I chose to hang back. I will tell you now.
From snow and ice, to rare real and mythological animals to Everest I travelled. Orca propelled me up from the depths and I helped her fly and not fall back in air. For a while we soared there but came to rest in on an ice sheet and I thought,as they appeared that I had my guide in the Northern Lights – amoving red/green flame.
One of the messages I had been getting all weekend was ‘dig deeper’ and ‘do not accept the first thing offered as the only thing for you’ – and as I felt that your drumming moved nearer to me and the drum seemed to tell me that too. Insitently. And as the beat got louder in my chest the Northern Lights parted and the sky was clear and I could see the Pole Star.
I recognised it instantly and it asked me why had it taken me so long to find it.
It is so small but so constant, and so brilliant (and I am crying as I record this journeying) I could only see it from the earth view, but it let me hold it in my palm as a light and compass and showed me that the universe was there for me, revolving round it. All it asked for in return was for me to
– trust
– never doubt it
– go North
And to seal the deal (a little later) I chose my stone. I just took the first one I touched. It was a little rough and I felt a fraction of an impulse to say no but I ignored it. I’m glad I did. You have gifted me an amethyst crystal. My own fragment of a star to sit beside me as I work.
Thank you for saving it for me; for I chose last.
In conclusion I think the hole in my life has been a ‘lack of faith’. An unfulfilled longing for that ‘true constant’ and a frustration I could not find it; but knowing it was missing and being irritated that no religion I have ever studied or considered has been able to bring it to me.
I have, this weekend experienced so much that I can say that hole is filled.
I understand now why people describe religious experience as mystic, not rational or explainable. Just a feeling in your heart.
The trust in spirit and energy and thoughtful reflection you asked us to share this weekend has given me that which no religion has ever been able to.
It culminated in your physical transformation at the closing ceremony. A trick of the light perhaps but real, I saw it and could describe it and felt it deeply nonetheless. It was extraordinary to see you go from tired drummer to a shining being, completely restored. I hope you felt it.
1. Heart not head.
I have been struggling with the notion of what is ‘quality of work’ – what a misnomer. If it makes my heart sing or bleed or burst…then I have it. Thank you for that realisation. (Which is why I said, perhaps you recall, ‘’I’ve just realised I do not need external validation’’)
2. Instinct. Trust.
I have always struggled with sharing or over sharing and the judgement of others. Welcome Orca. I love her. She already demands bravery of me when it is needed or warranted (eg the ‘falcon’ writing). She wills me on and expects nothing less.
3. Journeying
It takes practice doesn’t it? and I am a novice but I hadn’t appreciated until the ‘spirit guide’ work that it is indeed a journey. I think I was trying initially to focus on the shamanic quality of it.
But now I can travel!! and boy do I cover some ground when I go – thanks again to Orca, she is so bloody powerful.
Even the journey is itself rich territory for me. Seeking is as interesting as discovery. I can see myself exploring work about the ‘ride through kelp forests’ for instance but still respecting the sacred pact between my spirit animal and me.
4. Tenderness
Mole reminded me that small things have real power. Noticing and valuing the little or fragile is as important as the big stuff. And digging and not being scared by feeling constrained. Letting myself be tender. It is not weakness.
5. Music is love.
I got carried away with symbols (all those sacred hearts) and in one small drawing I even cast myself as Jesus which is troubling on so many levels but not without precedent amongst male artists, including Gauguin – one of my heroes (minus child brides etc). The little painting comes after the falcon poem and the sacred heart work.
I made so much work around those hearts. I love symbolism and I am not sure if its an image that needed clearing away (cliché) or (understandably lazy shorthand for a man without the skill to draw someone ripping open their chest to expose their heart) but also one that needs exploring. Deeper digging/ meditative journeying required.
I also heard the beauty of language and how I am triggered by that. I have my favourites. I have those I speak and those I can understand. Ones I am fluent in. Even German can sound sublime when Jessie Norman sings it.
