Us All
You need us all
They agreed
The voices in my head
Altogether
Without me
You need us all
They agreed
Us not liking each other
Us saying stuff to you
You cannot say to other people
You need us all
They agreed
Us not agreeing with each other
Us arguing but speaking and being heard
Discussing things you cannot discuss with other people
You need us all
They agreed
We are your company
We are you
You are what we perform
In rehearsal
In your head
In conflict in your head
Invoking an outcome you may not expect
But useful
In that
We agree
Category Archives: Personal Practice
Chris Reed’s personal art as research practice.
This is informed by 40+ years work in caregiving, experiential and outdoor learning, the arts therapies, particularly dramatherapy and 10 years personal art as research practice with a focus on health and wellbeing.
Flutter Bye Bye
Flutter Bye Bye
Where do they go
When the wind doth blow?
Last week
In the sun
On our lavender
The butterflies were there
Now they are gone
The wind did blow
Yesterday
And the day before
It was so strong
A proper storm
Where did they go?
The butterflies
Seen up close
Seem nothing more
Than fine thread and filigree
Dusted wings
Delicate
Intricate
Collections
Of things
Strong wind
Would blow apart
Yet they live on air
And feed
Through
Long spiral tongues
On nectar
That
Sustains them
In ragged dancing
Flight
Light
In the light
Sun and sky filled days
So what does heavy wind do?
Where do butterflies go?
Do they die?
Blown apart
By air
The thing
They master
In stillness
I can but wait
For sun and sky
To see if they
Are still there
In still air
What’s in a Storm?
What’s in a storm?
Well obviously wind and rain
What’s in a house?
Well obviously not a storm
Not wind and rain
But
There is me
In the house
Looking at the storm
What’s in a storm?
As I look out
A woman walking her dogs
All wrapped up in plastic
The dogs wrapped up in fur
And loving it
The dogs are loving the storm
Who else?
Well, the bin men
Not loving it
They are getting wet
And the rubbish is blowing about
In the wind
Which is blowing them about
Too
And I went out too
To put my bin out
And I got wet too
Storms are there
To remind us
That out there
Outside our house
Are forces beyond our control
Which are there
To remind us
To take care of
The people and things
We love
Indoors
For Storm Floris
Driving Home
Motorway services.
Busy.
Every man and his dog there.
But strangely.
No cats.
If Art
If art was your companion
What would it say
About your art?
“Easy tiger, with that one!”
“What the f**£ is that all about.”
“That is the best you’ve done in ages mate. Great job.”
“Says it all really. Outstanding.”
But it is not that sort of companion.
It would be great if it was.
A kind of kind critic,
Joking but choking at how bad it is
Or a gently egging you on
Saying what they see
Before anybody else sees it
“About that figure in the foreground….”
However
As a companion
It has a life of it’s own
It turns up dressed up ready to go
From somewhere
You are not exactly sure
Where it resides but
There it is
At your door
You asked it to go out
Into the world with you
You made it
But it has a mind and life of it’s own
And you wonder
What is it going to do
Like an imaginary friend
Made real
And now alive
And by your side
What have you done?
Who’s Done This Before?
.
Who’s done this before?
Not me
At least not like this
At this time
In this place
As a here and now it is here and now
Me writing it
You reading it
Two different things
Both here and now
.
Who’s done this before?
I have
It is restored
I have taken words
Heard and then
Stored them in my head
And restored them
Resorted
On this page
To be stored in your head
.
Who’s done this before?
You have
You reader you
You repeated
What you heard
Stored in your head
Resorted
Repeated in the air
Words spoken you speaker you
And stored in the listeners head
.
Nothing is original
In this
But
Word order
Resorted
And
Restored
.
We’ve all done this before.
Light Show
Does the sun know that in eight minutes time
Light from it’s ancient fusion will arrive in my eyes?
Given what I see I assume some level of consciousness
Creativity in the morning on the curtains by my bed
Surely the sun must know
That at a certain angle it will make a show
.
The curtains, closed, help
They are pale, with a light vertical trellis in places
But mostly a rambling rose, with buds and flowers
They too I ascend like the sun
Climb out of winter slumber to follow the light
And set their leaves in air in flight
.
But it is brightly creative and alive and moving
The light moves mostly down and slightly to the left
As the sun, close to mid-summer rises to the right
And beyond the window, trees, branches, leaves
All too in motion, swaying in the breeze
And, in motion too, attached to trees
.
At times there is no show as clouds, I presume, block the light
But wait and it returns
Some singular path joins unjoined growth, in juxtaposition
A pattern and patterns of movement coalesce
And a dance unfolds, of shapes over shapes
Beside our bed, through window and on our drapes
.
A small fluted leaf, a stem, a branch
And what are clearly oak leaves lobed and blunt
Wisteria, filigrees of fine hair on a babies brow
Some, distant and indistinct bit of tree makes a backdrop
To some limb and leaf nearby and in focus, sharp
Plays and upstages the rest, visually like the sound of a harp
.
From a boiling mass far away
Beyond white hot, a creative act
Lyrical and rolling the sound of the thunder of the sun
Made into a light show for our eyes, briefly
Transformed by a passage through space
To our bedroom, to this place
Moving Space 