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Being Me Being

Posted by Colin Hambrook, Sunday 29th May, 2011

I had the privilege to spend a weekend doing yoga and art in Go Public! - one of the accentuate initiatives produced by Dada-South on 7th and 8th May. Yoga teacher Sarah Scott’s approach to creating ‘Being me Being’ was inspired by her original practice of finding expression through sign and movement. Delivered in partnership with visual artist Rachel Gadsden the purpose of the project was intended as a way of discovering deeper more subtle feelings around being ourselves.

The weekend was spent in St Margaret's Bay, just outside Dover, the local village hall and the lovely Pine Gardens where we spent some time with a labyrinth that had been designed in a carefully mown grassy area. The idea behind the programme was to make some gentle exploration into the feelings that emerge from getting into yoga postures and expressing those reflections using art.

We began the weekend in the village hall being taken through our paces with a mornings' session learning a sequence of yoga postures. Sarah Scotts' approach was gentle and supportive. Many people in the room had difficulties with movement and so the emphasis was on doing what you could without pain or discomfort. This was yoga with access in mind, adapted for people with impairments to join in at the level they could gain something from it.

At the same time as explaining the postures, Sarah encouraged the thirteen participants to think about how getting into the postures made you feel. Rachel came in at that point and got the class to take out the drawing equipment she had supplied. She demonstrated her approach to drawing; sitting so the arms and hands are free; adopting an expressive attitude to mark-making.

Both workshop leaders had clearly put a lot of thought into working together. Throughout the weekend there was something very fluid about how they took us between the yoga and the art. In many ways it reminded me of a sophisticated version of an exercise I remember from infant school - of painting to music. In fact, throughout the weekend of drawing what it felt like to be inside your own skin, I was taken back into childhood memories on several occasions.

Touching the ground with both hands and feet at the same time was somehow a humbling experience. We began with the cat and then moved on to the dog position - which involves moving your hands down onto the ground and raising the back in an arch. At every step, Sarah would encourage participants to adapt the movement to the limitations of their body. This wasn't about contorting your body into unnatural shapes, but about experiencing it in unfamiliar ways and discovering something new about yourself.

In the afternoon we went to a labyrinth in The Pines gardens - an area of grass cut into a series of paths, which lead out and around in spiral shapes which eventually lead back to the entrance. Walking the path was a meditative experience. I wrote that walking with no other aim aside from feeling the feet on the earth, takes you back into your breathe and is a reminder of the priorities in life. Slowing down I saw things I might not have otherwise noticed: a horsefly feeding on a decayed slug, a ladybird and a holly blue butterfly.

The second day we continued with another series of yoga postures. We were encouraged to write down reflections the positions invoked in us. I wrote that the dog position gave me that feeling of being about to leap into a void; the warrior position gave a feeling of assertion and confidence; the camel position gave me a sense of having a choice between reason and unreason; the bridge gave me a feeling of the foolishness / sanctity of everything. I wrote about childhood memories of a relationship with a pet rabbit, when in the cat stretch – and was delighted to realize later that it was also called the ‘hare’ position.

Drawing using charcoal, pencil and inks, added to the experience of reflection. I filled a beautiful concertina sketchbook with quickly made visceral images of the body adopting these poses. Rachel's guidance and encouragement gave us all another way into experiencing art-making as a form of meditation.

The weekend reminded me how important it is to find space in life for just 'being.' The 'doing' mind is so all-pervasive. We put constant pressure on ourselves to attend to things. Even leisure time is so often taken up with many kinds of passive 'doing' - watching, listening. Time spent stopping the mind from its persistent grasping is so very valuable. It helps to weedle out what are the real priorities aside from the apparent ones that take up so much energy.

In terms of learning something new, the weekend gave me an exciting approach to art-making in direct response to the body. Self-portraiture is an important part of my artistic practice and this gave me a new string to my bow – a way of reflecting on the body, using art, in a meaningful and powerful way.

I think all the participants gained something valuable from the weekend. There was a lot of enthusiastic interaction between everyone taking part. Everyone worked very hard on what could have been a difficult and potentially upsetting experience. And it was great to meet people from other disability groups in the region who I’d heard about but not met before. Skillnet also supported a disabled person to come and experience the weekend by taking photographs, adding another layer to the experience. Above all, Being Me Being was a lot of fun, primarily because of the supportive and encouraging approach the workshop leaders adopted.

I will add an image from my sketchbook later, thanks.

Comments

Tuesday 31st May, 2011

Camilla Brueton

Hi Colin,

thank you for sharing your experience of the Being Me Being weekend- it sounds like a fascinating approach to making work, and considering the relationship between physicality and artistic expression. Please do post up some images from your sketchbook- it would be great to see them.

Camilla

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