(Incidentally my go to piece of music for all moods? Un Bel Di, Madam Butterfly. Puccini. Just saying)
6. Soft gazing
Hello my Japanese self. New unexpected images and associations rise for me. Richness and layering too – layers that reveal themselves one by one where I had always tended to reduce or simplify or eliminate. As you might expect of someone who likes to abstract.
And as you exit a sort of ‘hypernoticing’.
Every detail of the scene in my immediate vision was drawing my attention; in particular a dying dragonfly, wings folded forward slowly twitching, draining itself of colour, until all it was, was a black line, against the rusting bucket on which it sat.
7. Walking with intention.
I kept going back to that labyrinth on the sly. Holding one intention and focusing on it as you walk strips away all unessential thinking. Revealing answers.
8. Walking without intention.
Thank you for the ‘wind down’ together with Betsy at the end of Friday and Saturday. But threads and thoughts from these are woven in to what I can explore next too. Not least ‘mole’.
9. The Power of Words.
My writing is better, easier, less confused, less laboured and more stripped back than my visual work. No wonder. I have been pursuing it for longer, at a higher level and in every sphere of my life I use it/practice every day. I am better – way better, at editing it, evaluating and curating it than I am my visual work. So I should not be surprised (we touched on technical facility too)
It is time to use this witing and performance skill more and perhaps in my practice the spoken word will be my key medium – literally my voice and the visuals a way to support them. I had already felt that books, letters and artefacts were more relevant and appealing to my concerns than ‘paintings on walls’. I think this is reinforced by this weekend.
10. Play. Be free little child.
especially with my visual work and get as comfortable and fluid in my drawing ability and visual language. I’m an abstract painter in part because it is rather easy to mask my inexperience behind a ‘create and justify it afterwards as something from my psyche’; but I did find that soul-less. To express myself better I need to work on my hand and mark making. Non dominant hand, moving from the shoulder and elbow, mixing media, exploring marks.
You have reminded me how much I love it and I do recognise and like my inner child.
He is a rather talkative, inquisitive, expressive and independent child. Serious and prone to sulk but also full of laughter.
He is quite unafraid. He would engage grown ups and authority quite directly.
He breaks rules. He used to walk through the graveyard on the way back from school to take flowers home for his mum. (I can still see the plaster angels, and blue/green glass chippings on the gravestones. He would present the flowesr with a gappy smile, receive a kiss and a reminder that it was not a good thing to do…)
But now he and I have complete permission to venture where we will. Interestingly I drew him once.
He was a perfect circle, dark bottle green, full of words that the circle could not contain and perfectly protected in a womb of mist. No scars or scrapes on him! More work to revisit here. I liked it but feel its strength now.
11. Mercurial intellect
I loved this phrase. Me too. Blessing and curse…
The title for my show comes from a dream I had many years ago when I first visited Cornwall, before I lived here I believe, around 30 years ago…
I waited and for years my high field was motionless beneath the winds, undiscovered and undisturbed; there was no quivering or opening; there was no ploughing and no witness to any ceremony, awakening or trembling. And he told me over and over again that he would not bring his plough to my fertile ground which was waiting for him. I was the high field left alone, left without the sound of male voices being carried on the wind. And so in the end I came back to my dream and I made my own plough, drawing it out of myself onto paper with my fluids, my pen knibs, my blood and my colours. When I paint I plough with my heart.
– Kate Walters, 2024
More writing which relates to the work in this show…
Thoughts on my work as a whole and the new body of
paintings:
I saw the waking field.
To do with fields of awareness we encounter whilst dreaming, in a trance, mystic experiences
and whilst painting, or being in nature.
…
When I teach shamanic workshops I always tell new people the definitions of shamanism :
The sense, appreciation, that all things are alive and all things are connected;
And shaman: one who sees, one who knows; and one who is inspired by or with fire (Spirit).
