online exhibitions

my serenity

Welcome to Turquoise Dreams: My Serenity Opening Night! Friday, 16th October at 7:30PM

Turquoise Dreams: My Serenity 

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What evokes a sense of serenity in you when you create art?

What do you want to leave for the viewer to meditate on?

“Open
we expand
our wings
ready for flight
we soar
over lands and seas
we are filled with oceans
we carry the world in our eyes. ”

Emma Reavey

“And often people, passer bys don’t know
what to do with this wisdom
this abundance of seeing
feeling thinking seeking
the all-seeing”

Sarah Gray

“so perhaps we mask
or make up
hide
behind veils
stories
store ourselves in glass boxes
unsure what to reveal
unsure what to say, we lose passion sometimes
for our art-creating feels hard…”

Philippa Bandurek Bradbury – My Stimmy Feet with tan lines (Acrylic paint on 240gsm canvas textured sheet, approx 27x36cm.

Anna Dyson

“Yet, if we pay attention to the meaning
in the Neurodivergent’s art
and heart
you’ll truly look into the abyss
the void
and hear it speaking back
through song
light
colour”

“through colour
splashes
and stims
and movement
flight
sight
the moon
the light
the sky at night.”

Wendy Young

Philippa Bandurek Bradbury – Sheldon in Red (Fineliner pen on approx 15x15cm white paper)

Frances Ann Norton – Sleeping Girl Angels over Asgaardstrand

“Awakening up to our childhood
dreams
no longer fastened to a life
that scars us
but one that brightens all the corners of our
rooms ”

Elinor Rowlands – Opening from the core

“We feel the magic
We bask in it
Golden rays of sunshine
starlight
warming to our song again
we create, we paint, we make

It flows free from us like shooting stars,
rain, waterfalls, gushing,

pouring out of ourselves”

Anna Dyson – My Opening

“And once cracked
you’ll see
the abundance within
here, within us.”

Wendy Young – My Opening

Nicola Willis

Invited In Solidarity Poets

“When we are open
this can be dangerous
because
Neurodivergent artists so often
don’t have a filter.”

“Open
we expand
our wings
ready for flight
we soar
over lands and seas
we are filled with oceans
we carry the world in our eyes. ”

Emma Reavey

“And often people, passer bys don’t know
what to do with this wisdom
this abundance of seeing
feeling thinking seeking
the all-seeing”

Sarah Gray

“so perhaps we mask
or make up
hide
behind veils
stories
store ourselves in glass boxes
unsure what to reveal
unsure what to say, we lose passion sometimes
for our art-creating feels hard…”

Philippa Bandurek Bradbury – My Stimmy Feet with tan lines (Acrylic paint on 240gsm canvas textured sheet, approx 27x36cm.

Anna Dyson

“Yet, if we pay attention to the meaning
in the Neurodivergent’s art
and heart
you’ll truly look into the abyss
the void
and hear it speaking back
through song
light
colour”

“through colour
splashes
and stims
and movement
flight
sight
the moon
the light
the sky at night.”

Wendy Young

Philippa Bandurek Bradbury – Sheldon in Red (Fineliner pen on approx 15x15cm white paper)

Frances Ann Norton – Sleeping Girl Angels over Asgaardstrand

“Awakening up to our childhood
dreams
no longer fastened to a life
that scars us
but one that brightens all the corners of our
rooms ”

Elinor Rowlands – Opening from the core

“We feel the magic
We bask in it
Golden rays of sunshine
starlight
warming to our song again
we create, we paint, we make

It flows free from us like shooting stars,
rain, waterfalls, gushing,

pouring out of ourselves”

Anna Dyson – My Opening

“And once cracked
you’ll see
the abundance within
here, within us.”

Wendy Young – My Opening

Nicola Willis

Invited In Solidarity Poets

Sometimes a release is changing a habit

Or breaking one.

Yet, it can be more abstract than that

Like, that time you thought

Your Art post grad course was

awfully odd

because there was no sketchbook requirement.

You never saw your peers keeping one

and you were too shy to ask your tutors;

in case it was a stupid question.

You reasoned that, the tutors would have told you

and reminded you

if it was essential.

So perhaps,

they only need to see the art you make in the studio?

So,

you spend all your time in the studio

Making art.

Am I lost or found? by Blair Iris

ou spend your days to nights

in the studio making art

as if you’re living in a sketchbook.

Then it’s June and with 2 weeks approaching soon

the end of your course

Your tutor mentions you have to hand in your sketchbook tomorrow.

Uh Oh.

You feel more relieved that the course

had a sketchbook requirement after all…..

Phew that’s good…. (for the course) (not so much for you).

Because this now means an affected mark.

The tutors care less

about what was made in the art studio

and care more about those who keep

sketchbooks.

Little Wonders by Blair Iris

You realise something intrinsically wonderful

about the artist studio….

(even though, let’s face it, it terrified you to go.)

This space of making with others around you

attending to their own art practice as you attend to yours

added and adds richness to your own art-making process and practice.

Their presence affects the way you make and

you feel strong.

But something keeps getting in the way…. your Neurodivergent behaviours and traits.

Toilet Girl / Released by Jasmine Crellin (Made in the Making Space for Art Workshop)

Research and sketchbooks are

independent and solo adventures

They are the showing of what’s inside,

what’s on your mind;

but what if books are too limited and too limiting

in their papered prisms? (prisons)

What if the space in a sketchbook is too limiting

for those of us

who need space to stretch and share,

spill and dare

To look back in the face of what was made

instead of turning a page?

Art is powerful like that – it can ignite minds, reduce sore eyes,

Lick wounds,

Help us face what we need to

Straight in the face

And it’s easier to do that

When sharing relaxed space with other Magical Women

It is containing to talk about our art

Whilst it might still be drying, as the paper or texture holds onto

Our rendered emotions and subconscious thoughts

that surface through layered material

and mixed media.

