My Extrication / My Release

This exhibition is best viewed on a tablet or laptop. This exhibition can also be experienced as a podcast/audio description where the Curator talks you through the exhibition. Please be aware this is a Live Art recording.

What do we mean by Extrication and Release?

Sometimes a release is changing a habit

Or breaking one.

Yet, it can be more abstract than that

Like, that time you thought

Your Art post grad course was

awfully odd

because there was no sketchbook requirement.

You never saw your peers keeping one

and you were too shy to ask your tutors;

in case it was a stupid question.

You reasoned that, the tutors would have told you

and reminded you

if it was essential.

So perhaps,

they only need to see the art you make in the studio?

So,

you spend all your time in the studio

Making art.

And suddenly

it becomes more obsessively accessible

for your art practice -

To stare into the abyss with others

instead of keeping it closed in a sketchbook.

You spend your days to nights

in the studio making art

as if you're living in a sketchbook.

Then it’s June and with 2 weeks approaching soon

the end of your course

Your tutor mentions you have to hand in your sketchbook tomorrow.

Uh Oh.

You feel more relieved that the course

had a sketchbook requirement after all.....

Phew that’s good…. (for the course) (not so much for you).

Because this now means an affected mark.

The tutors care less

about what was made in the art studio

and care more about those who keep

sketchbooks.

So you are curious as to how being in the studio

is not as important to them

as the sketchbook is

You wonder why.

And then it dawns on you;

You realise something intrinsically wonderful

about the artist studio....

(even though, let’s face it, it terrified you to go.)

This space of making with others around you

attending to their own art practice as you attend to yours

added and adds richness to your own art-making process and practice.

Their presence affects the way you make and

you feel strong.

But something keeps getting in the way…. your Neurodivergent behaviours and traits.

Research and sketchbooks are

independent and solo adventures

They are the showing of what's inside,

what’s on your mind;

but what if books are too limited and too limiting

in their papered prisms? (prisons)

What if the space in a sketchbook is too limiting

for those of us

who need space to stretch and share,

spill and dare

To look back in the face of what was made

instead of turning a page?

Art is powerful like that - it can ignite minds, reduce sore eyes,

Lick wounds,

Help us face what we need to

Straight in the face

And it's easier to do that

When sharing relaxed space with other Magical Women

It is containing to talk about our art

Whilst it might still be drying, as the paper or texture holds onto

Our rendered emotions and subconscious thoughts

that surface through layered material

and mixed media.

Now in communion alongside other Magical Women

We may, simply by looking at each other’s art

Witness our own release.

Where did this theme come from? Where do all the themes from all the exhibitions come from?

They come from the artist studio

The communion of Magical Women making art together

The themes surface in the sharing.

We welcome you as we graciously shared and share our art with each other,

in every Magical Women workshop.

We welcome you to this exhibition as we share our art with you.

Because making art is showing, not telling.

Making art is spilling and spewing, throwing up on surfaces, marking paper, destroying, covering, dispelling,

it doesn't always have to be beautiful.

Art can be ugly

Art can be shit

Art can be on the walls of the big glass banks or museums and can be absolute poo

But art exists to be seen

exists to be heard and listened to.

exists to be believed in and trusted and recognised.

It can be laughed at,

screeched at, screamed at, it can be ignored, it can be applauded.

It is an agreement

made between you the artist, and the materials.

It is a mark of respect, an “I see you.”

I recognise you

Perhaps a “My story is different but I believe you, I believe what you are telling me,

what you are showing me, I recognise it is important for you. I trust you.”

I might even be able to smell or taste you

or interact with you if it's that kind of art.

I believe you

I trust you

I look at what's been released

I look at what is being released.

We witness what we might not be able to cope with day to day

It is a promise to yourself:

I see all that has served me before and now doesn't.

Or maybe, too much of this, and now I have to expel.

Look at the shit

The sick

The vomit

The yell.

The spewed out guts on a fisherman’s floor…. or your tiled bathroom floor if that’s what happened.

Stare at it as it stares back at you.

What does it sound like?

What does it smell like to you?

The smells are so strong when we use art materials in the same way the smell is so strong when we smell excretion from the body of whatever kind and think again of material.

Material that often comes out of us is often in a very similar texture as the materials that we use as artists.

We believe it's gone when we have flushed it down the loo.

Or

thrown it in the bin

Or

washed it away down the drain.

Or

screamed it from the top of our voice and bellowed it into the trees.

