Silver Linings Creative Book
We live in surreal times, the uncertainty of what awaits us every bit as scary as immediate risks. We would not be human, though, if we didn’t look for slivers of hope to hang on to.
I haven’t been able to access my studio during these weeks because of the lockdown restrictions. However, I’m both inspired and humbled by the forms of collaborative and solo creativity that have emerged out of these restrictive times: I’ve gotten down to work on a series of preparatory sketch-paintings for an art-and-theatre collaboration; become involved in an energising poetry-and-art group project that has included me making sketches from news stories; put in long hours into that book I’ve been writing; made tiny offerings to the creative virtual world via webinars, variations on the blog, art fundraisers and more.
Meanwhile I read… That air quality has improved in so many places, making visible blue skies and distant mountains. That strangers round the world have responded to a mother’s post on Facebook to send birthday cards to her children interred within the home. That slow fashion is on the rise as we rethink how we consume. That musicians in Italy give free, soul-stirring concerts from balcony windows. That caregivers put themselves on the front line, every day, day after day after day.
Hope isn’t denial. I’m only too, too aware of those ominous dark thunderclouds that threaten the landscape as we know it. But I’d also like to believe in the sparkles edging the occasional cloud – rather than brush it aside as just more grey on which the sun has shed some glitter, to fool us into thinking it’s silver.