‘ESCAPE’ – SUMMER 2023
September 11, 2023:
Over the summer we asked you to show us how you ‘escape’. It’s been a real journey of discovery as your individual interpretations of that word and its meaning have yielded some truly mind-blowing creative works.
What’s abundantly clear though is that we ALL have a form of escape. Our everyday lives throw up so many necessities, and challenges, yet so often our minds are at their best when we allow them to wander, and to express themselves. Maybe ‘escape’ isn’t even the right word, as it implies running away from reality, when perhaps we are at our most ‘real’ when we are expressing ourselves and finding peace and well-being.
This month, as summer has unexpectedly and belatedly burst into life just when we were starting to pull out the jumpers and coats from the wardrobe, I took myself down to the Marine Lake at Clevedon, for an evening ‘cooling-off’ swim and a few photos. This one, taken as the last of the day’s sun was bidding goodbye, is my favourite.
Watch this space for a brand new theme coming soon!
– David Mitchell, RF Create.
Love these entries from the Chichester RF ‘Craft & Natter’ Group;
1) A drawing with a great, simple message!
2) Pebble painting!
August 19, 2023:
Your different interpretations on the word ‘escape’ have been truly fascinating; it seems we all have our own unique take on what that word means to us, and more importantly how we achieve it.
Kate Madden sent us this incredible piece of art (right) and described the meaning behind it. “I was thinking about how liberation is sometimes as difficult to experience as it is to achieve. Even though the central figure has removed her cloth, she still feels the need to cover her breasts – she’s not yet comfortable with her freedom although we can hope she soon will be. And the other figure sits slumped with a bitter expression, basically breaking the fourth wall, but turning her back on the unconstrained woman behind her, unwilling to follow suit.”
Kate was born in the UK but grew up mainly in apartheid South Africa. “Freedom is something that has always been on my mind not just in terms of race, but of gender – it remains a very sexist country. I never intended to be more left-wing and independent than the rest of my family; it is something that happened when I wasn’t looking. Sometimes it is very uncomfortable. It makes me think of (admittedly apocryphal) stories of convicts who reoffend in order to return to the safe predictability of jail. Although I am not always at peace with myself, I could not consciously return to the cosy walls of societal expectation. ”
– David Mitchell, RF Create.
Love this comic creation by ‘T Rex’, South West
Destination
I want to run away
Travel and tour
Staying in one place is a bore
Different countries
One at a time
Creating all these memories in my mind
I’d love to go back and rewind
Sunny or raining
Snowing or fall
It won’t stop me from doing it all
Hop on a plane
And fly anywhere
Different destinations
Look cool and make them stare
I’m happy when I get there
Getting that tan
Or by the fireplace
My journey will never be a waste
Poems and image by Monica Dasilva, Morecambe
Escape
I want to escape
To fly away
Oh I wish I had
Better days
I think I’m lost
I need to be found
Everything is just going around and around
To be alone
So sad it seems
But I want my own company
I want out
Not thinking negatively
I want to be free
But them demons won’t let me
I can’t cope with this misery
I want to find an exit
Somewhere to go
Where I feel safe
To find my home
I looked to see if I had anything that captured the notion of escape. I came across these three poems, each of which capture a notion of escaping, but none of them are quite a vacation… 😊
Tickets Please
The pulse of light from passing towns,
through darkened windows,
disappears.
Her soul comes quietly to a halt.
Made of nothing, nothing can harm.
A Guard checks her ticket
and nods.
A tug and then the soft pull forwards –
onward her journey
into the night.
After a close relation had passed away, the struggle of her last days was replaced with a look of quiet serenity.
DOD, Wiltshire
Fire
His feet grown loose and small.
His kingdom all to ashes heaped about him
in his metal throne.
The walls appear to have taken a step back,
deserting him.
He nods beneath the hole
that grows above his head,
an iron chandelier,
an open throat
suspended by a dwindling chain of smoke.
He feels the draught between his toes like mice.
He coughs and nods and listens
to the ruby slippers
beneath his feet
promising, with their last breath,
over the rooftops
to take him home.
Prompted by the sound of hot coals settling in our old iron stove at home, and wondering what happened to that fierce heat as the fire burned itself out…
Wet Paint
A long-legged fly
alighting on the door
could not detach himself.
He looked around about himself
for purchase.
Nothing.
There was nothing for it.
He rolled around the cardinal points of each leg,
counting them off,
one by one.
His thinking, like his body, was becoming disjointed.
“I shall become a bird of paradise” he thought,
“a winged loaf!”
The legless compact pillow of himself
backpacking his way across the blue sky
on fevered wings to the Jetstream
and the strange creatures that live there,
airborne into eternity.
When I returned to painting after lunch
I found a little copse of crooked legs
as if a chemistry experiment had gone terribly wrong
and when the smoke cleared only their boots could be found.
A positive spin on what is clearly nothing more than a terrible misfortune for a daddy long legs.
August 1, 2023:
For me, when I hear the word ‘escape’, I think of quiet places, nature and the sea.
I’ve lived in cities and loved them. The hustle and bustle, something happening all the time, places open well into the wee hours of the morning. But every now and then it would become overwhelming, and I’d be drawn to a beach, a field, or a park. Somewhere peaceful, and natural.
Sometimes the need to escape comes not from my environment, but from my head. To get away from the noise of negative internal dialogue, anxiety, or life pressures. Invariably, the gentle lapping of waves, or the melody of birdsong, will be enough to take the edge off and return my mind to a calmer state.
Some people may not need to escape physically to another place; a simple activity can be enough to take the mind and body into a different space.
What does ‘escape’ mean to you, and how do you do it?
– David Mitchell, RF Create.
I took this picture on a rare visit to my childhood home town of Frinton-on-Sea, in Essex. A place of tranquility and a gentler pace which transported me back to simpler, more carefree times.
Some people find that artistic expression is their best form of escape. One well-known illustrator recently described the act of drawing as like being in a trance; “drawing is an escape from all the unnecessary things in life that get in the way of being free.”
Drawing is certainly the preferred form of escape for Matilda Marasco, from our RF Cambridgeshire Employment Service, who sent in these wonderful pictures.
Sara, a resident at Braeside in Weston-super-Mare, enjoys many different forms of creative escape including making jewellery and writing poetry!
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