Dwell Time Launch Programme

We excited to announce our launch programme 20th-22nd March for Penistone Art Week for Pensitone Art Week (16th – 24th March), International Day of Happiness (20th March) and World Poetry Day (21st March).

Featured artists: Amber Agha, Anna-Maria Amato, Teri Anderson, Mr Anon, Amelia Baron, Ben Barton, Chloe Belcher, Sue Bevan, Simon Bolton, Alice Bradshaw, Elise Broadway, Geoff Brokate (dir.), Spencer Brown, Emma Burleigh, Robert P. Clarke, Bob Clayden, Donna Coleman, Klara Cservenka, Paula de Sousa, Lita Doolan, Eddy Dreadnought, Oliver East, Roderick Huw Evans, Donald Falconer, Ben Gaffrey, Sue Gardiner, Vanessa Haley, Laura Harris, Andy Hollinghurst, Hannah Honeywill, Brian Horton, Janice Howard, Janina Karpinska, Saima Kaur, Brian Kielt, Mel Kirkham & Yasmin Baddley, Mary Lee-Slade, Alison Little, Nicolette Loizou, Make DO Theatre, Christopher Marsh, Nick Maynard, Patti Mckenna-Jones, Gill Melling, Nazanin Moradi, Cynthia Morrison, Diane Murphy, Ben NCM, Debbie Nicholson Wood, Henry Noyes, John O’Hare, Susan Plover, Laura Potts, Greg Przybyszewski, Andrew Pullan, Anak Rabanal (dir.), Bobbi Rae, Tania Robertson, Damian Robin, Katya Robin, Robert Roth, Amy Rowe, Robert P Ryan, Rachele Salvini, Rebecca Saunders, Jessica Russo Scherr, Julie Shackleton, Richard Shields, Lucy Simm, Marnie Simpson, Jackie Smith, Michael Szpakowski, Lenny Szrama, The Train Lady, Danny Verno Smith, Victor, Kate Walter, Brain Webster, Dan Weatherer, Emilia Wilson, Jon Wilkins. Curated by Alice Bradshaw, Vanessa Haley and Lenny Szrama in collaboration with the Penistone Line Partnership.

Full details here: https://dwelltimepress.wordpress.com/launch-programme/

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Emilia Wilson – Self Portrait II (2018)

Self Portrait II (2018)

I am someone who has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (as well as depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis) on account of being subjected to multiple traumatic instances stemming from early childhood and continuing into my adult life. The fact that my trauma started when I was just 2 years old makes me feel like I was never given a chance to become the real me. On account of my trauma, and because it started before I ever had the chance to truly establish a sense of self, the ideas of identity and belonging are often lost on me.

Part of my PTSD involves avoidance of places, people, and activities that are reminders of the trauma. As a result, over the last five years of my life, I have been constantly on the move – travelling from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Colombia to Dawson City, Yukon Territory. To put that into perspective, I have traveled the equivalent of crossing Europe 6 times). I have lived in both houses and tents; I have experienced homelessness. I have slept on beds and couches, in vans, abandoned buses and buildings, and under the night sky. The reality of such a tumultuous living arrangement, coupled with my PTSD diagnosis, is that the ideas of belonging and of community have become skewed to me.

With my PTSD, I also experience episodes of dissociation involving both depersonalization and derealization; I often feel as though I am drifting through time and space with high levels of anxiety and a sense of displacement. I lose attachment from my immediate surroundings, feeling both a loss of the sense of self and that the world is unreal. With dissociation, I feel divorced from my own personal self by sensing that my body sensations, feelings, emotions, behaviors etc.do not belong to me. I’ve had a difficult time feeling connected to the places I’ve been and the people I’ve met throughout my life. Even the most familiar of places and faces will often appear alien, bizarre, and surreal.

Moreover, I often ponder if the identity I hold now would be the same without my experiences of trauma and intrapersonal strain. I constantly am asking myself: Who am I? What does it mean to be a person? How does one identify with themselves and how does that identity fit in with its community? Is identity formed by belonging to a particular group, by performing a role in life, or by background and biology? Is one’s personal identity contingent and changeable? Similarly, is belonging simply calling somewhere home? If so, what happens if we are forced to move or are subject to a major change in our environment? Can one belong to a community if they don’t have a fixed address?

It is my intention to encourage discussion surrounding these topics in the arts, while overcoming the negative stereotypes that seem to loom over those with disabilities. I believe everyone should be given the chance to authentically exist and succeed in the world regardless of ability, age, gender, ethnicity, creed, sexual orientation, social status or economic status. I believe that it is important to foster the acceptance of those whose differences enhance our lives. Furthermore, the subject of mental health has been in the closet far too long. It is extremely important for people with mental health issues to be able to freely discuss their experiences without the shame and stigma that is too often accompanied by them. Speaking up about our lived experiences can make an incredible difference to the lives of a countless number of people – it can literally save lives.

As someone with PTSD, I have become enthralled with the theme and exploration of the philosophical concepts of identity and belonging – in both an interpersonal and intrapersonal context. Experimenting with the relationships between colours, lines and textures, I allow myself to be present in the moment by reflecting on my emotional and physical self. Each art work I create is a self-portrait in and of itself in that it is a visual display of my own state of mental health, gender identity and expression.