This relates to my writing thinking and knowing about the seeing of the Waking Field…
This underpins all my work as an artist…and human being…
…
Ploughing with My Heart.
Inanna and the Waking Field.
A short passage about creativity, dreaming and psychic processes.
Many years ago when I first visited Cornwall I had an experience of how all the fields in the West
Penwith peninsula were alive. I came to know
this fully through making a drawing/monotype called ‘I saw the waking field’. In this small work
I drew myself holding the field as if she were a glass of wine I might drink. It is also a body which
quivers with aliveness. It was through making the drawing
that I was able to articulate my feelings/knowings about the shivering I’d seen the field make, as
if shaking herself awake in the morning, the way a wild animal would, her gossamer coat
glistening in the sun.
A few years earlier in a dream I saw myself opening my chest cavity, taking out my heart, and
stretching it into what I first thought was a
pen-knib; but then I used my fingers to stretch and enlarge the pulpy crimson form, and I saw
within the dream – to my amazement – that it had become a plough, and I began to push the
heart-forged blade through the dark ground of my unconscious; turning it
over, going deeper and darker, revealing her/my fecund blackness…
…………
And one afternoon much later he reached down to a book beside his chair, and he opened the
book at a page he’d marked, and he read me these
words:
‘As for me, Inanna,
Who will plough my vulva?
Who will plough my high field? Who will plough my wet ground?’
‘Great Lady, the king will plough your vulva.
I, Dumuzi the King, will plough your vulva.’
‘He has sprouted; he has burgeoned;
He is lettuce planted by the water. He is the one my womb loves best.
My eager impetuous caresser of the navel, My caresser of the soft thighs,
He is the one my womb loves best,
He is lettuce planted by the water.’
(Diane Wolkstein & Samuel Noah Kramer, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth pp 37,8)
I sat quietly, every part of my body tense. I knew the text already but I was unsure about telling
him. I wanted him to be the one who would
turn over my darkest deepest earth, to plough me. I couldn’t tell him this, but he knew.
I waited and for years my high field was motionless beneath the winds, undiscovered and
undisturbed; there was no quivering or opening; there
was no ploughing and no witness to any ceremony, awakening or trembling. And he told me
over and over again that he would not bring his plough to my fertile ground which was waiting
for him. I was the high field left alone, left without the sound of male voices
being carried on the wind.
And so in the end I came back to my dream and I made my own plough, drawing it out of myself
onto paper with my fluids, my pen knibs, my blood
and my colours.
When I paint I plough with my heart.
I rarely see the man anymore. But recently he sent me these words:
‘Your question about Inanna ploughing her own furrow makes me
think of Jung’s work exactly: that the work of individuation is a process of exactly that: of
working so that the different aspects of who we are (masculine, feminine, old, young, divine,
shadow etc) can find a way to be in intimate relationship so that we
can come fully into being. This is his work particularly on Alchemy, but also on the
Phenomenology of the Self.’
…
Ploughing with my heart – The title comes from a dream I had many years ago which I’m only
now coming to work with in a direct way. It was very powerful and is all about the unconscious
and individuation. It also relates to Inanna and the aliveness of fields of being and awareness.
…
Words in speech marks are written by a friend, alongside drawings in my small found and
altered books…
“Again you are there, where I didn’t expect you to be, in the darkness looking at me.”
“Stretch me out beneath you, let me carry your footsteps over the land
Let your fingers inscribe my skull’s cape, down through my arms and into the ground: your
gentle eye and your sharp beak.” Words written in my books of drawings, by a friend.
“If I bury my face in your flowering womb
Your wounds of the heart, the breast and the sex
Will you feed me or
Will you feed off me?
will we feed off another
Or will something we’ve not yet known
Find their way in
The goddess, this golden icon… would you risk your life, your soul for one moment’s awareness
of this?
