Embroidering the truth

“I would spread the cloths under your feet:But I, being poor, have only my dreams;I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” W B Yeats Take a look at the first picture. What do you see in it?  If you look closer, what detail is there? This is …

Daily Struggle

‘Hearken to my weary voice, O God. I am your friend & co-conspirator in the struggle for a new world.’ (Activist’s Prayer) Take a look at the first picture. This is called Vision of the Sermon (Jacob wrestling with the Angel) by Van Gogh. This picture is based on the biblical story of Jacob, who ran …

The Long Haul

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” (Buddhist proverb) Take a look at the first image, I wonder what you can see. It’s not a very clear image, partly because the art piece is difficult to photograph, but partly because the meaning of the piece,  Ask No Questions, is intentionally obscured. In it I used drawings …

The Weight of Liberty

“To venture on wider seas” (Sir Francis Drake) Take a look at the first image. What do you see? This picture is called The Mystical Boat by Odilon Redon. Where are you in that boat? Are you sailing the seas? Heading into a storm? Enjoying the sea breeze? Can you operate the rudder or does …

The Shadow of Love

“True seeing leads to loving” Augustine What do you see in the first picture? A muddle of metal? Look at the shadow created – this is by an artist I saw at the Venice Biennial a few years ago. I loved the idea that when viewed one way and without light the sculpture made no …

Get me out of here: joy in the everyday

“Wait here and stay awake with me” Matthew 6 I wonder what you see in the first picture; graffiti on a wall, a cryptic message perhaps. This piece is part of Portal – a series of interventions I made around Bradford city centre, exploring the concept of escape and other worlds. We may feel like …

Wings of a dove: a visual meditation

I have been recently made aware of the limbic brain: the part of the brain that comes fully formed with us into the world. Within it reside our earliest memories: it is where our ‘gut instincts’ originate and also where we learn our knee jerk reactions. Reactions such as flight or fight. But also as I have recently learnt, freeze. This has been a revelation to me as I have realized that I am a freezer: in the face of decision-making or crisis, I become the proverbial rabbit in headlights.