We had our first meeting outside Bath yesterday, in The Hive, a community centre in Peasdown St John. It was also, I think, our first day of concentrating more on art than writing. A joyful day of making art, individually and collaboratively, in response to Lubaina Himid's current London exhibition and some of the searching questions she asks her audience.
What does love sound like?
What are monuments for?
How do you distinguish safety from danger?
We refrained from mentioning the news, but of course it was on our minds and emerged in our work.
With gentle direction and encouragement from Mo Kiziewicz, we drew on childhood memories while listening to music. Here are some of my doodles. On the left, John Cage, drawn with dominant hand. On the right, Bach, with non-dominant hand.

We discussed the questions, and then made collages to illustrate our responses. Here is mine: letters cut from a colourful clothing catalogue. Other people's were far richer, incorporating images and words cut from newspapers. There was perfect silence while we worked, the silence of complete absorbtion. Just like the silence during a life-drawing session.

In the afternoon we moved into the art room, where Mo had spread out two lengths of paper on the big central table. Cautiously we began to make marks, using acrylic paint, rubber stamps, Indian printing blocks, carved polystyrene blocks, pens, fabric and paper collage. Soon we abandoned caution and, in Eileen's words, "released our inner Pollock".

At the end of the afternoon there was plenty of time to wind down and express our appreciation of making art collaboratively and without taking too much thought. It was a liberating day. We should do this more often!
My next post will be about forthcoming BW&A meetings, which will be open to non-subscribers.

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