I am sad there
….waiting for a time when there is space for me
Sometimes a shattering is the only thing
I can bear: shattering is all that there is
And the brown shawls continue and connect
And there in the debris are you, slowly coalescing
Will you come together
In my
Hands,
milk
Of my eye
Clouds of semen
For your seat
And your shawl….”
My studio notes:
From book beside the bed
“It is the point of de-creation, when the artist in his unparalleled style no longer creates but
de-creates – that untitled messianic moment in which art stays miraculously still, almost
astounded: fallen and risen in every instant.” Agamben 2002
“This is a downward going path of art, and life, that creates via a descent. This is an art that falls.
This art makes its connections through disintegration, disruption, sexuality, chaos, breakdown,
loosening, loss, trauma, and madness.” Agamben in Naming the Gods by Gary D. Astrachan
Being seen.
Or not seen.
‘Poiesis is a bringing forth from concealment, hiddenness and non-being into the ‘light of
presence.’
“Poiesis bears within itself as its original mission, this compelling desire for a complete
transfiguration of our natural state.” From Phallos by Eugene Monick
As if I’d been bitten by a shark. The pain around my lower body, the pain of unlove.
…
Dream of bees (October 2023) in the ceiling of my bedroom. Small black wild bees, they were
nesting. Maybe there was one in my hair. I couldn’t use my bedroom (couldn’t sleep, couldn’t
dream) and I asked my husband to help move them, but he couldn’t do it. It seemed like it was
my childhood bedroom as well as this one, my home.
Note: there are places in Cornwall which harvest honey from wild black bees.
Bees can be seen as divine messengers. They want us to go up, heavenwards. Trying to get
through my ceiling. Maybe I have a ceiling I need to go up, through?
Dream on the following night:
Of a screen/painting with red and white, red flowers from my sage plants. Erotic thoughts of a
man touching me all over with his erect phallus, everywhere he touched me my skin was
marked, bruised, opened, he planted his bulb in me, I grew tulips from all the marks.
Note: reminded me of another dream in which red, wild tulips grew from my bones.
Writing at this time by my Friend:
“In the dark spaces, lost in the dark spaces – and you are also suddenly there sleeping…
I thought you’d gone on, gone away but you were curled up, your aloneness saved in the
wellspring, gold dust shimmering over you – else I would’ve walked by lost, still lost. As I draw
myself up and over to caress the back of your neck, your wings budding over your shoulders, you
know I am here, arriving into form out of the darkness because of you.
Coming into being over you.”
I remember the garden at Clos du Peyronnet, my garden of Paradise when I was a young
woman. I think about creating a garden of paradise with my painting. How beauty, memory, also
trauma are tacked into us, a needle goes through all our layers of being, connects it all, makes us
stronger? We are sewn.
Paint my body as a colorful landscape, the colours are birdsong.
Birds don’t listen to music. Or do they?
The flowers on my tongue.
Flower pregnant with Horse. Flower gives birth to Horse.
Pollinated tears.
Dream of the two eyes that saw everything. Roving, revolving, without lids. Attached to the great
long jaw bones of the eagle, spirit bird of the deeps, night visitor, keep him/her hidden beneath a
dark cloth. Paint the dark cloth, the sea of bones, the tides of skulls.
‘Every time consciousness produces something, even two words, there are always four, because
the unconscious is always there too; something unknown is involved, and that should also be
taken into consideration. ‘ Alchemy, Marie-Louise von Franz, p 153.
‘Horses are liminal creatures who lead humans from the world of the tame into the world of the
wild up to heaven, or down to the artery hell of the cobra people.’ Wendy Doniger Stallions p 17
My paintings know things . They know things about me. They know what to do before I do.
‘I return from trampling upon flowers/And the hooves of my horse smell sweet.’ Emperor Hui
Tsung. (1101 – 1125).
