Yum! Stuff that’s provoking + inspiring me (June 2025)

Attending their exhibition in Amsterdam, I was astounded to see how rich Banksy’s creative career has been … graffiti, drawings, paintings, prints using various different print techniques, sculptures, huge public installations, street art in war zones, documentaries … The diversity and skill across so many different mediums is astounding. The clarity of their voice - regardless of the medium of expression - is a wonder to witness, and I found their commitment to using art for social activism inspiring.

Having started out as a Social Worker, I've always loved social activism in art, and I thought that's the kind of art I'd make. This thought was actually one of the things that held me back from committing to my art at first, because I wasn't making that kind of art! 

I pondered this again after the Banksy exhibition and then I started listening to poet, Ross Gay's wonderful audiobook, Inciting Joy, and wondered if he was yet another poet I must have had a conversation with! Because Inciting Joy begins with an essay on why noticing, savoring, and creating joy and delight is social activism. Ha!

Inciting Joy - and later, The Book of Delights and The Book of (More) Delights - have felt like the poetry answer to my Delight Practice. And they've been such wonderful company in my studio and on my walks this month. I love how I can feel how open and sensitive Gay is from his voice and rhythm and breathing. And I love how I can feel that opening and sensitizing me. 

Together with this wholehearted conversation about connection and community between Trevor Noah and Esther Perel, the strong through-line theme of connection and belonging in Gay's essays has been wonderfully provocative  and relevant as I've been piecing together fragments of memory, imagination, grief, and hope on canvas for my Topophilia series.

I took this photo on an evening walk in our local park this week. I still love it so much that there’s water everywhere… so the sky patterns above us are mirrored at ground level too. Like having sky above and below and all around us. Perhaps this unconsciously influenced me to integrate sky into the land spaces in my Topophilia series?!