Crosstown Traffic

Our new volunteer Gary writes about the most recent illuminated manuscript workshop for the project A Book of Ours, at Back on Track:

Everybody is serious today. There’s only one more session at Back on Track, and pieces need to be finished in time. People very quickly sink into their own projects, painting, drawing, writing, calligraphy; everybody working quietly either with Phil, Lois or Steven, or just getting on with things by themselves. Mark opens the window because it’s so warm in the room, and you can hear the gentle hum of traffic outside, birds wishing it was spring.

I’m painting squares of black ink for Chris to try out as backgrounds for his amazing runic lettering. You’d think black was black, but no, there are lots of different shades, textures, depths, to play with. Chris opts for the blackest, and his red runes really shout from the page.

Across the room, Lawrence is working on ‘Greed’ – Steven with his new lightbox helps focus and trace the Gothic script to tremendous effect. The finished page looks amazing, small imperfections, smudges and idiosyncrasies adding spontaneity.

Shannah and Mark can mostly progress their work alone: Mark’s calligraphy skills are growing fast and Shannah’s poem ‘Clarissa, Mother’ is simply beautiful as she scribes it. The letters make bright paths on the page.

The quiet and concentration is only broken briefly when Phil mistakes NWA for Madonna, and the room cracks up. It’s an easy mistake to make.

Later, as I sketch Jimi Hendrix as a saint, with an enormous afro halo, I wonder what miracles he performed in order to be sanctified. The song ‘Cross-Town Traffic’ runs through my head and mixes with the sounds of construction work and car engines coming through the open window.

Then suddenly time is up, and we’re all snapped out of our individual bubbles, to share with the group what we’ve been working on. Every piece is so completely different, but linked by experience, the experience of being human I suppose, and we’re all very rightly proud of ourselves. We leave the window open for the next group to listen to the hum of the traffic.

This arthur+martha project is based on the making of an illuminated manuscript A BOOK OF OURS, at Back on Track, the Booth Centre and other support centres in Manchester. It gathers significant events, dates, people, celebrations and memorials, all in one book, giving a wide cross-section of hugely individual lives. Our hope is that by doing this we reassert the identity and the individuality of people who are sometimes dismissed as “homeless” when they are so much more.

We are often helped by skilled volunteers who bring varied life experiences and insights.

A BOOK OF OURS is supported by HLF.

They bid me take my place amongst them in the Halls of Valhalla

A Book of Ours, Projects

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It’s a strange thing, how joyful it is to be a maker. Even when what you’re making is about sadness, or pain, often joy pops up in the mix like a spring flower. Unexpected and yet just at the right time. Perhaps it’s what gets us through.

Today we worked on the Office of the Dead for the illuminated manuscript A BOOK OF OURS. This section of our handmade book contains a long poem about grief authored by many, including some of the people in this group.

At the top of this blog Kris is designing a page of runes, an original translation he’s made from the Viking phrase, “They bid me take my place amongst them in the Halls of Valhalla.” It’s what Vikings would say before they die, apparently. As he worked away on this piece, he joked with his neighbours, chatted to me about favourite reading (Nietzsche, Marcus Aurelius) and drank coke, all done with gusto.

Crucially, he also worked with Stephen Raw our resident calligrapher, building his already significant design skills. Stephen helped him push the design itself, but also think about his posture, how he places items around him to aid working effectively, and how to use the materials in his hands with awareness: “The ink should do the work, not you. Let it fill the spaces between your movements. Breathe with it…”

Making art is a glorious distraction, that’s for sure. It’s also a good icebreaker, joining people together who sometimes have got frozen into solitude or depression. There are lots of theories about why art is therapeutic. The ancient Greeks scratched their heads over it, particularly Aristotle in his Poetics. Perhaps making art, or simply taking it in as an audience, really can lighten the load as Aristotle said — the bad stuff is carried away with a cathartic moment. The beautiful truth is that nobody knows.

Alongside the lettering, poems were being written with the same gusto. We’ve decided to write celebrations of the seven deadly sins for the next section of A BOOK OF OURS. The poems are of course a play on the word seven — they must contain seven lines and 49 words. Here’s one by Shannah, which began as a little joke about the deliciousness of not getting out of bed and gradually grew into a deeper questioning of why we rush life away, and how to join it without losing yourself — especially if you’re actually a sloth, not a person.

Sloth

Dawn to dusk I lay in my nest prepared for comfort

Smiling and letting all things be

Happily and sleepily, see the world pass by me

Having the dragging yawning time of my expected life. Slowly

One makes sense of what one could contribute

To the fast-paced world.

Unsuspecting of the human being.

Shannah

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In the corner, Lawrence and our new volunteer Gary busied on another poem celebrating Greed, pulling lettering ideas from the ancient Book of Kells. Heads together, they worked slowly and patiently, in a concentration broken occasionally by cackles over a particularly good pun.

