Fear/Trust Multi-form Collaboration #4 (Poetry/Art)

Creatives Making A Difference

‘Supporting Mental Health’

FEAR/TRUST Collaboration

Welcome to the forth and final collaboration in an eight week, fortnightly engagement with the emotions of fear and trust.  For this particular collaboration we have paired four artists and four poets together. The artists have taken up the theme of fear, and the poets, in response, are engaging  with the theme of trust. In so doing we’re attempting to artistically and accessibly engage with the dynamics between the two emotions – the clashes and the spectrum between the two contrasting feelings. The poets and artists have been exchanging  ideas over a number of weeks and what you’ll be seeing as the weeks roll by is the diverse expression of that exchange.

 It’s our intention that these collaborations will form an online resource which will  potentially bring comfort, provide an innovative  means to engage with difficult feelings, and ultimately to provide access to information about mental health in a stimulating manner. The idea is that we will also eventually group these collaborations together into exhibitions and installations to further promote public awareness and engagement with these issues. Your feedback on this project would be very much welcomed.

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This week’s collaboration features

 Ray Bentley (Artist) and Melissa Diem (Poet)

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Behind

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An Empathy for Small Machines

by Melissa Diem

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Please do click on the poem to enlarge

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You can find out more about Ray and Melissa below:

Ray Bentley  

Ray Bentley is an award-winning painter from Stoke-on-Trent whose still lifes and figurative paintings have been exhibited throughout the UK. He now lives and works near Redcar with his partner and dog, where he spends his days eating biscuits, napping, not doing the housework, tweeting about his favourite things, reading thrillers and – occasionally – painting. You can learn more about him at http://raymondbentley.com/.

 

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Melissa Diem:

Melissa Diem has an MPhil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin and was awarded a Bank of Ireland Millennium Scholarship. She has published the novel, Changeling [Pan (UK) and Gill & Macmillan (Ireland)] and poetry in several journals including Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, The Shop, The Sunday Tribune, and Rival. She was the Featured Poet in The Stinging Fly Spring issue 2010. She was shortlisted for both the Hennessy Literary Awards and the Bradshaw Cork Literary Review Poetry Manuscript Competition and joint runner up for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. Melissa has exhibited visual media throughout Ireland including at the RHA, Iontas, Guinness Hopstore and The Ark. The one about the bird and Appraisal are her first poetry films and have been selected for several festivals including Belfast Film Festival 2013, Filmpoem 2013, Visible Verse 2013, 9th Cologne International Videoart Festival and finalist in the La Parola Immaginata – Trevigliopoesia 2013 and Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition, 2013.  She is currently working on her third poetry film and developing artwork for an upcoming book of poetry. 

http://melissadiem.com/

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*If you would like to be a creative involved in one of our ‘Supporting Mental Health’ Collaborations next season do get in touch via the comment boxes or @ArtiPeep. 

Thank you so much for your interest.

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Fear/Trust Multi-form Collaboration #3

Creatives Making A Difference

‘Supporting Mental Health’

FEAR/TRUST Collaboration

Welcome to the third collaboration in an eight week, fortnightly engagement with the emotions of fear and trust.  For this particular collaboration we have paired four artists and four poets together. The artists have taken up the theme of fear, and the poets, in response, are engaging  with the theme of trust. In so doing we’re attempting to artistically and accessibly engage with the dynamics between the two emotions – the clashes and the spectrum between the two contrasting feelings. The poets and artists have been exchanging  ideas over a number of weeks and what you’ll be seeing as the weeks roll by is the diverse expression of that exchange.

 It’s our intention that these collaborations will form an online resource which will  potentially bring comfort, provide an innovative  means to engage with difficult feelings, and ultimately to provide access to information about mental health in a stimulating manner. The idea is that we will also eventually group these collaborations together into exhibitions and installations to further promote public awareness and engagement with these issues. Your feedback on this project would be very much welcomed.

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This week’s collaboration features

 Mat JimDog (Artist) and Tom Murphy (Poet)

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I Fear Becoming What I Fear

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Endure 

by Tom Murphy

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Please do click on the poem to enlarge

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You can find out more about Mat and Tom below:

Mat JimDog  

There are four key elements from my childhood that define my life and it’s course. A strange relationship with my parents that was, and is, never neglectful but not loving. We exist alongside each other almost like strangers with no emotional attachment. As a young boy starved of somebody telling me they loved me it left me vulnerable. The man who filled the void was in every sense the manipulative, secretive, grooming paedophile. From the age of eight till twelve he owned me, abused and left me utterly confused about sex, love and who I was. I read research recently that linked childhood diabetes with trauma so it seems unsurprising that aged eleven I was found to be a type 1 diabetic with absolutely no family history of this. When the abuse came to a sudden stop, as the family moved to a different part of the country, I was so bereft that I searched for more and picked up men in the local area until one day a violent sexual encounter and beating scared me so much at nearly fourteen I retreated inwards. I went to school and then avoided everything else.

The next ten years were a roller coaster ride of getting somewhere, then crashing out. I then found myself on a teaching course and discovered I was good at it. I met my wife, somebody who told me they loved me and actually meant it. I had a few good years but depression and diabetes are not a good mix and the consequences of poor self care began to cause me problems. The past was always too much of a burden and I was constantly questioning myself. I had a severe episode in 2003 that left me unable to carry on teaching but the warning signs were not really heeded by the medical professional in terms of diabetic care or mental health. By 2005 I was a real mess and attempted suicide, my diabetic care so bad that I was admitted to hospital in a coma with a blood sugar so high it was a record at their A&E to be so high and still living.

In hospital my wife brought me pencils and a pad. At that moment, having never drawn for myself or attempted any kind of art beyond school, I found a voice. A way to communicate to others. I found I can draw how I am feeling and communicate the problems in this way. More importantly I found I could make sense to myself the stuff in my head. Talking about it did nothing. But the act of committing to paper made make sense to me.

