[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 4 May 2024].
let me hold your heart like a flower
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 April 2024].
my bewildered mind
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 9 May 2022].
built on air and ghosts
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 12 January 2022].
gracefully insane
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 1 January 2022].
someone to pour myself into
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 30 November 2021].
in the room we will find each other
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 30 November 2021].
a good mixture of nothing and everything is eating up my head alive
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 29 November 2021].
a collection of dismantled almosts
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 November 2021].
a spineless woman in a cage of bones
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 23 November 2021].
The first image from a new series of self-portraits I started creating in September.
The series is titled wallflowers.
cat in a lap
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 13 November 2021].
Shiloh photo-bombing another self-portrait shoot back in September on my last day of cat-sitting her and Susie in West London.
no girls today
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 September 2021].
prismatic
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 9 September 2021].
in dreams
Another restless night. She doesn't know any other sort of sleep. She doesn't always wake from sleep during the night, but often the act of sleeping is more tiring than not sleeping.
Her dreams are, by turns: disturbing, hilarious, heartbreaking, nostalgic, violent, melancholy, full of love, full of anger and frustration, sad, arousing. Sometimes they are all that at once. They are always vivid and full of passion, whatever the overarching sense is.
Sometimes she wishes she didn’t feel things so intensely, even in sleep. But when friends or family tell her they don't dream — or at least they don't remember their dreams — it makes her feel sad for them. She would never want to stop dreaming, or to stop remembering most of her dreams. Despite all the ways her body physically ties in knots during the night. Despite all the ways her mind mangles itself as her eyes flicker under their lids in the dark. She would never will that other world away; want it gone.
The tension in her muscles. The ache in her bones. The tangle of nerves under her pale skin as her body physically responds to what is happening in her dream (or is the storyline in her dream dictated by the sensations in her resting body as it recovers from the previous day, week, months?)
She feels the emotional and mental sensations of her dreams through her body as she sleeps and wonders that it remains mostly prone while she’s unconscious. She wonders that she doesn't wake up physically entangled by her bedsheets, imprisoned in them, given the way her mind and heart often feel when she wakes from dreams in tears or in anger, her throat dry and hoarse as though she’s been screaming or yelling in reality as well her imagination.
From time to time she’s awoken by her own voice, albeit trapped in the back of her throat. She wakes to uncontrollable tears. To shaking; to breathlessness or ragged breathing; to unutterable fear and a racing heart. That one time she woke to laughter, her own, opening her eyes to find her partner staring at her through the morning light, incredulous at the sight of someone laughing in her sleep.
She dreams of sleepy, but impassioned, entanglements as her body lies beside another. So vivid that when she wakes to find them breathing deeply, sleeping soundly, she’s startled it was just a dream. The pleasurable ache between her legs lingers for long moments after waking, making her question everything around her.
Most nights her body temperature rises. She sleeps lightly clothed, aware that too much material close to her skin will cause her to overheat. Will cause her to wake in the night, her hair a damp mass encircling her neck, strangling her.
Other nights she shivers, feverishly, though the night be mild. Conscious of the need to add layers, she nevertheless dreads uncurling herself and unwrapping herself from her bedclothes to venture into the fresh night air to find more clothing. She curls into herself, knees drawn up to belly, elbows and wrists aligned, cupped hands clasped together and nestled between neck and pillow.
She dreams of houses she's lived in and those she can only dream of living in. She revisits houses she's never physically stepped foot in, but that she remembers from other dreams. Houses of many rooms, and many corridors twisting and turning. Lavish in parts; derelict in others. She makes her home in them or moves from them. Oftentimes they unexpectedly fall apart, become derelict, or she simply finds herself evicted.
For months before and after travel she dreams of planes and missed flights; of being far from home; of uprooting her life yet again to other shores.
She dreams of family long gone as though they weren't. Those dreams are often the hardest, as it's like saying goodbye all over again as she wakes.
She learned years ago that if you force yourself to wake from a bad dream to escape it, you need to fully wake, rouse yourself completely from the dream, or you will fall back into the same dream. But if you are woken prematurely from a beautiful, pleasurable dream, you can never just fall back into it, no matter how you let your mind run over the memory of the dream as you fall back into slumber.
Her mind is a tapestry to be woven then picked apart. An embroidery to be carefully created with fine needlework only to be tattered with sharp blades. It creates its own reality, then breaks it up into a million pieces. All within a matter of hours. Every night.
i still exist
A proper update is most certainly in order but, suffice to say, for now, that I'm still here, despite appearances to the contrary. I promise an update will come in the new year, if not before.
In the meantime, Sarah Mercer and I have reignited our love for weaving words into light, with images inspired by the words of Jean-Paul Sartre.
Go take a look.
now playing: barry white - whatever we had, we had
so show me
now playing: the clouds - show me
breaking down
In July I entered The Printspace's 'Movement' competition and was surprised and delighted to find my image, in pursuit of perpetual motion, was shortlisted, and then subsequently selected as Editor's Choice.
Today The Printspace featured me on their blog.
My image will also be included in the upcoming SoShowMe IV exhibition at The Printspace's gallery here in London. More details as they come to hand...
now playing: pink floyd - see emily play
shake dreams from your hair, my pretty child, my sweet one
now playing: jim morrison - ghost song
shifting relationships
now playing: elvis costello and the attractions - you'll never be a man
i see a darkness
Well, you're my friend and can you see,
Many times we've been out drinkin',
Many times we've shared our thoughts,
But did you ever, ever notice, the kind of thoughts I got?
Well, you know I have a love, a love for everyone I know.
And you know I have a drive to live, I won't let go.
But can you see this opposition comes rising up sometimes?
That its dreadful imposition, comes blacking in my mind.
And that I see a darkness.
And that I see a darkness.
And that I see a darkness.
Did you know how much I love you?
Is a hope that somehow you,
Can save me from this darkness.
- Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
now playing: bonnie 'prince' billy - i see a darkness