by Nicola Hancock | Nov 24, 2012
Fortnightly on a Wednesday at Courtyard Studios
My concertina books are an invaluable store of ongoing research; they inform me about my own creativity and are beautiful artefacts in themselves.
So…….would you enjoy coming to a Concertina Circle to work alongside others in a spirit of freedom and focus? Find out how you will fill a concertina with your own responses to endless possibility.
Come and do the Concertina!
Times: Either 3.30 – 5.30 pm or 7.30 – 9.30 pm
Dates: Jan 16th Jan 30th Feb13th Feb 27th Mar 13th
The concertina will be supplied (housed in a box with plenty of growing room) along with a file for resources and a cotton hold-all bag. Some materials also provided, but be prepared to ‘magpie’ treasures of your own, vessels to keep them safe in, and to bring your own favourite tools to work with.
Enquiries, and to book, please go to contact page
£80 for 5 sessions, payable upon booking.
by Nicola Hancock | Nov 24, 2012
Script of presentation at Art Natters on Sunday Nov 4th
Genesis: paintings in progress (6mx2m)
Sing: Welcome to my World
Welcome to my world Won’t you come on in
Miracles I guess Still happen now and then
Step into my heart Leave your cares behind
Welcome to my world Built with you in mind
Welcome! I shall begin by saying Grace:
For what we are about to receive, may we all suspend disbelief and be truly delighted! Amen
Please all stand to sing: All Things Bright and Beautiful
All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
The Lord God made them all
Each little flower that opens Each little bird that sings
He makes their glowing colours He paints their tiny wings
Please sit
When she finds she is with child, Mary says:
Let it be to me according to Thy word
No light shall I deny
She does not say..NO, thank you very much! Ok, but can we do it tomorrow? But I wanted a GIRL! Do I HAVE to call him Jesus!
Instead, in her grace, she says in the words of the Magnificat, or Mary’s song:
For He hath regarded the humility of his handmaiden
And He who is mighty, hath magnified me.
She willingly places herself into the hands of what will be; what is conceived within her and what is to be begotten of her. And in the offering of herself, she receives of her own capacity and potential. Mary, in her humility, is CERTAIN that she will be delivered of something beautiful and extraordinary, something beyond her current self. That is her faith. And she is carried onwards, in devotion, to the manifestation of what is real inside her.
Please all stand to sing: Daisies are our Silver
Daisies are our silver Buttercups our gold
This is all the treasure We can have or hold
Raindrops are our diamonds And the morning dew
While for shining sapphires We’ve the speedwell blue
These shall be our emeraldsLeaves so new and green
Roses make the reddest Rubies ever seen
Make us bright as silver Make us good as gold
Warm as summer roses Let our hearts unfold
Please sit
Like Mary, I am also a mother-to-be!
I am the mother-to-be of my paintings. I am heavy with painting. I am expecting, this very moment! I have absolute faith that this is so. So I continue, with commitment, until I arrive at the moment whence I am delivered of my faith.
The beauty and humility of Mary’s expression: Let it be to me according to Thy word. How can I make ready for my happy event? How can I nourish myself, and listen and attend to all that I feel will make the conditions best?
To this end, my painting practice is full of ceremony. Ceremony offers a space and time ready prepared. I am required to give of my devotion, commitment and discipline. I invite stillness and direct the light of my attention.
Revelation, the 12 paintings before Genesis arose out of a Ceremony of quite a traditional nature. The pristine stretched canvases were laid out, 6 at a time, and I administered to them by the placing of objects in resonance with their growing presence. This continued and continued until such time as tension in the deep silence of the canvases, pulled marks and colours out of my expectant self.
A more recent Ceremony has been my daily bike ride to and from Chichester with its rhythm and watchfulness of my human response to the earth, the sky, darkness and light, and my place within the universe.
And now my favourite ongoing Concertina Ceremony! These books bear witness to my devotional practice. They are of a format that allows me to sit and give attention to what I treasure. I ‘magpie’ items that hold potential and store them in little vessels. I equip myself with any tools I feel might assist in my attending. Everything is readily available, so I can work spontaneously and in innocence. The books fill with freely given manifestations of how I would conduct myself within the infinite multitude of circumstance.
full concertina books…….
Let it be to me according to thy Word. In a practice founded upon ceremony, I need have no fear as to how I shall create paintings; they will arrive unbidden. These Ceremonies are my preparation for possibility and the stirrings of immaculate conception.
A difference from Mary….my labour can take months! And throughout ALL this time, I am required to remain ever faithful to ALL that, through ceremony, has been infused with light. In a stance of willingness, I am called to do justice to that which is taking form and acquiring colour. I must make choice after choice, and stand by decision after decision with consistent clarity. And, slowly but surely Word is made Flesh, and I am begotten of new life.
Please all stand to sing: Morning has Broken
Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word
Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day
Please sit
Now to the 4 new paintings: Genesis.
First a brief history: they follow Revelation, and looking back at those 12 paintings now, I see they have given me my potential energy. I have received something along the lines of my accomplishment when I have cycled to the top of a long steep hill. The energy I have stored in the climb is now mine to use; I have coiled my spring, the chrysalis is ripe.
Revelation (12 x 0.5m x 2m)
Activity is packed into intense areas. The strong presence of space is the most powerful mark and holds the necessary room for expansion. Warriors preside over the tiny child, gods sit next to human, universal myth embraces my own personal story, embryonic unfolds through ancestral, local and global are one. In a world described by these polarities, the current of life is compelled to flow.
And in these new paintings, it does just that!
Genesis: now finished! (6mx2m)
By willingly participating in the Everyday Ceremony of living my own life, I am at the beginning of a world that is mine. With its earth and heaven, its darkness and light, its sunshine, storms and rainbows; it is here that I find my girl, my boy, my Venus and Mars, my child, my adult, my majesty, my humility …………..and my joy.
Please all stand to sing: Glad that I live am I
Glad that I live am I That the sky is blue
Glad for the country lanes And the fall of dew
After the sun, the rain After the rain the sun
This is the way of life Till the work be done
All that we need to do Be we low or high
Is to see that we grow Nearer the sky
Please remain standing
May Grace, that passeth all understanding, fill our hearts and minds. Amen