You are the rhizome, I might say to him, the one who hides in the shadows, and behind the
curtain of death. The soul Friend. You with your fingers, your tongue and your phallus buried
deep, I came to know you through the drawing first, and you told me how it felt for you when I
rose from your holy sacrum, Heaven’s Gate. I paint us over and over, your face and fingers
down, and I rise up flowering. We’re lotus too, you my dark roots in the watery place, and the
horse the band of daylight joins us.
I ask about the kind of psychic space I’m painting to house the figures. Should they be in a
landscape?
From The wisdom of the Ancient Seers p 160
‘His stallions are dark, that is transcendent and of the Absolute, but their feet are white as they
bear the light of the phenomenal worlds.’ And ‘All beings remain forever in Savitar, the Being of
transformation. He is the supreme light of creation that is the free overflowing of the
transcendent and uncreate….Divine creativity which underlies all creation and which recreates
and regenerates us in the light of truth.’
Jonah and the whale: coming out of the body of the animal/fish after an ordeal. Animal body as
place which holds us whilst we are cooked, transformed.
It could also be your mouth, where you gently hold me when I’m painting. Your words are me
emerging; all my colours.
The pregnant man pushes his belly against the belly of his bride. The pregnant man can have
three faces. The man wants my pregnancy, he wants my womb, he summons a heavenly belt and
spins it towards me, he plants a spirit bomb in my womb with the heavenly strike. Later, when I
put the painting on the wall, and I see the insistence of the child taking my hand (pulling me
away), and the fury of the horse: I wonder if he is stealing from me.
Reading ‘in the direction of the bird’s mouth’. Painting ‘in the direction of the bird’s mouth.’
Cannot remember source.
Chiron, the holy outsider.
“The mystery of an innate rhythm.” Holderlin.
“A single celestial rhythm.”
“‘Caesura’ or ‘anti-rhythmic interruption’ when the word, as if checked in mid-flight, for a
moment reveals not what it says, but it’s own nature….the verses seem to fall hugging each other
in the silence.”
Beauty that falls. Giorgio Agamben
… Holy feminine, holy masculine; womb envy; inner child knowing; snake energy;
serpent power; vision, seeing, knowing; the shaman’s eye, various kinds of touch; chakras;
dreaming. I have brought my shamanic persona into these paintings more.
…
A new friend of mine recently wrote this piece below: (December 2023) I love your art for so many reasons Kate but just now I’m appreciating how dedicated to your
personal journey of becoming you are. It’s important to me as woman, that you take your
guidance from your dreams, intuitions, shamanic connections, relationships, and deeply felt
embodied experiences.
You use your art to be the voice of that feminine power. I and pretty much all the women I have
known struggle to articulate, perhaps to even experience these ineffable feelings. We know
they’re important when they come, but they sound so weak expressed in words through the
steely filter of the rational mind.
We have held back on the unexpressed erotic, messy, visceral, unapologetically cosmic,
profoundly knowing, fundamental parts of ourselves.
At an ancestral level we learned not to expose these powerful aspects of womanhood for fear of
alienation, punishment, even death.
Women themselves can be the most defensive of this shutting down of the essential feminine,
appalled by the risk, the disturbance, the threat of the unknown forces that might be released,
forces of loneliness, poverty, the legacy of a distorted world that threatens unlovability.
The worst fear is of the exposure of our own lack of courage at this time when we are called to
be open and to find strength in vulnerability. I love you and your art for leading the way, with
such POWER. For us all.
Estelle Thistleton Professional Development Coach
February 2024
I’ve been invited by MA Curatorial students at Exeter University to create work for an exhibition in June in Exeter….opening days June 6th and 7th…more soon!
Exhibition topic and theme
The colour pink has become emblematic of the fight against breast cancer,
symbolising hope, support, and solidarity. However, a thought-provoking perspective
emerged during our discussion with Adriana Ford, a former breast cancer patient and
the founder of the Breast Cancer Art Project. Contrary to the conventional association,
Ford expressed that her immediate association with breast cancer was not pink but a
representation of darkness, reflecting the fear and pain accompanying the diagnosis.
