Image :Landscape of the Moon's First Quarter (1943)  by Paul Nash. The Birmingham Museum.

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Hi! 

September is nearly over and the seasons are starting to change. Autumn can be a beautiful time of year as the leaves on the trees turn to yellows, reds and browns, a last burst of colour before the sparseness of winter. Taking inspiration from the season this month's newsletter is themed around CHANGE.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, "The only constant is change." 

At times change can feel unsettling, often it means a venture into the new or unfamiliar. Trying things differently or in ways we've never done before can be challenging but in turn rewarding: leading us to build resilience and gain confidence in our capacity to deal with new situations, people, places and activities.

Sometimes change can be accompanied by a sense of letting go, loss or grief, working through this can take time, self compassion, and sometimes the support of a certified professional might be needed. Peer support groups can also be a great help. Having a kind, supportive network where it's possible to talk with others who have shared or had similar experiences to our own can help us to feel less alone with our problems, and give us the strength to get through difficult transition periods in our life, such as the death of a family member or friend, the end of a relationship, loss of a job, or loss of future dreams we might have had.

Change offers opportunities for learning and growth, it takes courage to try alternative ways of doing and thinking. Knowing that change is possible can give us hope, it's a freeing idea and a great catalyst for action. Not all changes are dramatic or overnight events, changes can happen without us even noticing. Significant changes can come about with small and incremental steps. We are constantly developing and adapting to changes in our life and the world around us. Autumn reminds us that nothing is permanent, that life is cyclical and evolving, that although the trees are shedding there leaves they are essentially making room for new life to grow. 

Below in the READ, WATCH, LISTEN section you'll find artists whose work deals with the subject of change in a variety or ways, from using art in a personally transformative way, to artists addressing climate change, and political and social change. You'll also find this month's interactive activity: 'Changing Landscapes', we look forward to seeing your artwork!

Wishing everyone well until next month.

Take care and stay cosy. 

ACTIVITIES & RESOURCES

For this month's activity we ask you to respond to the theme 'Changing Landscapes' in whatever medium you might like, for example photography, writing, poetry, drawing, painting, collage. Email an image of your work to harriettritton@waslerarts.co.uk and we'll add it to a group gallery on the website. Submissions can be added to the gallery under an anonymous title. Please include in your email a statement consent to show your work online.

Here are some different ways you could explore the theme 'Changing Landscapes' :

Or you can print out this adult colouring sheet of Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889-1890), copy or alter the colours of the landscape. 

READ, WATCH, LISTEN

Artist's & Change

Artist's using art in personally transformative ways

JO SPENCE

Putting Myself In The Picture

Film made by Ian Potts for BBC TV's famous arts series - Arena. It's about the iconoclastic photographer Jo Spence and her battle with cancer. It's also about the way she uses her camera, as a diary, a form of expression, an investigators tool, and most importantly a therapeutic process.

NAN GOLDIN

Interview with Nan Goldin discussing her seminal work  

The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.

"Comprising almost 700 snapshot-like portraits sequenced against an evocative music soundtrack, Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a deeply personal narrative, formed out of the artist’s own experiences around Boston, New York, Berlin, and elsewhere in the late 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. Titled after a song in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, Goldin’s Ballad is itself a kind of downtown opera; its protagonists—including the artist herself—are captured in intimate moments of love and loss. They experience ecstasy and pain through sex and drug use; they revel at dance clubs and bond with their children at home; and they suffer from domestic violence and the ravages of AIDS. “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is the diary I let people read,” Goldin wrote. “The diary is my form of control over my life. It allows me to obsessively record every detail. It enables me to remember.” MOMA

Artist's whose work is socially and politically engaged: changing perspectives.

AMY ROSA

Amy Rosa is an award-winning artist based in Scotland. She makes live art, intimate performance, large scale sculptural installations, writing and photographic work about her experience of the world as a Disabled woman living with multiple chronic illnesses including Fibromyalgia and complex PTSD and speaks on panels on topics such as disability, class and living with multiple barriers.

HELEN CAMMOCK

Art is Transformation

The artist discussing her work for the Open University.

Helen Cammock works across film, photography, print, text and performance. She produces works stemming from a deeply involved research process that explore the complexities of social histories. Central to her practice is the voice: the uncovering of marginalized voices within history, the question of who speaks on behalf of whom and on what terms, as well as how her own voice reflects in different ways on the stories explored in her work.

Artist's Responding to Climate Change

Artsy online article

10 Artists Tackling Climate Change in Their Work 

Olafur Eliasson, Mary Mattingly, John Akomfrah, Agnes Denes, Tomás Saraceno, Allison Janae Hamilton, Edward Burtynsky, Mel Chin, David Buckland, Cai Guo-Qiang

SELF-CARE QUOTE OF THE MONTH