carole cluer

Art, hope and self acceptance

Tag: wellcome trust

July 11, 2016

exhibitions

I am currently involved in two very different exhibitions.

The first is a wonderful book art exhibition organised by the University of Kent and supported by the Wellcome Trust at The Beaney Gallery, part of Canterbury Museums. Its run has been extended until the end of September and if you are in the area and would like to visit here are the details

http://canterburymuseums.co.uk/events/prescriptions/

It is particularly special for me as it features 15 pieces from the artist Martha Hall on loan from the University of New England. Hall’s books document her experiences with breast cancer and interactions with the medical community from 1998 until her death in 2003. I discovered her work during my first year at Sheffield Hallam University and I think I must have quoted her in every one of my essays and my dissertation. Even across an ocean and never having seen her work she spoke to me, to now have a work of mine in the same room as hers is something I would never have imagined. I loved her work so much I searched out and bought a copy of her catalogue ‘Holding in, Holding on’, the quote below is from the introduction

The process of making books has been a powerful part of my healing…
They are a way to share my emotions with my family…
They are a way to educate others about cancer…
They are a way I can have a voice in the world.
They are about making choices.
They are about living.

My book in the exhibition is from my BA degree show, it was a follow on piece from my live art, it is a simple white book containing a gold point grid, at each intersection is a tiny blue dot reminiscent of the tattoos used to mark out the radiotherapy grid on my body. The book contains 45704 dots, one for each person diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, the year I was diagnosed. The gold point grid is made from dragging a fine 9ct gold wire across a medium to deposit a line of gold on the paper, it is a pale grey that will darken over time, at the moment it looks a little like ordinary graphite pencil, like life its preciousness is easily overlooked.

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Some reactions to the exhibition

http://www.artnowpakistan.com/prescriptions/

http://collective-investigations.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/intimate-and-cathartic-is-constellation.html

And the last word on this exhibition goes to Martha

I am carrying out half of the conversation – from time to time somebody would carry on another piece of the conversation.

The second exhibition I’m involved in is at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens gallery Southampton until the end of July and is a regional show for the UK Coloured Pencil Society. I am just a beginner with coloured pencils so I’m always surprised when I am accepted, using them is like a little holiday, I use a very rough paper which encourages a much looser style to my graphite work and its very much just about enjoying the moment.

 

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February 20, 2012

The solace of objects

“It seems that the soul… loses itself in itself when shaken and disturbed unless given something to grasp on to; and so we must always provide it with an object to butt up against and to act upon.” Michel de Montaigne, ‘Essais’, 1580

I recently visited The Wellcome Collection in London to see the exhibition ‘Charmed Life: The solace of objects’, it was the result of the artist Felicity Powell’s engagement with a collection of 1400 amulets, gathered by Edwardian Edward Lovett.

Felicity Powell – Charmed Life: The solace of objects – Wellcome Collection.

The cabinets were full of strange found and created objects believed by their owners to protect them or those they loved, some were beautifully carved as if the endeavour and skill heightened their power.

This connects closely with my own work  (see Art as Talisman page) and my interest in how we use objects or routines to comfort and reassure us and how we can use art, our own art, to help us cope with life.

I think this is particularly true in times of difficulty when we are unable to control our world, our vulnerability and fragility can become overwhelming, and if we aren’t able to gain reassurance through science or logic then we turn to more ephemeral sources of comfort.

In the past when medicine couldn’t see your child safely to their fifth birthday  parents would give them red coral to signify long life or blue beads to protect from bronchitis.

Even today most of us will own an object whose importance is far greater than its intrinsic value. A lucky mug or our grandmother’s left over knitting, or perhaps it’s the blackbird you see each morning that makes you feel well with the world. When we encounter problems and feel cut loose in a sea of uncertainty those objects can become even more important.

For me, the weeds that I saw quietly and yet determinedly growing amongst rubble or through frozen earth gave me my own determination. Now I am attuned to them and I watch for their appearance in my life. I am not giving them supernatural powers but just allowing them to reassure, they have become a small part of my own private scaffolding that supports me.

Even Edward Lovett who collected these objects through a purely anthropological interest and was dismissive of their powers when faced with his youngest son going to the front in The Great War tied a talisman around his neck to protect him.

When despair threatens we are programmed to protect ourselves with hope.

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