#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).

#269: Tasteful Nude

Oil on canvas.

Word painting consisting of the following words and phrases:

Abstract
Active
Agency
All possibilities?
Alt life / Lifestyle / Alt lifestyle
Anti-porn
Anything goes
Assertive
At ease
Author 
Battleground
Belonging to no one but her[your]self
Body positive
Bottoms
Celebrating 
Challenge
Challenging
Change (minds)(hearts)(thoughts)
Collaborative
Comfort
Comfortable
Confidence
Conserve
Constricted
Constrictions
Conversation
Defiance 
Determination
Dialogue
Dignity (sometimes after decades or centuries (if not now, when?))
Discover something hidden
Elegance
Emotionally nude
Equal opportunities 
Equality
Explore (yourself)(her)
Exhibitionist
For you
Framed
Free
Freedom  
Free from shame
Frank realism
Fucked-up
Fun
Funny
Gaze (glaring) (outward)
Gives-no-fucks
Holding the power (who does?)
Honest
Honour
Humour
Identity

In nature
Intimate
Intimacy
Imperfection
Joyful
Life
Life affirming
Lives
Naked, rather than nude?
Natural
New or other scenes
No arseholes
No bias
No class bias
No gender bias
No preconceptions 
No politics
Non-conformative
Non-objective
Non-representative (Doesn’t have to be real)
Non-sexy
Non-violence
Normality
Not an exhibition
Not an exhibitionist
Not (in his hands)
Not destroy
Not just meat
Not rude
Other
Other lives
Ownership 
Opposites at the same time
Performance
Personal
Playfulness
Political
Poise
Positive
Power
Pretty
Practical
Precious
Progression
Private
Protect
Protest
Queer
Queer lives
Real(istic)
Represent
Representation
Representative of all (but not all at once; across everything)
Revealed (who by? how?)
Same sex gaze
Second nature
Streak
Sexuality
Scare
Self-empowerment
Self-view 
Sexy
Shameless
Sheela-na-gig
Shock 
Silly
Sincerity
Strength
Strip 
Stripping of the mind, internally naked
Surreal
Tension
This and that
Topsy Turvy
Turn the tables
Ugly
Unabashed
Unashamed
Unstoppable
Visibility
Vulnerable
Vulnerability
You
Yourself

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#270: Tasteful Nude Reading List