Dissociation 1 & 2

Abstract & Abstract 10

Danny Verno Smith

Vanessa Haley – Out of the Blue

I got angry again on Saturday

Out of the blue in self defence

After, I knew I had, though didn’t quite remember

It’s my shame

They blame it on the wine

Say I drink too much

Though these days I barely do

I got annoyed again then

Blame laid at the wrong feet

Because no matter how many times I tell them

I HAVE PTSD

They simply cannot see

How much its changed me.

I hide it way too well

Don’t talk in depth about this living hell

The rage, frustration and intrusive thoughts

Chewing me up inside

I cannot sleep, I cannot stop, there is no rest

I’m a natural born pacifist

Now filled with boiling rage

Debbie Nicholson Wood

My parents were lucky. They grew up in families who survived the ravages of Hitler.
They may have lost relatives (and some in the war before too) and their parents may have lost many of the things they’d worked for between the wars, but when things went wrong or were just a bit trying they had to quickly learn to ‘just get on with it’.

It’s probably true that communities were stronger then. You could pop next door for a cup of sugar and you could usually find a shoulder to cry on but you had to be ‘strong’ and you had to ‘look after your own’. I can’t imagine how tough it was for them, but I heard some stories. Like the time my Nan had to run for her life across a railway line with a pram and a couple of toddlers while under fire. Or the time my Grandad got blown off his bike by a bomb. (He survived with a broken arm but got back on his bike anyway.) And then there was the post war trauma that my poor mother suffered for years into adulthood because she grew up on the South Coast of England where the German invasion was expected any moment.

After the war there was little to go around. If you had a roof over your head and food in the cupboard you were doing alright. God forbid that you dared want or hope for more than that. My parents had grown up on rations, egg substitute and tinned carrots. Occasionally in my early days I dared to turn my nose up at some of the things they’d got used to: “Eugh, not tinned carrots!” “You don’t know how lucky you are my girl! When I was your age…..!”

Well I didn’t know did I?! I was growing up in the sixties. Mum and Dad had managed to get a mortgage on a brand new little house on a brand new housing estate. We had loads of hiding places on the half-built estate to muck about in from dawn till dusk. If we felt brave we would cross the road and go to the meadows and play in the stream. We had bikes and telephone boxes and ice cream vans and the Corona lorry. We had school dinners and a school nurse and a library in a van. We had a brand new school with massive playing fields to get lost in. We had a proper NHS and a local cottage hospital. I had my tonsils out there. I got ice cream every day. I didn’t know I was born.

In the 1980s I and my classmates had the chance of free further education. We weren’t going to have to leave school at 14, do an apprenticeship then go to night classes after a day’s work and do pub shifts at the weekends to pay for it all. If we passed our A Levels we were going to the brand new Polytechnic to get a degree! A degree! We could better ourselves; we could achieve even more. So, somehow without really trying, we became middle class teachers and electronic engineers. We landed decent jobs and bought our first flats.

Then in the 1990s we had our own kids. So we moved to our first house and farmed the babies out to their grandparents while we tried to hold down our ever increasing workloads. It turned out that it wasn’t possible to give my kids everything that I’d had when I were growing up. We still felt working class, but our kids had become middle class. They had stuff. They had daytime telly and Little Tykes and bouncy birthday castles. They had Pampers and Postman Pat and the Teletubbies. They had after school clubs and swimming lessons. But they couldn’t really play out in the streets with their mates from next door, or throw sticks at the dog down the road. They had to have play dates instead. Oh God, play dates! More ferrying about. In and out of their car seats stowed in the back of the executive Ford Sierra we worked so hard to pay for. My generation may have had it good but we just about burned ourselves out.

No wonder. All that pressure on high achieving grown ups who had learned as kids to ‘just get on with it’, suddenly finding that ‘just getting on with it’ doesn’t cut the mustard. We wanted more out of life. To be listened to.

And now I’m older, the kids have gone and tbh, I’m bloody tired. Everything seems worse when you’re tired. Stuff I stashed away, that I couldn’t talk about, sometimes rears right up like an angry, unbroken wild horse. I find myself at 55 years old raging with a fury that I can hardly express. The guilt and shame that I feel for daring to be angry at all are sometimes so overwhelming that I don’t know what to do with myself. Except to cry in the shower where no one hears and tell myself over and over: Be grateful for what you’ve got and remember how lucky you are. Because my girl, you’re a child of the sixties.

debbienicholsonwood.wordpress.com

Waiting Room & The Platform by Robert P. Clarke

Waiting Room

This is a temporary space
Where people pass through
They sit
They read
A magazine, book or check info
Of where they are going
The times of the trains
Glancing around at the unfamiliar faces
Theirs eyes looking down
Focussing on their own little world
Waiting for the train to come

There’s been a delay
A broken down engine
Everyone looks nervous
Will they meet their connection?
The silence is broken
With the timings announced
10 minutes late
then rising by minute

Passing words are exchanged
With a stranger
About the wait
About the time
A comment about the weather
And about their concerns
Whether they will make
Their destination in time

The walls are unforgiving
And don’t seem to care
About the predicament
These people now face
The train is delayed
The announcement repeats
But it’s now that time
And the train pulls in
The strangers depart
In their own different paths
Boarding the train
To leave the waiting room
Empty once more

The Platform

There are jubilant shouts of joy
As friends and family meet once more
Been a long time coming
The tears of Joy as the train pulls in
Waiting on the platform for loved ones

After the visit
Sad farewells
Waving goodbye
Sharing hugs and kisses

The train pulls off
It’ll be another year
Stay in contact they promise
by phone and more
Miss you lots x x
Until next time…

www.artroam.com

Janina Aza Karpinska