Dean Reddick's cluster of wasp galls are now nestling amongst climbing stems in the sensory garden in Bury St Edmunds' Abbey Gardens. Each gall contains a message. Polished up perversions. Acorns awry, these nugget vessels contain secrets. I've looked her up, you know, the culprit (the hero?) who moves in; redecorates it as her nursery. This wasp. Its life is the most extraordinary story involving, time, tactics and co-operation. She doesn't rush. Other species are involved as well as the mighty oak's offspring and two years pass before her goal is achieved. But she perseveres and follows the plan nature devised for her. Quietly infiltrating, quietly recruiting, quietly growing in strength. Biding her time. Lynn Whitehead Dean Reddick is an artist and an art therapist. He uses a range of media to make sculptures and drawings, often based on his fascination with birds and trees. He enjoys working collaboratively and is a regular exhibitor at Walthamstow's E17 Art Trail as well as being a co-founder member of the artist cooperative CollectConnect. See www.deanreddick.blogspot.co.uk Lynn Whitehead studied at Bretton Hall, and she has worked extensively as an actress/singer in regional theatres, on national and international tours, and at the Edinburgh Festival - with some forays into television and more into radio, which she loves. She has a wealth of experience writing for and running community theatre and singing classes across all ages and abilities. She also works as a storyteller with RojoArt and has written her first solo show which is about an 18th Century Midwife.
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This Sunday an angel (?) alighted in a cool spot at the cathedral in Bury St Edmunds - with temperatures reaching 30 degrees who can blame him. Simon Brewster's miniature sculpture has elicited two quite different responses from writers Natalie Low and Phil Barrett. The dissenters’ prayer Lord, Let me remember, first, that you desire us to question and it is never wrong to disagree. You are not pleased when we meekly accept and choke on our doubts. You are pleased when we examine all sides in coolness and rationality. To be the advocatus diaboli, to question truth and lies with equal fervour, is honourable and essential. Fear must never stop me challenging what is wrong, or questioning what is unclear. Let me embrace my part in squabbles and stand-offs, however big or small. It may be my fate as a dissenter to be hanged or feted, And I may grieve that the strongest argument is not always the one best supported by the facts. Give me the strength to hold to the higher purpose of finding a more robust, universal truth. I may feel out of step, but everyone in step on a bridge will destroy it, and themselves. Let me keep a part of difference in my heart, and remember that you put it there. Amen Natalie Low ![]() Icarus on Liquorice Here am I, sitting on top of the world, sitting on top of a coal black, oil black world. I guess I could just wing it – an Icarus on Liquorice – after all it takes all sorts to make a world. I’ve grown wings, graceful, natural, like curved and curling feathers or leaves, of starched fabric. Unlike Icarus they weren’t cobbled together from paper, wax and string – (cobbled the unfortunate word). I’ve got purpose, a mission, sitting here waiting, ready to be born again. Not a mid-life crisis; but a new present; like a butterfly, this is my moment to become the me I know I am. But I’m not taking any chances as I sit here, an angel of my own making. I’m my own idea of myself, sensibly attired – perhaps I have already become what I am. Waiting here on this black cloud, a tub of liquorice, perhaps a little smug – I feel comfortable about this flying thing. I’ve got all the gear, (Oh God, am I turning into a ventriloquist’s dummy?) bought from a Biggles and Ginger outfitters, via correspondence, of course. Kept ever since in the dressing-up box I call a wardrobe under the bed, waiting all these years for the right moment for an outing. Well, I’m well and truly ‘outed’ now, flying by the seat of my pants, but carefully. Yet these wings are the result of inspiration not perspiration – part organic, part mission – to give a gentle dusting to the ceiling of the world. Phil Barrett Simon Brewster has an MA in Fine Art from Central St Martins College of Art & Design. He exhibits widely, including solo shows at W3 Gallery, Exposure Gallery, Pitzhanger Manor and the Royal Institute in London. This year he has exhibited in Thought Atlas and Cabinet at Espacio Gallery in London. See www.simonbrewsterart.com and Instagram simonbrewster99