I still struggle daily with my mental health, I suffer very serious consequences from the thirty odd years of poor diabetic care. Now, however I can cope. I have this thing called being creative that lights my way and has given me hope. I have been lucky to survive, and it is through my painting and helping others who suffer through creative activity, that I prosper.

https://www.facebook.com/JimDogArt

https://twitter.com/jimdogart

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Tom Murphy:

https://twitter.com/sandcave

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Please do comeback for the final  Fear/Trust collaboration in this series on Tuesday 9th November.

Thank you for your interest.

Fear/Trust Multi-form Collaboration #2

Creatives Making A Difference

‘Supporting Mental Health’

FEAR/TRUST Collaboration

Welcome to the second collaboration in an eight week, fortnightly engagement with the emotions of fear and trust.  For this particular collaboration we have paired four artists and four poets together. The artists have taken up the theme of fear, and the poets, in response, are engaging  with the theme of trust. In so doing we’re attempting to artistically and accessibly engage with the dynamics between the two emotions – the clashes and the spectrum between the two contrasting feelings. The poets and artists have been exchanging  ideas over a number of weeks and what you’ll be seeing as the weeks roll by is the diverse expression of that exchange.

 It’s our intention that these collaborations will form an online resource which will  potentially bring comfort, provide an innovative  means to engage with difficult feelings, and ultimately to provide access to information about mental health in a stimulating manner. The idea is that we will also eventually group these collaborations together into exhibitions and installations to further promote public awareness and engagement with these issues. Your feedback on this project would be very much welcomed.

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This week’s collaboration features

 Rob Fitzmaurice (Artist) and Robin Sounder (Poet)

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Five Fugitive Fears

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#1

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#2

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#3

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#4

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#5

 

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Transmigration

by Robin Sounder

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Playing with fire

Your soul climbed up

Towards the sky

 Like a smoke signal

The sun mocks your

Transmigration

 It burns so bright

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The darkness comes

crashing violently

And I know that last night

Was the last night

Of this life

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I trust there is a plan

Written down somewhere

Wordy and dense

It winds like a maze through

The broken morning

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Blue water

The empty screen

Blue love

I know you’re hiding

In some place

Inside of me

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I can’t remember 

The sound of your voice

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I was trusting 

In transference

Trading one hollow thing

For another

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Blue pain

Through the wires

Clings to me

Like a scar

—

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Watching myself in the mirror

I was watching 

The news

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I’d seen all the signs

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When I learned to trust

I was afraid

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—

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Did god leave a light on

For us?

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I could trust in transcendence

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But my eyes

Are not windows

They are walls

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—

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We are sheltered somewhere

Inside of our bodies

Trapped

This is the final betrayal

When will

The very home

That houses our soul

Fight us to the death?

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We have no choice

We have to trust

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Playing with fire

Our souls climb up

Towards the sky

 Like a smoke signal 

The sun mocks our

Transmigration

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You can find more about Rob and Robin here:

Robert Fitzmaurice (born 1960) is a British painter and printmaker. His work, which he describes as lyrical figuration, is characterised by an expressive use of colour and form. The human figure is an important motif for him, and it appears in various guises, shaped by ideas about the human condition and rites of passage. Originally from the Midlands, he studied Fine Art at the universities of Sunderland and Reading. Since then he has exhibited in the UK and abroad, and his work has entered a number of private collections. He lives and creates in Reading, Berkshire.

http://www.robertfitzmaurice.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/robfitzmaurice

Robin Sounder:

http://robinsounder.com/

https://twitter.com/RobinSounder

http://quiverandarch.com/

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Please do comeback for next Fear/Trust collaboration on Monday 4th  November.

Thank you for your interest.

Fear/Trust Multi-form Collaboration #1

Creatives Making A Difference

 

‘Supporting Mental Health’

FEAR/TRUST Collaboration

Welcome to the first collaboration in an eight week, fortnightly engagement with the emotions of fear and trust.  For this particular collaboration we have paired four artists and four poets together. The artists have taken up the theme of fear, and the poets, in response, are engaging  with the theme of trust. In so doing we’re attempting to artistically and accessibly engage with the dynamics between the two emotions – the clashes and the spectrum between the two contrasting feelings. The poets and artists have been exchanging  ideas over a number of weeks and what you’ll be seeing as the weeks roll by is the diverse expression of that exchange.

 It’s our intention that these collaborations will form an online resource which will  potentially bring comfort, provide an innovative  means to engage with difficult feelings, and ultimately to provide access to information about mental health in a stimulating manner. The idea is that we will also eventually group these collaborations together into exhibitions and installations to further promote public awareness and engagement with these issues. Your feedback on this project would be very much welcomed.

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This week’s collaboration features

 Ryan Atkins (Artist) and  Richard Biddle (Poet)

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‘Fearfulness’

Please do click on the picture to enlarge;  it’s worth it! 

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Of Nothing

by Richard Biddle

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always elsewhere, potentially

lost in a cliché;

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terror’s glitch

haunted by gravity’s pull

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a padded cell

unfurnished with radio waves

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a circle of air drawn

too quickly, too precisely

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a hair’s breadth away

from what is not yet begun

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something less than a whisper

though no more than a wingbeat

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a voice of white-noise;

invisibility seen as phantoms

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– words of antimatter –

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without wanting more

or holding on

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taste this

infinite

colour

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You can find more about Ryan and Richard here:

Ryan

http://theryanatkins.blogspot.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/theryanatkins

Richard

http://writings43.blogspot.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/littledeaths68

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Please do comeback for next Fear/Trust collaboration on Tuesday 22nd  October.

Thank you for your interest.