Bringing together art and writing in this project, we deliberately blur the edge between what’s a poem and what’s art. As Lawrence said, “I want to draw the writing. I want the letters to make the shape of what I’m thinking.”

In the sunshine of this January morning, as we broke the rules, there was a cheery camaraderie. It was a playground, not a schoolroom and within it, for awhile, we were ourselves. At least on paper.

Chris

Continue reading →

Hello to love

A Book of Ours, Projects

Stephen Raw was our expert guide today, leading us into the complex mystery that is calligraphy, particularly the discipline of the medieval script.

“It’s the curse of making the word visible,” as he says cheerfully. “How do we see our thoughts? What colour and what shape? And how do we get that onto paper? That’s where it takes the time…”

All of the group plunged into that inky ocean to make their pages of calligraphy. Like learner swimmers, they started cautiously but were soon splashing about, making a glorious mess and making beauty, often on the same page.

Chris developing his Viking runes, stretching out across the page. T at first wrestling with the lettering, and then tracing and retracing, selecting the best letters, seeing the page transforming to her touch. M working long and hard at the correct order of setting each letter down in the right proportions — and then suddenly a phrase has landed in the middle of its page, scripted so beautifully it’s a poem in its own right. Hello to love.

But today contained other kinds of writing too. For one of the other group members it was an opportunity to write about experiences of homelessness, to write at high speed, with a simple biro. To put those experiences down on paper, and to consider them for the first time. Sometimes putting experiences down on paper can be like putting down a heavy weight. Afterwards comes relief. The memories are part of this project too and in due course they’ll find their expression somewhere in the pages of the illuminated manuscript A BOOK OF OURS.

Slowness is the beauty and the curse of getting words down on a piece of paper. We speak very quickly, and think even more rapidly. Writing down those words is a long process, which can be slow, frustrating, exhausting. But that’s also the beauty — working and thinking in slowmotion. There is time to enjoy each stroke of each letter, the choice of colour, the density of the ink, the music and meaning of each sentence, each word. And perhaps with this, comes more understanding.

Lawrence looked up from his paper, hands blotted with ink.

“I love all this,” he said.

With thanks to everyone at Back on Track and to all the National Lottery players and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

I am your fan

A Book of Ours, Projects

Hello dude

Hei hvordan har du det

Hello anyone

With a kind heart

Hello peace of mind and good times

Babies, opportunities

Hello Mother Earth

May I be your son?

Hello to a job with decent money

Hello Hong Kong

Hello children

With my family, I dance in the rain.

Who do you treasure? Who are the people who’ve made a mark on your life — and what is that mark? Can you find their traces in the things that you believe now, the things that you have said and done? Last week at Back on Track, people wrote a poem about hellos and goodbyes. Some of lines are commemorate the dead, others commemorate significant farewells. It also welcomes in the new, opens a window to the living.

At the top and tail of this blog entry are extracts from the poem Ballad No. 4. It’s a long collaborative poem for The Office of the Dead, the last section of A BOOK OF OURS. It is a response to Ballad IV by the medieval poet Christine de Pizan — a poem that’s a list of farewells. Every few weeks we come back to this poem and add some names. Sadly some of them are recent names, claimed by drugs and street life.

Alongside poetry making was art making. Lawrence, a longstanding member of the group, arrived early and was working on his page before we had even had a chance to unpack all the art and poetry equipment. His latest page is taking shape, he’s been adding colour to his page, flashes of gold, the luminosity of the inks, it’s reminiscent of stained glass windows. As the session went on, we observed Lawrence going through many emotions; frustration as a colour smudges, delight and pride when the artwork develops. The design of the page is directly inspired by the medieval manuscripts we have been studying, but with Lawrence adds twist of humour, his own story, his way of looking at the world, a boldness of ink and pencil.

Chris was working on his calligraphy skills, also riding a roller coaster of learning, of emotions. The members of the group are finding new skills, surprising themselves, the Book of Ours is truly a thing of delight.

The rest of the morning was spent making triolets, painting portraits with words — portraits of people we care about, people who will stay with us forever even if they’ve gone.

It was only the second time this group has worked together and it was already an day rich in making connections and making art. As we work, the group are starting to bond, to trust one another. And as they do so they’ll encourage each another to go deeper, to be more daring, to expose the heart.

Farewell Dreadlocks

“Farvel, friend.”

Farewell Man City,

Away matches, blue moon

Farewell Davs, fair friendship

Farewell cheekiness, smile and aura

Farewell graceful dewdrop

Farewell Sean B, dodging the dream police

Snows of yesteryear

Lead you to sleep

Farewell to arms, put down your axe

The music’s over, let your plectrum rest

Wave bye bye to

Wounded fingers

Farewell to my sister

I remember

Her smile. Where is she now

Whose beauty was more than ours?

Phil and Lois

These letters with a pen

A Book of Ours, Uncategorized

“Making these letters with a pen, working in slow-motion, it felt so therapeutic. Usually I’m on a computer, but computers aren’t everything. I could feel myself relax as I worked. And my head cleared and ideas came through. This is what education should be.”