This revelation, shared by many survivors, underscores the complexity of the breast
cancer experience, transcending the ubiquitous pink to encompass a spectrum of
emotions and realities. Thus, our exhibition topic “More than Pink: Art Meets Breast
Cancer ” was conceived with the intention of challenging the conventional narrative.
We aim to offer a multifaceted view of breast cancer, encouraging a deeper, more
emotional engagement with the art. This theme also critically addresses the
phenomenon of “pink washing,” highlighting the adverse effects of the disease’s
commercialisation, and urging a more nuanced understanding beyond the colour pink.
I’m so delighted to announce that three of my paintings will be at the launch of Dr Amy Hale’s new book Sex Magic at Arusha Gallery from 6.30 pm on February 5th, in London.
Please see my Instagram feed for more info… there will also be an event in Penzance in mid Feb at The Admiral Benbow pub in Chapel Street…
This mid-winter I’ll be working in the beautiful spacious Anchor Studio in Newlyn. It’s part of the Borlase Smart John Wells Trust, and is one of the original artist’s bespoke studios in Newlyn. I’ll be making work in there for three months, towards my solo show at Arusha gallery in London next May.
I’m planning to hold 2 Solstice workshops in the studio; during the two-day one we’ll visit the nearby wild landscape – weather permitting…! We will share cars: it’s a ten minute drive to Boscawen-un Stone Circle. If the weather is fine we might venture slightly further afield to a beautiful wild place and site of hidden stones near Carn Kenidjack. We will walk shamanically and tune into and draw the energy of the wild landscape and ancient stones.
I’ll give a short talk on my paintings and drawings in progress – with Q & A – and I’ll have some archive works (mostly on paper, some framed) available to buy at studio prices.
Two-day workshop: Dec 20th 10.00 – 19.00 and Dec 21st 10.00 – 17.00.
We’ll make shamanic journeys in a ceremonial way to ask for guidance in this time of inwardness, dark light, and change. We’ll draw, paint, release, write, make an intention, dance (if you wish!) and share food. We’ll mark the Solstice together.
The fee for the two-day workshop is £225 to include most art materials (bring your favourite ones if you prefer) and all teaching.
The two day workshop is now full…but places are available on the one-day workshop…details are below…
…………..
For those who’d prefer one day, I’m going to offer a one-day workshop on the 22nd December, from 11.00 – 19.00.
This will take place in the studio and surrounding gardens, and will be similar to the longer workshop in feel but with slightly fewer activities (and my talk will be shorter!). The workshop fee for the one-day gathering is £120.
I hope to see you soon and to share this time with you. Please let me know if you’d like to come and I’ll add you to the group…and let you know what you’d need to bring…
It would be great if more men joined my circles and workshops. They always bring a different energy, humour and warmth to the groups – which I like. If you know someone who might enjoy this work, please share this infomration with them. Thank you.
There is no parking at Anchor studio, but in nearby streets; the access is up a few steps…
If you would like to see my works in progress and archive works without attending the workshop that would be possible – by appointment – on the 18th and 19th December.
Workshops for 2024:
2024. I will run four or five workshops in 2024. Two or three will be held at The School of Art and Wellbeing in Devon https://artandwellbeing.co.uk/ , and one or two will be held in Cornwall, probably near Helston. The dates are below. If you are interested in attending, please let me know, as I expect them to book up quite quickly. The prices indicated include all teaching, equipment and most materials (I find some people like to bring their own, and their own sketchbooks). Some bursaries are available. Accommodation is booked separately with each venue.I am beginning to plan these workshops, and themes arising are:
Holy animals: 12 – 15th April (four days) beginning from the teaching which says that highly evolved Beings sometimes incarnate in animals’ or birds’ bodies, we will move strongly into the imaginary world of the Animal and the Bird. We’ll look at symbolism and cave paintings/carvings in Neolithic artefacts from across the globe, referencing John Berger’s thoughts on these, as well as shamanic verses and teachers; make shamanic journeys to Power animals and helpers, asking for assistance for specific personal tasks; we will consider the natural, protective, illuminating and ceremonial aspects of the Horse, Bird, Wolf, Snake and Big Cat (amongst others), working with drawing, paint, words, colour, movement and sound to bring ourselves closer to the worlds these powerful beings inhabit: all to help us in our day to day lives and to help those around us to navigate the fast-changing world. We will send attention to species loss too and consider practical steps we could take to reverse their decline. This course will be held in Devon at the School of Art and Well-being near Honiton. £450
Body as Prophet/ess: June 1-3rd.
