Weeknotes: Delighting in dance, photography, maps and song explorations

map of an imagined island in purple with grey-blue lakes and a trail marked in orange dashes that curls back on itself in a few places

Mapping connections amongst my explorations.

Exploring different arts & media to create & collate inspiration from so many sources.

Music takes greater prominence with songwriting & a new music section.

Writing & creating art explorations

I’ve been exploring lots of different media this week:

✨ Emotion Through Motion – wellness with drawing, music, dancing, yin yoga

✨ 7-week art & movement practice called life sensing – Metamorphosis

✨ The Great Festival Flash Off literary festival – writing, and learning about, flash (very short stories)

✨ 5 Rhythms – dance/movement practice

✨ Mapping Our World with the London Drawing Group – photography & drawing of local outdoors

✨ Writing: Rip up the Page with Penny Pepper and The Literary Consultancy

✨ free taster courses with the WEA, specifically:

  • Poetry
    • Twentieth Century British and Irish Poetry
  • Music
    • Music Appreciation: Avant-garde Music
    • Music Appreciation: Music, History and Culture
    • Music Appreciation and Interpretation: J. S Bach – ‘Preludes and Fugues’
  • Visual arts
    • Painting Fairies – watercolours
    • Art History: The Renaissance to Now
  • Story
    • Myth in the Ancient World

For me these feel very connected to my writing practice.

Writing

I applied for a writing development programme this week. It was a pretty involved application; I’m glad I got it done! And doing it did help me get clearer about my intentions, craft and practice. Yay!

What next?

  • I’m desperately seeking more cello in my life, eg music appreciation classes or concerts online
  • Continue with art and movement practices, especially with The Dinner Party, life sensing, London Drawing Group & 5 Rhythms

Stuff I’m considering for Q4

  • Start cello lessons (eventually I want to learn Bach’s cello pieces)
  • Take singing lessons

Song

I wrote a song! I noodled around with it a few times, singing it to myself and listening back. It was fun, and it helped me process some feels. Here’s what I got.

Always looking for someone to blame
Always looking for someone to blame
I don't wanna play your game

Always looking for someone to blame
Always looking for someone to blame
I don't wanna play your game

I don't wanna play your game
x4

This shame is not my shame.
x4

I'm not gonna keep this shame.
x4

Let it go!
x8

Always looking for someone to blame,
Always looking for someone to blame,
I don't wanna play your game.

I don't wanna play your game.
x3

I'm not gonna play your game!
x3

Mapping Our World with the London Drawing Group

Photos I selected for quick line drawings

Line drawings based on my photos, each done in 90 seconds

My 8 line drawings together & the painting that compilation inspired

Musings

I find it fascinating that the same themes show up across so many different media. Sense of place. Margins and edges. Nature. Wellbeing, compassion & care.

Trees, woodland & activism

I went for a couple of local walks, but barely did any tree nerding this week. I’d like to do more of that, but not sure I want to reduce the amount of dancing and drawing to fit it in, so I’m not sure. Glad I got some walks in that were a bit further from my weekly haunts.

Sydenham Hill Wood

I went to Sydenham Hill Wood

Horniman Gardens

Went to the Horniman Gardens for a bit too. Did some work remotely there, which felt pretty awesome, and joined the Environment Champions Club, a free virtual club to learn & implement climate solutions.

Media

Poetry

https://twitter.com/RebTamas/status/1429014408613740547
DAFFODILS (Speculation on Future Blackness) in Thinking With Trees by Jason Allen-Paisant
MOTHERS I ONCE WAS from Pilgrim Bell by Kaveh Akbar

summer writes

goodbye letters in gold

Dog Days Done by Salena Godden

Reading week day hour

I organised a reading hour with poets from a recent writing course. It was fun and I started reading books from the Poetry Library.

  • Kingdomland – Rachael Allen (some)
  • Penguin Modern Poets 3: Your Family, Your Body: Malika Booker, Sharon Olds, Warsan Shire (the Malika Booker section)

I loved so many of Malika Booker’s poems, some of the ones that particularly stood out to me:

  • Pepper Sauce
  • Warning — ‘And if you do, don’t sleep.’, such a beautiful, powerful line
  • Cement
  • Erasure
  • Sweet Liquor
  • After Liming in the Local Rum Shop on Diamond Street
  • The House on Jubilee Street
  • Our Last Supper
  • How Our Bodies Did This Unfamiliar Thing
  • Lot’s Wife Speaks
  • My Humble Beseech

…Although that’s a list of most of what I read! She’s such a storyteller. I was moved to tears multiple times. I feel like I learned a lot about putting together a sequence of poetry from reading these.

Music

Some of the video calls and webinars I was in this week played some beautiful music:

Mellow.
Embracing reality, acceptance
Upbeat!

Star Trek

Started rewatching:

  • Deep Space Nine recently, so I’m continuing with that, and
  • The Next Generation at the weekend with a good friend.

Comedy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agAf8ay4Ppg&ab_channel=DeadParrot

Massively nerding out

I love corvids. Such a nerd that this one made me cry… 😭