In January 2023 I started a conversations project during an art residency, where I realised I find it easier to initiate and have conversations if I paint at the same time. Each person is someone I am interested to have a conversation with. Whilst there might be particular things I would like to talk about with them, I don’t have questions planned in advance and what happens is organic. Whilst we speak, I paint. What I share here is the painted/drawn outcome of the conversation. Afterwards, I write up my reflections about my experience of the conversation. Then, they go into my gallery of conversations, which you have found yourself in here…
This conversation took place as part of TRACES 25, a one-day event where 40ish artists installed work in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park (East London), organised by nomer collective. I didn’t know about this place until earlier in the year when I applied to take part, and since then I’ve visited a few times and also led a queer walk here for the LGBTQ+ centre.
I’d been looking forward to it for months, I liked the idea of being outside, making stuff. I also had the idea of continuing my gallery of conversations with people whilst I was there. However, after the Samphire Hoe Solstice Celebration, I had realised I didn’t like having multiple painting conversations in one day. It made each one less special. And I felt stressed, writing up notes. It also felt like I needed to produce a critical mass of paintings which isn’t really how I want to make art.
So, a couple of weeks before, I asked to change the description of what I was doing, to conversations with creatures, growing things and graves. This was something I’d thought about doing in Samphire Hoe but hadn’t really got round to.
On the day, I set my stuff up. I’d seen the rain forecast and had a tarp to make a little shelter for the day. I’m part way through my forest school leader training and setting up shelters and practicing knots is a big part of it so I was keen and a bit apprehensive to do it for the first time on my own, in a situation where I really needed the shelter.
We’d been in the third heatwave of the summer and I was really really looking forward to the rain coming down. There was an amber warning for thunderstorms.
I set up in a clearing in the woodland, I could see graves nearby with headless angels. I was leaning against tree stumps and rotting wood. There was a big mound of stony sandy soil which turned out to be very unhelpful for erecting a shelter.
Whilst I was tying ropes to make the shelter work, a huge cracking sound came from the woods right by me. At first I thought I’d caused it (guilty conscience?! Egotistical human!?) An enormous branch slowly fell from a tree. I’d read recently that after such a long dry spell, snapping branches were more likely. I thought about an event taking place in the woods during a thunderstorm and felt glad I was in a clearing. I daydreamed about warning people about snapping branches but felt too self-conscious to actually tell people, imagining what people would say in response.
In the Uber to the park, we’d nearly hit another car as it pulled out in front of us. I wondered if I’d have another near-death experience that day.
I’d been to my late aunt’s exhibition the night before, and so with the near-misses, the graves, the rotting wood, death was on my mind. I decided the first conversation I’d have with a non-human would be with death.
After we did a strange parade around the cemetery, I got back to my shelter (which I longed for during the whole walk) and made it into a comfier nest with the ground sheet, and got all my art materials out. I’d brought oil pastels, homemade ink, acrylic paint and carving tools.
I’ve been thinking a lot over the past year or so about acrylic paint. Since getting into painting things outdoors and leaving them there (tree stumps, rocks, sticks) I’ve felt more conscious of the tension between wanting the things to last in the weather and wanting them to be able to break down without harming things. I learnt that acrylic paint has lots of bits of plastic in so doesn’t feel that great to me, to use, when there are so many other possibilities out there. This is actually why I made the oak-gall ink.
In this setting, even though I wouldn’t be leaving the art behind, I felt even more aware of this. There was a wrong-ness in using acrylic paint. So at first I just used things I could find around me. Soil, dead leaves and sticks. Then I got the oil pastels out.
When I had only just got started, people kept coming and asking what I was doing, I felt like I didn’t really want them to, particularly as I’d only just got started. I realised I wanted comfort and peace and quiet. Trying to find a way for my body to be comfortable, feels important. More now than ever, this is a priority. I’ve realised that something that feels important is starting with making sure my body is comfortable and regulated and making stuff from there, rather than focusing on the output/the doing.
Some friends arrived, that I’d met at the recent Forest Gayte Pride, Willow and Sarah. How nice it is to see friendly faces when doing things like this. With markets, exhibitions and other events, it’s such an unknown thing of how it’ll go and how it’ll feel, so people coming to support means so much. It always makes the day so much better.
Willow asked if they could draw too, so they shared a piece of paper and we talked whilst we drew. We talked about hopeful and hopelessness. Millions of years. Going into another carbon period. Plants learning how to make wood. Survival of the friendliest as a newer understanding. The amazingness of fungi. Algae. Creatures. Rain. Death was part of the conversation, but so was so so so much life. Willow said she’d be up for a painting conversation in the future, which I like the idea of.
The idea of painting conversations with places… Is this something I’d like to do going forward? I like the idea of it being about all different parts of the place I’m in, some conversation, some sounds, the insects, the birds all creating one conversation.
To find out more about nomer collective, who organised this event, you can go to their instagram. You can find out more about Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, here.