It's not about lessons.

It's about connection and art and driving connection.

We make art so we can make deeper connections

so that we can create more vibrantly

It's not about feeling safe or being safe

because that's not always possible

It’s about engaging with your art practice

It’s about being an artist, about creating together.

A gracious sharing.

It's about honouring yourself and each other in the space

to make art

to focus on what we are making

then gathering back to look at what we've made clear on the paper.

You see

My Extrication is about

freeing or releasing

yourself from entanglement;

Disengaging yourself from

what doesn't serve you for now:

To extricate yourself from a dangerous situation.

And you might not even understand it yet,

You might not know what serves you best

Until you look at your art staring straight back at you

And recognise that you had the wisdom all along.

You are both Creator and creation,

You are writing the story.

It’s seeing psyche in all its glory

With a gentle unfurling

You will be knowing what you need

as it reveals itself to you in your artwork

notice how belonging becomes easier

Press here for Part 3 of the Exhibition

You are gathering to make art

to share your art with others.

Here, at Magical Women we are artists who want to make art.

We gather in a relaxed space to make art together -

You make your own art whilst I make mine.

The power and transformations

are because of participants and contributors and artists

and audiences (thank you for attending our online exhibition.)

This is only a small selection of our artists

who come together to create art.

And in so doing so they may collectively release and expel

what might be

Raw and hard to ignore,

Translated in colour and symbols galore-

And now as we share and meet each other with care

We hear what others

See in our art

Their words are transformed into tools for us to use

towards our own practice long after the workshop has finished.

We see the symbols surface - Zoom has actually been quite refreshing

For what we want to do

The surfacing symbols and relics, figures and emblems,

Remind us most about what makes us feel

alive.

Schizo Dissident 1995

Ward round - doctor's round the bend

I extract myself from the u-bend where I've been hiding

'When you do eventually speak you're kind of florid

but not agitated or manic

low mood but a little bit euphoric

even euthymic

in a weirdly quiet and passive way

a modulated tone while still remote

Night nurses say you're not sleeping

but day nurses can't wake you up

We can't work out your sexuality

And you're writing...

We've no idea

Another week in the psychiatric slammer!'

My only salvation is in pen and paper

and Robert Dellar

the commie advocate who works for MIND

a good friend of mine 

and ever loonies' supporter

'Got you on a renewed Section 2 Deb,

highly dodgy, no grounds for a Section 3

the doctor's looking guilty

says your Patient's Council is a sign of mental illness Deb

that I recruited you for

Says here "GP referral" - change him - 

Basically a total stitch-up'

I am a bit high it's true

but I'm used to managing that

you'd never notice cos I'm still and quiet

and I can sleep

self-caring fine as usual

and turning up to work

getting no complaints

but my reality does not ever equate with psychiatry

however therefore ergo I am sectionable at any time

for supporting the hammer and the sickle

for thinking aloud in poetry

Robert Dellar the champion of all us heroes

immediately writes a legal letter

Gets our solicitor friend Rod Campbell-Taylor on the case

Clever cocktail sticks and dexterous screwdrivers

to unpick these skillful fetters

There's cold sweat on my face

The next ward round I get released!

After 3 weeks

Back to my day job at Survivors' Poetry 

breathing slightly more freely

Congrats in the cafe at lunch

Do I disturb you Mr Psychiatrist?

Sorry but that's just Me!

Maybe you could try and draw a picture of whatever it is you see?

Present it to the faculty?

Cos it's a mystery to everyone else

and you certainly ain't here to make friends

Maybe you're on commission?

I'm glad I'm paying for your next vacation

I’ll send you a postcard!

Byee!

By Debbie McNamara

I hope that during this difficult and uneasy time that we as artists can bring you out of that unease,

and those of you abroad and with your Lockdown

already lifted and many of you who have been tested, that you are safe and well.

Wishing you love and light in your moonlit and starry and sunshine skies!

Thank you for visiting and please share widely,

Magical Women

Words and Curation by Elinor Rowlands, Founder of Magical Women

Thank you to all our wonderful artists for making Magical Women what it is and is becoming.

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Artists

Blair Iris

Gemma Abbott

Liz Coolen

Aimee Grant

Judith Rowlands

Wendy Young

Emma Reavey

Anna Dyson

Jacki Cairns

Elinor Rowlands

Invited Poets

Gemma Abbott

Michelle Baharier

Invited In Solidarity Poets

Richard Downes

Zen Jones