A three-day course working with bodily knowing, responding to themes you will bring, which might be unresolved events or relationships, or unfulfilled desires, creativity etc. We will ask animal guides and helpers and the world of spirit to give us insights to weights we are carrying energetically/physically/psychically which tend to drain energy and prevent us seeing our way through. In addition, resolution of weighty issues frees energy enabling other activities such as our creativity, development -personally and or professionally – to move forwards more dynamically. We will work with blessing ceremonies to help and soothe each other, and we will ask our bodies to soften and receive in the safe space we will create together. This course will be held in Devon. £350.
The Book as a body of Love October 19-22nd 2024: a course where you will embellish a found/old/recycled book with words, images, collage. I will supply some vintage/found/hand-made books from which you will choose one or two and you will respond to the imagery and/or words/music notation already contained within the book -or write, draw your own material – to make something new, highly personal, a one-off, a new life for a treasured or found book. I will bring some children’s books too for those who wish to focus on their inner child. You can also bring your own book or books, or indeed make one/more from scratch … I will bring some book-binding equipment…we will also work on loose pages with collage/exquisite corpses (surrealist techniques). Art movements/artists/writers referenced will be surrealism, dada, french symbolist poetry, Arte Povera, Joseph Beuys, Helen Cixous, Carol Rama and Ithell Colquhoun. This course will be held in Devon.£475 to include books I have sourced…two or three each…
The Mysteries of Creativity from shamanic and psychoanalytic perspectives. 13-16th September 2024
For artists, poets and writers who wish to go deep into their own process, and the hidden areas of our psyche – and the wider imaginal worlds – from where some of our best, most illuminating images and ideas arise. We will make shamanic journeys, looking at our intentions from the place of the will, the mind and the heart; we will enlist the support and guidance of our spirit guides to cast light on our true creative voices and paths. If spirit guides are unknown we will make shamanic journeys to find them. We will also look at the role of dreams and dreaming in our work and lives, and how we can make connections (and with what) between the numinous and subtle worlds, and the physical world where we manifest imagery and forms. Writers and thinkers we will look at as part of the course include James Hillman, Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, Joan Halifax, Henry Corbin, Joseph Campbell, John Berger, Amy Hale, Marie-Louise von Franz, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin, Maria Lassnig, Hilma af Klint, Joseph Beuys, Philip Rawson; and traditions from other continents, e.g Tantric art and Aboriginal images/traditions.
This course will be held in Cornwall at Coskewis near Helston.
The Wild in Us: working with the shamanic journey, dreams, our innate creativity, poetry, music and dance to explore symbols, feelings and embodied knowing about the wild world which we are part of… for example trees, plants, animals, birds, rocks, the sea, the air, the earth, metals, planets. We will ask for ways in which we can be closely connected with the wild within ourselves, and in the natural world. I hope to run this course in Cornwall.
All workshops begin on the first day at 11am and finish on the last day at 5pm. I always bring a carefully chosen selection of books from my library which all participants are free to peruse and study for the duration of the course.
All workshops are for women and men: painters, students, writers, thinkers, ecologists, poets, activists….
Full guidance to all shamanic techniques will be given. You will be very welcome if you have never done this work before!