Natalie Low enjoys putting words on paper and believes that everyone has a book of some sort inside them. She has published two chapbooks, Dementia (2015) and School Run (2017). She is a regular contributor to CollectConnect exhibitions, both as a writer and artist/maker. See Instagram nat.low Phil Barrett taught art for 27 years, then retired to his home county of Norfolk where he concentrates on writing. He teaches creative writing, in schools and libraries across North Norfolk. He has won prizes and commendations in national competitions, and has been published in anthologies including In Protest: 150 poems for Human Rights (2013), Word Aid Anthologies Did I Tell You? (2010), and Not Only The Dark (2011), the Ink, Sweat and Tears webzine, and Poems in the Waiting Room in 2016 and 2019. In January 2017 he published a book of poems, Writing Me, about growing-up. Alison Carlier's piece has found an appropriate home on a window sill at the top end of Guildhall Street. As I write this I’m thinking about Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk in Memphis, Tennessee. I’m driving down to New Orleans (the Ipswich of Louisiana) tomorrow and I’ve just been reading something Martin Luther King said: that the real opponents of equality, the real defenders of hate and bigotry, are not the racist right but moderate whites ‘who prefer order to justice’. I wonder what he’d make of our big-small British fears here, now? And I wonder how he would pick his way through the swamps of ‘identity’ we find ourselves negotiating, dodging tweeted bullets and tube-carriage abuse as we go?
They want us to be divided into ‘Remoaners’ or ‘Brexshiteers’, to feel one thing or the other, to render the other side unhuman, because they benefit if we do. The narrow, twisted little haters benefit. The clever, clean, privileged liberals benefit. The rest of us are left feeling a kind of resigned despair and try to close our eyes while they loot all the hope from our flooded hearts. I think somewhere, deep down, we all know the truth: the truth that we each - every single one of us - have Brexity bits and Remainy bits. And that we each have a whole host of bigotries and fears and creepy-crawly darknesses, but just don’t want to admit it. And when they give us a Rubik’s cube and tell us we can easily solve it if only we saw it for the simple child’s game it really is, we believe them... I nearly voted for Brexit. I nearly voted for Brexit because the EU is undemocratic and unjust, because it sadistically assaulted the Greek people, because it wilfully punished refugees, because it solidifies a fake-liberal, destructive capitalism which benefits - of course! - the few... and because Coca-Cola (oh yes!) sponsored the EU Presidency. I nearly voted for Brexit because I mistrust those with power, because I mistrust the Clintons as much as I mistrust the Trumps, because I mistrust The Guardian as much as the Express... and because I mistrust the BBC as much as Sky. I nearly voted for Brexit because the middle-classes didn’t want it, because Crouch End really didn’t want it at all, because I think I probably became a sort-of Socialist as a kid because I envied and admired and wanted to hurt my Mail-reading, sweet and distant Dad... and, I admit, because it’s fun to throw everything up into the air and see where it lands: order, followed by chaos, followed by rebirth. I didn’t vote for Brexit in the end. Jo Cox was murdered and I realised I just couldn’t do it: and that, if I’m honest, was about as thoughtful and considered as I got as I walked into the booth. So. Which is the true ‘democratic’ option now, three years on? I’ve no idea. I just know if we don’t acknowledge the devil in ourselves, the Christ in ourselves, the nurse in ourselves, the patient in ourselves, the refugee in ourselves, the border guard in ourselves, the Farage in ourselves, the Jean-Claude Juncker in ourselves... we’re done for. This isn’t really another plea for unity. It is instead, I think, a plea for us to recognise and value our own individual disunities, to try to love our own order and disorder, our own justices and injustices, for us to celebrate them and to mock them, to let uncertainty seduce us, have its way with us, spill all over us. A desire for order, for certainty is the