A Personal Philosophy - On Love.

This is (also part of) the inaugural newsletter. It’s been an interesting one to write with questions of how deep, or how clean I want to write about my work and the psyche behind it all. After all, it’s Valentine’s day tomorrow and I don’t want to drop the mood. I’d like to pay homage to the self-navigation through how romance, love, and friendships have manifested in my work. Love exists within a plethora of connections in a multitude of ways. Your friends, your family, your lover, your work, your personal desire, your faith. They say love is an ongoing action, and it’s not always sweet nor smooth. But surely those trying moments are the causes in which make it all so much sweeter. So much of the love I have in this life directs itself inwards toward my art and the process which cradles it. So, here we have 3 pieces of work. None of these words have a singular visual representation to them yet, but possibly a cumulative body of work - The Longest Marriage series.

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FOR THE TWILIGHT 

Before the last third of the night
Before dawn breaks
Before we’re rushed into another day
All I would ask
Most irresponsibly
Hopelessly 
Like my irresponsible
Inner most selfish joy
Is that you consider 
Hurrying up the pace of time
Just for me you see
You’ve bought me to my knees
Take me to those moments
The ones you’ve written 
Where my destination 
Kisses sweeter 
Than the grit which sits 
In gaps between my teeth

And you would tell me a few things 
Bestow* some ancient wisdom
Encompassing all rhyme 
And of all eternal reason
We’re in the moment of joy
Where you rush this feeling 
You rush the meaning
Where nectar misses your lips 
And the making of ripe fruit
Taste so much sweeter
Be it even 
When you’re in your winter 

-

These days I don't ask for time to move quicker. I’m currently in between 2 understandings of my mind. One be it to ease into a flow and another where I plead with myself to not forget or let go. The flow is always outer body, logical, and a blank face. The ebb, or rather where the flow covers, is internal, sticky, and busy. 

A while ago I produced a body of work called ‘Letters to God' and they were written in a very similar vein. With impatience, like some stagnant, hungry energy. I'd written something a few weeks prior to now, ‘maybe I'm not ambitious, maybe I'm just hungry’. Maybe I keep busy, and my ambition is large because I constantly have ideas, and they constantly need to happen, to constantly keep my mind and the body it sits in, busy. Preoccupied. Distracted. Helping. And I'm aware a lot of my writing has this heaviness to it. After all, this is a personal philosophy. 

Letters to God, Soothe, 2020. Acrylic on canvas. 60 x 60cm

And maybe that's where the work lies. That's where the work is seen. Maybe I’m writing this out of my system, or rather working through writing and painting. And as part of accepting my own narrative, I've learned to embrace it, own it. But I can't help feeling like I throw this owned narrative into the wind only to let it fall out. 

Ironically I often wonder if my work lacks narrative. Could I be saying something else? Maybe that something else is lighter or happier, comes across less ‘dead of the night’ or painting more 'feeling' in. But is that ‘feeling’ a cover for the initial rawness I feel is far too heavy, even for myself. The thought often crosses my mind, maybe I should have let that painting end before it did. There's a James Blake song 'Don't Miss It' - and well, do we miss things because we fill a void which needn't be ‘a void’, isn’t a void; with a few other parts of duty, or in my case, ambition. Ambition which feeds the necessity, purpose even, of duty. Possibly the thing we were in search of, which holds its palms out and says ‘you’ve arrived where you should’, was that very ‘void’. To which where is my ownership of this personal philosophy? This narrative?

Daily Sugar, 2023. Acrylic and charcoal on muslin. 80 x 80cm. Available to purchase. A piece about my Dadu (dad’s mother).

Further, I’ve noticed, as romantic as I am, so much of my writing is more to do with the aforementioned; about hope, intention, a heavy hand of spirituality, and life. Romance plays into this, sure. What is life without some romanticism? I feel I speak about romance more than I do write or make work about it. I'm told by astrologers I embody 'Venus'. Right now, I can't help but feel like Mars. And Mars comes in faster with a heated chest covered in a hard iron shell. She comes with some destruction and willpower to be reinforced. The other day, I prayed to not forget the kind of love I wanted for myself, a very Venusian act. A few minutes later, I saw something about 'an everyday kind of love'. I shed a loud tear, I remembered a few things which apparently I had to keep. Now I can not forget these words. This is part of our true duty to ourselves. Don’t go past the void. Don’t cover up another painting. Don’t edit that poem. Here is a poem I did edit a little, for it was the accumulation of multiple discussions amongst close friends. I could not leave you without some romance, from this very romantic heart.

Happy Valentines Day my loves. One day I’ll think of a collective word to call you all.
For Valentines, this will remain. ‘My Loves’.

Shumaiya x

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FOR ALL LOVERS

And we speak about love 
And we speak about romance
And how we love to be romanced 
And what it means to be challenged
And build each other up
And the humour we want
And my dying wish
And the way we love to hold
And touch
And speak to one another
And how we, or I could do less 
With the grand gestures
And more of the everyday
Small, wonderful little things
Which keep me, or rather us, going
Because everyday is romance
When it’s full of laughter
And teasing
And grimace muttered under the collar 
And sharing the cake
Where you get the best bite
Each and every time
Where you want me to do better
And I want you to be the best
Where you walk with me until 
I’m at my best
And at the end of all days
We sit, we pray, side by side
I want to stare into those beautiful eyes
Before each kiss goodnight.

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And for whose waiting on it:

DAILY WHEAT

I’ve never tasted the core of wheat germ 
but I am told it’s sweeter than sugar cane. 
And I possibly watched an exchange on screen last eve, 
where a pair of lovers’ mouths intertwined in deep embrace. 
And I thought of what could have been 
and what is yet to come, 
for my days I am told are still fresh and young. 
And my tears taste bitter this morn, 
and yet I am told it’s good to dream.