January Challenge Day One: have you heard the news?

Today's challenge: Draw or write the front page of a newspaper that you would like to see in 2017. What headline would you like to create? It might be something very personal to you, or something bigger for the world. Dream big - who knows what might happen?!

Credit to Rebecca Solnit for inspiring me on this one - I've just finished reading her book Hope in the Dark, which I strongly recommend, and this is an image that she describes at the end of the last chapter.

"...I began to contemplate how human beings half a century or a century from now will view us, who lived in the era when climate change was recognised and there was so much that could be done about it, so much more than we have done. They may hate us, despise us, see us as the people who squandered their patrimony, like drunkards gambling away the family fortune that, in this case, is everyone's everywhere and everything, the natural world itself when it was in good working order. They will regard us as people who rearranged the china when the house was on fire". Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities.

New Year New Desires

Is it strange to be talking about the new year in May? I've been meaning to share some of these wonderful photographs for months. These are from a session I did with photographer Grace Gelder in January, on the theme of "New Year, New Desires". I brought along a golden outfit I've been a bit obsessed with and we had a playful couple of hours in the amazing complex that Grace was living in at the time, which culminated in a golden sunset. The last photo in this set has been making the rounds - onto Huffington Post alongside an article of Grace's and also the Tate Britain's site for a workshop Grace is leading (check it out if you're London based). I think that photo is one of my favourites - I like the fierce regality she's captured.

I've also written a short piece this week for Claire Hill, on the theme of "Before I was ready" - it's over at her blog. 

64 Million Artists Day 18 - I dream (of an utopia)

"Celebrate Martin Luther King Day by writing your own "I have a dream" speech. What's in your vision for a better world? What would be your rallying cry?"

I dream of the day when a person's sexual identity is considered as unremarkable as any other facet of their make-up.

I dream of the day when the right to love and have sex with whom we want as an adult is considered sacrosanct. 

I dream of a world where war is a distant memory, and the idea of solving disagreements through violence is universally repellant.

I dream of a time when we are unified in our desire to protect the planet we live on, above concerns about profits and easy energy solutions.

I dream of a society where poverty does not exist because we share resources and opportunities willingly.

64 Million Artists Day 5 - Chris

"Write a story about a time you lost something, or someone. It can be a funny story, or sad. However you'd like it to be. Remember the details.. and feel free to make up a new ending."

I was 18 and he was beautiful. Actually beautiful. An Adonis in the back of a canoe. His name was Chris. We both worked at a wilderness canoeing camp over the summer holidays, leading canoe trips in northern Ontario. I had started out as a camper, and had worked my way up over the following summers until I was assistant trip leader. This was my last summer canoeing; my family was leaving the country, I was going away to university and I was not coming back to that city. 

The camp was run by the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa. It didn't have a physical site, just some offices in which we stored supplies over the summer, with our ancient aluminium canoes stacked outside. We'd meet the campers on the first day in the street, and then have journey in a mini-van, towing the canoe trailer, for several hours north to Algonquin Park. The camp didn't have very much money, and we weren't paid well, but it was - and still may be - the best job I ever had. The kids who came to camp were also not very well off. Sometimes the Children's Aid Society sent us kids, who were blown away by the sheer number of trees they saw on their week away from the city. And once, a young boy, who had as his water bottle an empty mickey, clearly once filled with booze.

It seems remarkable to me now that we - in our teens or barely clear of them - were given responsibility for those kids. We were supposed to provide spiritual leadership too, which seems incredible. Mostly we'd read a poem, or a thought for the day, out of a water-stained photocopied sheaf - and then let nature do the rest. Chris was pretty good at this - he actually seemed to have a belief system of some sort. I'm not religious now, and back then I didn't know what I thought about anything - I was awkward, sheltered and shy. But he was nice to me - he treated me like I was none of those things - and I had a huge grateful crush on him.

He was the trip leader on my last canoe trip of the summer. Even now, looking back, I can still feel the magic of it. I loved being around him. The weather was perfect. The kids were great. One night, we managed to reach a coveted camp site - a small sandy peninsula - before anyone else, and so we decided to have our rest day there the next day. I got up early before anyone else and swam in the lake while the morning mist was still rising off it, before sitting on the beach in the sun with my journal. That night, we had a bonfire. The night was clear and as we scanned the skies for the Perseids, the meteor shower visible every August, we realised we were seeing something else - the Northern Lights. We were all carried away by the sight - actually euphoric - running and laughing away from the bonfire to the darkness of the beach, and lying on our backs on the cold sand to watch the shifting patterns in the night sky until we were chilled and shaking.

I felt like I had a connection with Chris because of the magic of that trip. It gave me the courage to suggest we meet up after the summer. I was going to be in Toronto, and he was at university a few hours away in a town called London, where my sister happened to live. Chris said it was a great idea. I went to see my sister for my birthday weekend, a month or so after moving to Toronto. I arranged to meet him for coffee. It's funny how well I can remember the meeting. Chris arrived by bicycle. He offered to buy my coffee. It felt really easy to talk to him. And then he told me he was dropping out of university. He wanted a change of direction. He'd decided to become a Roman Catholic priest.

There wasn't much I could say to that. We finished our coffee. I went back to my sister's, and then I cried and cried. I'd lost any hope of realising my crush, I suppose, in a fairly inarguable way. But I think also I cried because everything in my life was in motion and there was so little to fix on. Sand underneath, the shifting night sky above. Beautiful and terrifying, all at once.

One in #64millionartists

A couple of days ago I signed up to the 64 Million Artists January Challenge - it's a scheme aimed at getting people more creative on a daily basis. I thought it would be a good way for me to combat January's darkness, so I'm getting a daily exercise emailed to me.

I didn't exactly spring off the starting line, I have to say. In fact, I squinted at the first emailed exercise on my phone in bed this morning, then grunted and rolled over and back into my hungover snoozing for a few more hours. But now I'm up and I've had coffee and tidied away the ruins of last night's dinner party...

So, the January Challenge Day 1 exercise was: 

"To celebrate the start of 2016 we'd like you to draw or make a picture of how you'd like your year to look. What are the highlights? Where will you go? What are you looking forward to? Use whatever materials you like."

Here's my picture:

This is part of a pair of socks hand-knitted by my mum, that I instinctively put on this morning (as I said, hungover). I don't know the specifics of what my year will hold. No one ever does, I guess. But I want this year to be colourful; I want it to be textured, with variety and surprises; I want it to be filled with warmth - actual temperature warmth would be nice (I always hope to travel), but also the warmth of love and friendships and family and the satisfaction from good creative work.

Such stuff...

I'm in rehearsals for a show right now, so my days are filled mostly with, well, rehearsals (or food preparation, it seems).

Here's a list of images found in my dreams last night (two separate dreams, I believe):

pencils
at least four people I know personally: Joel, Jer, the Little One, Dempsey.
Willem Dafoe
William Burroughs
a cocaine factory
my mobile phone
a police raid
picnic benches
an orchard
my old flat in London

I don't pretend that any of it makes sense to me.