Most art materials will be provided, but please bring your own sketchbooks (I find people like to choose their own size and format). You can book accommodation (including camping and shepherd’s huts) through the School website. All the courses include refreshments throughout the day. We bring and cook/share our own lunches and dinners; there is a spacious kitchen in The Pavilion for us to use.
I’m so delighted to be able to post that three of my entries to the TBWDP were selected last week by three judges whose opinion I value greatly:
Laura Hoptman, Barbara Walker and Dennis Scholl
@lhoptman @schollcreative @barbarawalkerstudio
and thanks to:
@parkerharrisco @anitataylor_ @trinitybuoywharf
The works selected are three music books I’ve drawn into, with some hand-written words by me and Joseph Suart.
The exhibition will open on September 27th, in London. It will then tour the UK for nine months. Details soon, or from Parker Harris or Trinity Buoy Wharf.
Here are some of the pages:
………………………..
Here are a few words about my approach to my work, and what happens in my studio…
“I expected to meet an artist and realise that much more than that you are shaman straddling many realities, bringing back to the rest of us in this physicality the multi dimensional experience of your intimate inner life. It’s one thing to understand inner realities as philosophical theory, or even open up to it as personal practice, and quite another to be such a powerful vehicle for its expression. I am full of respect for the task you are set upon, I think it takes a great deal of courage and talent to be so exposed and expressive. Most of us are on a desperate mission to cover it all up!
Reading the feedback from your workshop participants the extent to which you enable them to access the magical and mystical realms is testimony to your own journeying.
Whilst writing this and wondering how to express how I feel about our meeting The Hierophant sprang to mind. In most Tarot readings this represents the Pope as a figure of ultimate spiritual power, (not one I subscribe to obviously) however, if one explores the symbolism further it is really expressing the Divine Masculine in direct relation to the already initiated Divine Feminine of the High Priestess, and in that meaning I can see why it came to mind regarding your journey. It’s the time of the dark Supermoon just now, so a powerful time of dreaming and insights. For all of us, owning our divine feminine and allowing the divine masculine to rise is an enormous challenge, so little basis for trust when we have all felt so utterly betrayed, thank you for being a truly inspiring and courageous leader in that vital struggle.
These were my first thoughts about your work:
“Kate is at the nexus of what it is to be human. Expressing the most powerful elements of our physical, emotional, spiritual, mental and metaphysical realities, an artist, shaman and alchemist.”
Thank you Estelle. Meeting you and Gavin was such a joy!
I’m recently returned from a long weekend in Edinburgh where I had a stand at The Artists Book Market at The Fruitmarket Gallery. I also gave a presentation on my work around adapting found books, with a focus on Trauma and what we find Unspeakable.
I spoke about my dream in Venice which led to a big change for me, and which I have drawn many times…
and I also spoke about my publications with Guillemot Press: Iona notebooks and Shetland Notebooks, and how important the residencies in those wild places were for me…
(we are now hatching plans for a new book…)
I had some very interesting encounters at the market, and some sales. The encounters were the most important, and the new people I met and the old friends I re-connected with…
My journey home was eventful with train chaos, but I was at least able to draw into my books on the journey… and then after two days at home catching my breath and packing, I was away again to North Devon, to Braunton and Studio KIND for my solo show in this lovely Arts Council funded artist’s project space.
here are a few of the works in the show, and details of opening times and of my creative, shamanic workshop on the Inner Child to be held on March 18th from 2 – 5 pm…
and here are some more images from the show… photo by Studio KIND photo by Studio KIND photo by Studio KIND photo by Studio KIND photo by Studio KIND of the collaborative pages made by me and Joseph Suart
Sweetheart. Darling. Tits.
Installation of drawings in watercolour sticks, oil pastels and oak gall ink on River Tomoe paper.
The exhibition continues until March 17th.
Archive boxes of watercolours are available to purchase at very affordable prices.