real enemy of resistance: three years on from my/your act of emotional cross-in-boxing, I’m sure of that. Kevin Acott Alison Carlier studied fine art at Surrey Institute of Art & Design and has an MA in Drawing from Wimbledon College of Arts. She went on to win the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2014, the first entry for a sound piece. She has exhibited widely, including at Fratton Festival of Light, Portsmouth; Netpark, Southend on Sea; Aspex, Portsmouth; National Gallery, London. She was awarded the Alexandra Reinhardt Residency and Commission in 2016. Kevin Acott is a writer, lecturer, whiskey lover, and Spurs sufferer. He’s a sort of left libertarian/sort of anarchist who feels strangely attracted to French chansons, Greenland and Joseph Conrad as he gets older. His own acts of resistance have included wearing socks with ‘Tuesday’ on them on a Thursday and ordering coffee before the starter. A dodgy looking sculpture by Alban Low has been left at the top end of Abbeygate Street today. drug stub doggy bag suck it up suck it in dollar god tobacco king snow queen Sue Burge Alban Low is involved in many creative projects including album artwork, publishing chapbooks, making films, maps, conceptual exhibitions, live performance and good old drawing. He is artist-in-residence at the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Kingston University and St George's University of London. Low spends his evenings in the jazz clubs of London where he captures the exhilaration of live performances in his sketchbook. This year he is working on a walking project about London Musicians from the 1920s-1940s. In 2018 he spent a week at grove with Kevin Acott where they published two chapbooks. See http://albanlow.com
Sue Burge is a North Norfolk based poet and freelance tutor in creative writing and film studies. Her first collection In the Kingdom of Shadows was published in 2018 alongside her debut pamphlet Lumiere. For more information go to www.sueburge.uk This morning an innocuous plastic canister appeared on rough ground in St Andrews Street South. Inside Julia Manheim's text reads Resist with Love in the Mist. Sow these seeds on barren ground, water them. Refill this container with seeds and leave it for someone else. Love in a Mist
Amy enters ahead of Ryan. She’s holding a small plastic container. Amy: What's in it then? Ryan: Seeds. Amy: That's not much of a proposal thing. Ryan: Well it's, like, about the future, innit. They're only little dots now, but they will be flowers. Amy: I don't get it. Why can't I have a diamond ring like other people? You're not even on one knee. Ryan: I didn't want to do the same as other people. I wanted to be a bit, y'know, quirky. Bit...different. Amy: This is certainly bloody quirky. How can I show this to the girls at work? Ryan: See, you plant them, and next year, about when we're...our... y'know, our wedding date, they'll all be lovely blue flowers. Amy: Fuckin' hell, Ryan. I don't get you. Ryan: No... (he lets out a wistful sigh). They stare at each other for a while both occasionally looking at the little plastic pot. Amy: Can't I have a ring as well? Ryan: No. Amy: Just a cheap one? Ryan: No. There's a long pause Amy: In the garden? Plant them in the garden? He puts his arm around her - exeunt together. Lynn Whitehead Julia Manheim's work has encompassed contemporary jewellery, public art projects, sculpture, installation and video. As grove resident artist in July this year, Julia walked through Bury St Edmunds and the discarded objects that she found took on a new life in a beautiful installation. See www.quay2c.com/index.php/m2/detail/julia_manheim1 Lynn Whitehead studied at Bretton Hall, and she has worked extensively as an actress/singer in regional theatres, on national and international tours, and at the Edinburgh Festival - with some forays into television and more into radio, which she loves. She has a wealth of experience writing for and running community theatre and singing classes across all ages and abilities. She also works as a storyteller with RojoArt and has written her first solo show which is about an 18th Century Midwife. |
Barbara DouganI am an artist and the curator for grove and groving. This blog is groving online, and records the artworks placed on the streets of Bury St Edmunds along with responses to the work by commissioned writers. Archives
September 2023
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