#277: It is always New Year

Oil on canvas.  A view from behind of a naked person walking towards an open door (one of several in a wall).  Through these doors can be seen further doors and more beyond them.

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Hessel, Katy (@thegreatwomenartists) (2024b) “As 2025 approaches, I'm thinking about Dorothea Tanning, and in particular her painting "Birthday" (1942 – image 1)...” [Instagram] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/DECl8YnILOU/?img_index=1 (Accessed: 26th December 2024).

Tanning, Dorothea (1942) Birthday [Oil on canvas]. Philadelphia Museum of Art. See: https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/93232

#276: Art to Aid Meditation

Imagine a piece of art that would be perfect to have in front of you when meditating.

#275: Another Christmas Scene

The scene we have been brought up to avoid and not think about: the discomfort, pain and mess of giving birth in a stable.  

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Hessel, Katy (2024) The great women's art bulletin: There’s nothing meek or mild about childbirth: why have male artists sanitised the Virgin Mary? Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/dec/20/virgin-mary-sanitised-paula-rego-esther-strauss (Accessed: 20th December 2024).

#274: A Christmas Scene

Create a Christmas scene in your mind: your favourite of all time, perhaps, or a fantasy, or future, you would like to see, a landscape, a city scene, an activity, a food still life, anything or everything you consider to be Christmas, or Christmassy.

#273: Journey and talk with your teenage self

Journey with your teenage self on your shoulder.  

How would they see the world now?  

What would they think of your life?  

What would you say to them?  

Would they listen to you?

What might they say to you?

Would you listen?

What would happen?

Maybe retrace a journey your teenage self often did.

How have things changed?

How do you like the changes? 

How would your teenage self like them?

How did you see the route back then?  

How do you see it now?

Where were you going then?

Where are you going now?

Or reflect on an event from those years.

How did it affect you?

How did it change you?

What would you have said to your teenage self in its aftermath that no one said to you at the time?

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Smith, Zadie (2023) The Fall of My Teenage Self. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/27/the-fall-of-my-teen-age-self (Accessed: 23rd November 2023).

#272: Talk with your teenage self

Imagine a conversation with your teenage self - what would you say to them?

Hold on.

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Smith, Zadie (2023) The Fall of My Teenage Self. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/27/the-fall-of-my-teen-age-self (Accessed: 23rd November 2023).

#271: A one-sided story, or The Vocal and the Silent

Oil on canvas.  Painting of an artist creating art from the lives of others - whether friends, family or strangers - without consultation or research.

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See also: The Haberdashery of Silly Rhymes: The Vocal and the Silent.

Burke, Kelly (2024) Jamie Oliver pulls children’s book from shelves after criticism for ‘stereotyping’ Indigenous Australians. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/nov/10/jamie-oliver-pulls-childrens-book-from-shelves-after-criticism-for-stereotyping-indigenous-australians-ntwnfb (Accessed: 11th November  2024).

Liu, Rebecca (2023) Interview

Rebecca F Kuang: ‘Who has the right to tell a story? It’s the wrong question to ask.’ Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/rebecca-f-kuang-who-has-the-right-to-tell-a-story-its-the-wrong-question-to-ask (Accessed: c.20th May 2023).

Mangan, Lucy (2023) One Night review – Jodie Whittaker absolutely soars in this mystery drama. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/nov/24/one-night-review-jodie-whittaker-absolutely-soars-in-this-mystery-drama (Accessed: 24th November 2023) - “Who owns a story?”

Poirier, Agnès (2023) Like the rest of France, I couldn’t wait for Ridley Scott’s Napoleon. Then I actually saw it. Available at: 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/24/france-ridley-scott-napoleon-french-history (Accessed: 24th November 2023).