Secret Places.
13 creatives in collaboration: Visual artists responding to the work of poets on the theme of Secret Places.
In this series, I choose to focus on capturing a feeling, a memory, a happening, a continuous moment. Different from my landscape series, where I feel I'm capturing a moment in time, here I’m exploring what we could be seeing in the mind's eye; daydreaming, investigating past feelings, places, and symbols.
So swiftly it arrives, to those with open eyes.
by Rae Turpin
Believe me that cartography
surfaces land and earth like it stretches minds:
Wide enough to captivate both stockbrokers and artisans, and
deep enough to tether tomorrow’s sunrise.
And trust in this, the right to roam.
Trespass. Brush against the grain. Board the wrong flight home.
Embrace all the terra incognita you can muster
as her call weighs heavy in your pelvis.
And believe me that even the uninvited paths
fold outwards. Within the thickest of thickets, too hostile to broach,
ladened with tender fruits - glimmering trinkets for your troubles -
ready to melt upon weary and parched tongues.
And finally, picture this: When a woman -
with shoulders so etched and raw - seemingly stumbles into
a forest alive, with air in its lungs, she broaches a homeland anew.
A homeland as wild and free...
...as she.
'So swiftly it arrives...' acrylic on canvas 40x50cm
Etched.
by Emma Morrissey
To the sunlight, slicing across the scene below, highlighting and burning,
It remembers everything you know.
I am there for its unveiling,
its cloaked and covered days,
For when it is grey, cold and raining, its voice is heard in other ways.
Nestled, within the growth, the floor-bed settling around the tears from a tired sky.
Oh, so silent, the joy of the warm glow as people pass slowly by.
Into lush, mossy tapestries, a hole in the barked embrace,
A home for animals and lushness, every season, a slow or hurried pace.
I don’t forget this place now, it’s etched forever on my skin,
Within the neurons of my brain, every time I walk, the roots are set, deep within.
'Etched' acrylic on canvas 40x50cm
Secret Places.
by Laurel May
There’s a place where time
ceases to exist if you need it to
where barefoot you walk into a
verdant retreat - lush and
overgrown, your skin is tickled
by queen anne’s lace, your breath
taken away by untamed lavender.
Here, the sun shines in hushed
golden streams - almost too shy
to disturb the serenity, with
only the subdued song of
a goldfinch or two as company.
You’ll find me, life in single digits,
I’m spinning in circles,
mirthful laughter, I’m dreaming
it is possible to stretch my knobbly knees
until I reach into the troposphere to
ask the sky to, please let me,
perch on her candy floss clouds.
In this haven, I am royalty,
not subject to anyone’s ruling,
I can pick a daffodil to turn into
a ring around my finger, or a
buttercup crown to adorn my curls,
and here, a sunflower makes
a worthy sceptre.
And when I sense calls threatening
to take me away, I build a nest inside
an oak tree, finding safety in its concave.
I steal blankets, threadbare tartan,
right from underneath the watchful presence
of my mother figure - and I shove them
into a space to fold myself into.
When I return, white socks stained green,
twigs in unruly hair, a furtive smile dancing
on my lips and they ask
“and where have you been?”,
I glance back where I came, into a horizon
they could never see, not with their
jaded eyes and limbs too worn to twirl with me
And I say, “I never left”.
'Secret places' acrylic on canvas 40x50cm