This was our first workshop of 2020, the first of the new decade. We have shifted the venue to Back on Track, a centre for people who have been through difficult times (including homelessness) and are coming back to education. We invited them to contribute to A BOOK OF OURS, an illuminated manuscript that touches on their shared experiences.

Normally it takes a couple of weeks for a group to gel, but today people seemed to click instantly. There was a shared humour, around the room little jokes got picked up and carried on. People who are normally quite suddenly had a lot to say. And the intensity of their concentration as they worked was almost touchable.

We saw smiles growing as they made their mark on the big white sheets of possibility. Slowly at first and then with greater and greater confidence, they began.

And to end it here, a piece of writing — still a work in progress — about asking for help. But it’s also about stepping into the new, about leaving the comfort zone. And it speaks for today:

Hard to ask for help. It’s a big step. That big mountain in your head. It’s the risk you take. You’re embarrassed, ashamed. A step into the unknown, pride stops you, all that dread. That big mountain in your head. It’s the risk. You’re embarrassed, ashamed. Expect yourself to know the answers. But you don’t, so then it’s a downfall. Step into the unknown — pride stops you. Hard to ask for help. And then you do and it’s fixed. And it’s amazing.

A joyous skyscraper

A Book of Ours

The Joys

2019 is coming to a close. We would like to send out our thanks to everyone who worked with us this year, met with us, shared lives and memories, were kind enough to give us your time.

For much of 2019 we’ve been making an illuminated manuscript at The Booth Centre, working with people who’ve experienced homelessness. It’s an attempt to represent their rich and varied life experiences in a book that has the intricate beauty of the medieval Book of Hours. We’ve used ancient bookmaking techniques to tell stories of now.

Chris2

We’ve also worked with the War Widows Association and Dr Nadine Muller’s War Widows’ Stories Project to co-create a War Widows Quilt, which gathers short stitched pieces by 90 war widows onto a quilt, that was first shown at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich during Remembrance weekend in November.

detail war widows quilt

Both of these projects, in their different ways, invited a very deep response from all involved. We know that this wasn’t easy at times and we want to acknowledge the bravery and trust that was given to us by participants.

Finally, to all, we wish you good tidings, good times, good heart. And, if possible, joy.

Joy

What is it? Euphoria, happiness — is it?

The Government doesn’t know what happiness is.

Can there be a joyous skyscraper?

Joy is not my fault or yours.

Is recording joyfulness a thing of joy?

Is there violent joy? A stomping yes!

And have you ever seen a bluebird?

Andre

Sarah Joan

My mind is slowly opening

A Book of Ours, Projects

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12 December. The Booth Centre.

Today’s session in the Book of Ours project was not only our last one of the year, it was also the last time we will be in the Booth Centre until February. And happily it was a wonderful, productive day, full of concentration and gentle good humour.

We’ve been researching the Suffrages, books of saints in the medieval books of hours, and rewriting them for this project. People have looked at medieval poems and then written about now — about people who have come to their help. Some of the poems describe personal encounters, others are about being inspired by an icon. It’s an instance of how engaging with heritage can help us to know ourselves. We now have the Saints Mike Tyson and Jimi Hendrix among our number.

Born on Boxing Day

From darkness the lightning strikes light

Power and agility unchains your liberty

Mike Tyson to some, to others Iron Mike

From darkness the lightning strikes light

Undisputed the world is yours truly

From darkness the lightning strikes light

Power and agility unchains your liberty.

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This suffrage for Mike Tyson is not only about boxing, it touches on racism and personal pride, on not compromising your inner self, on agility and danger. The piece is a triolet, a song-like poem form based on the older medieval rondel. Then in the afternoon the writer began transcribing the poem into the page setup designed for our saints, which is also based on medieval originals. And so he became an artist too.

Another of our writers described a woman who helped him at his most desperate. “It was my worst time. I was literally in a ditch, out of my head on substances. And she helped me, fed me for days, bathed me, got me on my feet again, ready to face the world once more. I’ll never forget, it’s moment that I always carry with me, how she helped a complete stranger. Me.”

He transcribed the poem onto the page and then began to illustrate it. He met himself again, in that moment. Saw it in the third person and was shaken, left deeply affected. And joyous too:

“I found arthur+martha to be an amazing experience. It is the first time I have expressed my emotions — it evoked profound feelings that I consider positive and a different outlet than that I would usually take to deal with my issues.”

Anonymous

As I left the Booth Centre today, our session support worker Louise told me that one of the participants had said, after making work with us, “My mind is slowly opening.”

It gave me the image of a flower opening, despite the rainfall, despite the desperation many homeless people experience, despite everything.

And then my last encounter was with a person who told me, “I’m buzzing, I’m buzzing. I’ve just been given accommodation. I won’t have to sleep out tonight.” Gesturing at the downpour and the puddles. “Know what I mean?”

In fact, in some ways, it was a perfect day.