Powerful weaving of past and present, personal and global. I was also grateful for Patti Smith’s post. I saw a smiling concentration camp inmate in a photograph from the Holocaust while visiting the Jewish quarter in Prague recently that has left me gut punched. He was sitting on the lip of a huge digging project, smiling gently in the sunshine. Probably grateful for sunshine. A moment of rest. A reminder we cannot, each of us, hold onto the whole of it, mentally, always.
Well said, Jacqui <3 It's been difficult to create steadily and honestly, it's felt this way since 2020. I can't focus as well. Thank you for writing this(!) Feel less alone. I wrote a response via my blog because I'd been struggling with "what's an appropriate response via how I create" as well.
Did you know there are war correspondents who are artists? Wendy Sharpe is an Australian one … it might not be a rabbit hole for you to go down just yet but perhaps it will spark someone here to say ”oh I read x about y’s experience”
I'm so sorry to hear you have been struggling, Jacqueline, but I'm glad you felt able to share it. I know how being ill can make things that much more difficult to manage but you and I know that creativity is a force for good and when the droughts come we just have to wait it out. Nothing and no one is helped by giving in to despair and so often it's the writers and artists who help us climb back out of that. By coincidence, my Fur Cup this week was about the costs of witnessing war. Sending love (if that's Ok).
What an amazing text. I think you nailed it, saying no response really makes sense, and every response is essentially valid. It's not reasonable to expect us to have responses that make sense to a situation that doesn't. I'm very sorry for the loss of your mom. I lost my mom to cancer last year - actually I keep saying last year but it's more than that, one and a half almost. Doesn't feel like it. It was definitely not an experience I succeeded in sublimating into artistic expression. The Gaza genocide, though, I actually found a way, oddly. I made the most detailed drawing of my life - spent over 80 hours drawing it - set up a whole website to be able to sell it as art prints, and now I'm trying to promote it online, though of course it's hard, I don't have much of an audience and there is serious donation fatigue setting in as there are clamors for financial support from literally all sides. Still, it's something. It really did work as a way to sublimate all my frustration and impotence into at least an action. Not that important whether the action brings something massive..... At least I did something.
I just scrolled down your feed to find your illustration—it’s gorgeous. And I love the grain of sand analogy, so true and inspires me to be that irritating grain of sand in the face of injustice. Thanks for taking the time to comment and I’m so sorry for the loss of your mom; it changes your world doesn’t it?
It really does. More than a year and I still keep reaching for the phone to text her something silly that happened in my day, just to remember she isn't answering texts anymore. I think we should all be annoying little grains of sand. The machinery of war does not deserve to run well-oiled.
amazing read. I’m so sorry for your mom. I left you a comment on the text. Looks to me like you’re finding a great way to respond to all the misery we’re seeing <3
Powerful weaving of past and present, personal and global. I was also grateful for Patti Smith’s post. I saw a smiling concentration camp inmate in a photograph from the Holocaust while visiting the Jewish quarter in Prague recently that has left me gut punched. He was sitting on the lip of a huge digging project, smiling gently in the sunshine. Probably grateful for sunshine. A moment of rest. A reminder we cannot, each of us, hold onto the whole of it, mentally, always.
Beautifully put together post. There are no shoulds are there. Just whatever gets you through. Sending love x
Well said, Jacqui <3 It's been difficult to create steadily and honestly, it's felt this way since 2020. I can't focus as well. Thank you for writing this(!) Feel less alone. I wrote a response via my blog because I'd been struggling with "what's an appropriate response via how I create" as well.
Did you know there are war correspondents who are artists? Wendy Sharpe is an Australian one … it might not be a rabbit hole for you to go down just yet but perhaps it will spark someone here to say ”oh I read x about y’s experience”
I didn’t know that, thanks Leanne. I’ll take a look at Wendy Sharpe x
I'm so sorry to hear you have been struggling, Jacqueline, but I'm glad you felt able to share it. I know how being ill can make things that much more difficult to manage but you and I know that creativity is a force for good and when the droughts come we just have to wait it out. Nothing and no one is helped by giving in to despair and so often it's the writers and artists who help us climb back out of that. By coincidence, my Fur Cup this week was about the costs of witnessing war. Sending love (if that's Ok).
What an amazing text. I think you nailed it, saying no response really makes sense, and every response is essentially valid. It's not reasonable to expect us to have responses that make sense to a situation that doesn't. I'm very sorry for the loss of your mom. I lost my mom to cancer last year - actually I keep saying last year but it's more than that, one and a half almost. Doesn't feel like it. It was definitely not an experience I succeeded in sublimating into artistic expression. The Gaza genocide, though, I actually found a way, oddly. I made the most detailed drawing of my life - spent over 80 hours drawing it - set up a whole website to be able to sell it as art prints, and now I'm trying to promote it online, though of course it's hard, I don't have much of an audience and there is serious donation fatigue setting in as there are clamors for financial support from literally all sides. Still, it's something. It really did work as a way to sublimate all my frustration and impotence into at least an action. Not that important whether the action brings something massive..... At least I did something.
I just scrolled down your feed to find your illustration—it’s gorgeous. And I love the grain of sand analogy, so true and inspires me to be that irritating grain of sand in the face of injustice. Thanks for taking the time to comment and I’m so sorry for the loss of your mom; it changes your world doesn’t it?
It really does. More than a year and I still keep reaching for the phone to text her something silly that happened in my day, just to remember she isn't answering texts anymore. I think we should all be annoying little grains of sand. The machinery of war does not deserve to run well-oiled.
amazing read. I’m so sorry for your mom. I left you a comment on the text. Looks to me like you’re finding a great way to respond to all the misery we’re seeing <3