Now in communion alongside other Magical Women

We may, simply by looking at each other’s art

Witness our own release.

How Do We Commune with the Wind? by Gemma Abbott

How do we commune with the wind? by Gemma Abbott

Where did this theme come from? Where do all the themes from all the exhibitions come from?

They come from the artist studio

The communion of Magical Women making art together

The themes surface in the sharing.

We welcome you as we graciously shared and share our art with each other,

in every Magical Women workshop.

We welcome you to this exhibition as we share our art with you.

PART 2

Rose by Liz Coolen (Made in the Making Space for Art Workshop)

We believe it’s gone when we have flushed it down the loo.

Or

thrown it in the bin

Or

washed it away down the drain.

Or

screamed it from the top of our voice and bellowed it into the trees.

Still Life by Judith Rowlands (Made in the Making Space for Art Workshops)

Fistral Bay, Newquay by Aimee Grant (Made in the Making Space for Art Workshop)

“I really enjoyed the session I did with you.
Like really really enjoyed it. ”

— WORKSHOP PARTICIPANT

Made in the Making Space for Art Workshop by Elinor Rowlands

My Favourite Place by Jacki Cairns

PART 3

There is a silhouette of a woman, nude with her legs walking and her arms up in the air and what appears is her head tilted up to the sky, and on the other side are plants growing, flora and Fauna .

Drawing by Wendy Young (A Magical Women ND Writers Workshop Participant)

You are gathering to make art

to share your art with others.

Here, at Magical Women we are artists who want to make art.

We gather in a relaxed space to make art together –

You make your own art whilst I make mine.

Releasing knots by Elinor Rowlands (Started in the Magical Journeys Workshop and finished in the Making Space for Art Workshop)

The power and transformations

are because of participants and contributors and artists

and audiences (thank you for attending our online exhibition.)

This is only a small selection of our artists

who come together to create art.

And in so doing so they may collectively release and expel

what might be

Raw and hard to ignore,

Translated in colour and symbols galore-

And now as we share and meet each other with care

We hear what others

See in our art

Their words are transformed into tools for us to use

towards our own practice long after the workshop has finished.

We see the symbols surface – Zoom has actually been quite refreshing

For what we want to do

The surfacing symbols and relics, figures and emblems,

Remind us most about what makes us feel

alive.

Being walked by the Black Dog by Aimee Grant (Made in Making Space for Art workshop)

Schizo Dissident 1995

Ward round – doctor’s round the bend

I extract myself from the u-bend where I’ve been hiding

‘When you do eventually speak you’re kind of florid

but not agitated or manic

low mood but a little bit euphoric

even euthymic

in a weirdly quiet and passive way

a modulated tone while still remote

Night nurses say you’re not sleeping

but day nurses can’t wake you up

We can’t work out your sexuality

And you’re writing…

We’ve no idea

Another week in the psychiatric slammer!’

My only salvation is in pen and paper

and Robert Dellar

the commie advocate who works for MIND

a good friend of mine 

and ever loonies’ supporter

‘Got you on a renewed Section 2 Deb,

highly dodgy, no grounds for a Section 3

the doctor’s looking guilty

says your Patient’s Council is a sign of mental illness Deb

that I recruited you for

Says here “GP referral” – change him – 

Basically a total stitch-up’

I am a bit high it’s true

but I’m used to managing that

you’d never notice cos I’m still and quiet

and I can sleep

self-caring fine as usual

and turning up to work

getting no complaints

but my reality does not ever equate with psychiatry

however therefore ergo I am sectionable at any time

for supporting the hammer and the sickle

for thinking aloud in poetry

Robert Dellar the champion of all us heroes

immediately writes a legal letter

Gets our solicitor friend Rod Campbell-Taylor on the case

Clever cocktail sticks and dexterous screwdrivers

to unpick these skillful fetters

There’s cold sweat on my face

The next ward round I get released!

After 3 weeks

Back to my day job at Survivors’ Poetry 

breathing slightly more freely

Congrats in the cafe at lunch

Do I disturb you Mr Psychiatrist?

Sorry but that’s just Me!

Maybe you could try and draw a picture of whatever it is you see?

Present it to the faculty?

Cos it’s a mystery to everyone else

and you certainly ain’t here to make friends

Maybe you’re on commission?

I’m glad I’m paying for your next vacation

I’ll send you a postcard!

Byee!

By Debbie McNamara

Invited In Solidarity Poets

A Community Exhibition brought to you by Magical Women artists & Magical Women community artists from our Facebook Group.

Access Needs:

This Audio Description is Part 1 of the Exhibition and runs from the beginning of the exhibition to Wisdom Interpreted.

For Part 2 move down to Wisdom Interpreted – painting (19) “Listening Within”

Press the pink play button (button is far left of the Soundcloud frame.)

gallery

(19) “Listening Within” (Mixed media on paper) by Michelle Rodrigues, 2020

poetry

(16) Wisdom Giveth Life, video and performance by Rebecca Buckle

Audio Description that brings the paintings alive to meet your access needs of experiencing the artwork. (If we get some more funding we hope to be able to pay an ENT to transcribe these audio descriptions to provide text scripts/transcripts.)

(28) Photograph and words by Kate Taylor-Marshall

_______

The most beautiful girl in the world.
I love capturing these images before my daughter wakes up.
When she woke I asked her what she had been dreaming about?

My Little Ponies.
Lovely.”

— THE ARTIST ABOUT HER SLEEPING DAUGHTER

(30) The Watchers (2020) by Colin Hambrook (Oil painting)

Brought to you by Magical Women Neurodivergent Women Artists