Tag Archives: landscape

What does home mean to you?

What does home mean to you?

We wrote this in the middle of a large blank sheet of paper, expecting that there would be few if any people who might answer the question.

“Home is where the heart is’, I added on a sticky note, just for encouragement.

So began the end of the Home project that Jo Roberts and I have been working on for some months. To draw it to a conclusion we had decided (Jo’s idea) to offer to talk about what we had been doing and display the work that had been created along the way. This was very new territory for me… a sort of road show where the talk and discussion took centre stage, and the “art” was just the backdrop.

Jo planned to talk about how her childhood home eventually became a house, and her ‘grown-up’ house turned into a home – something that involved a real life pilgrimage. We put up the work that we had produced, and failed miserably to take a decent photo!

I ‘d realised that I had been drawn to this project because I was already working on related themes, so some of the display featured completed works. There were a number questions I was asking myself and the audience: The acrylic paintings in the “leaving” series visually asked ‘what have we lost?’The grey landscape that stirred up very conflicting responses was in part about searching – ‘what are we looking for?’One response to this question – warmth and companionship, presented itself in the ‘woodburner’ series of sketches and prints: Another – stillness and that which lies within – found its way into the linoprints. Finally, ‘what do we fail to see’ was illustrated by sketches from my recent ‘urban sketching’ course in Coventry – more about that later!

All these questions, in various guises, come up again and again in any long term psychotherapy.They are fundamental recurring themes in the attempt to make sense of our lives and those around us.

Amazingly, over thirty people turned up. …some at the Althorpe Studios in Leamington, and some at Rugby Art Gallery.. and we explored a fascinating range of topics. People shared their experiences of feeling at home, whether in houses or landscapes or with loved ones, and touched upon moving memories. We discussed our attachments to places, people and things, intrusions and invasions, domestic objects, and cars!

We thought about how emotional security has become entwined with the physical home, the cultural and historical baggage around home ownership and the changing patterns brought about by the financial downturn. I particularly enjoyed the opportunity and the challenge to think more about the cultural, socioeconomic, political and historical context for the identification of house with home.

I came away with the big sheet of paper, now covered in sticky notes. Home means ….

“ where my partner is”

“deciduous woodlands”

“inside”

“rural England”

“where all the family come together”

“woodlands”

“somewhere I feel comfortable”

‘my safe haven where people I love live”

‘my stability, a power base and ultimate comfort and joy”

‘a half forgotten place far away in time and life’

“memories, emotions, investment of love”

‘security, warmth, love, safety”

“a yearning to close the door”

and finally

“comfort, security, and a place to grow beetroots”….

These are some of Jo’s works – more on her website.

Less is more – or could be.

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Painting is not something I am comfortable with, so this term’s project to produce a landscape has not been easy. Having to work on something over a period of weeks is another challenge – when it comes to paint I have an even shorter concentration span than usual. Of course, like most things that challenge us, it has produced some unexpected and interesting results.

I started with an imaginary landscape called ‘The Dreamboat’ that had an estuary, promontories, two boats, and maybe a light house. It is still ‘The Dreamboat’, but this is what it is currently looking like. The light house was first to go, followed by one boat. Then some rocks appeared in the foreground, and the other boat vanished. Now the rocks have gone too. I’ve painted the sea over and over again, gradually discovering that I can reinvent the scene almost endlessly as I try to convey a mood or atmosphere. The subtleties of tone become increasingly significant as the features are painted out.

Less is more even when painting, I have discovered. Gradually taking away the obvious landmarks and recognisable features opens up another way of communicating. It makes me think about silence. In psychotherapy, silence is significant, and even noisier in group therapy than in individual work. I must have spent a lot of hours sitting in groups where no-one is speaking. We look around, gaze the floor, stare at the ceiling, glance at the clock and examine each other’s shoes. Read a few episodes of The Wednesday Group and you will see the importance of footwear in group psychotherapy!

At some point someone (probably me) asks what is happening in the silence and we might struggle to put the thoughts we have been having into words. Sometimes it is the tone of the silence that is important. How does it feel, what sort of atmosphere, what does it convey? Then we are into the same territory as landscape painting, I think. Often we end up talking about an image – someone will try to describe how they have experienced the silence in visual imagery, and we share our reactions to this imaginary scene or landscape.

How do you convey the subtleties of experience in words or images? We are not all poets or painters, and words can be clumsy and crude, just as images too can be clichéd and lifeless. Taking away the easy phrases or formulaic images might leave us with a seemingly empty canvas or silent space. It might, however, spark the realisation that under the surface of life there is more going on than we thought.

Psychotherapy and writing fiction.

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Somehow if I go away I do far more drawing. The Peak District looked stunning with the hills streaked in snow, although my attempts to draw the sweeping landscapes were just that – attempts! But I did like this one of my friend’s front garden. Now, back home in a familiar landscape, writing has taken over. At the same time as the next episode of the Wednesday Group is taking shape in my mind, I am busy thinking about the links between psychotherapy and fiction writing.

The Wednesday Group involves creating members of a therapy group and exploring their lives and interactions, as well as those of group therapists. The context of the fiction obviously connects with my working life as a group psychotherapist but I wonder whether, if I was writing a completely different story, it would be all that different.

It is a cliché that in the process of creating a fictitious character they begin to come to life. …. but they do. Writer and characters begin to develop a relationship, and the writer discovers more through giving them time and attention. They reveal themselves, or that’s how it seems to me. When I first wrote about Stevie, the main character, I had a very sketchy idea of who she was. She gradually lets me see different aspects, tells me more about herself, and even acts out in front of my eyes. In many ways it is like getting to know a client; being patient, not jumping to conclusions, working hard to get a sense of what it feels like to be them, trying to see the world through their eyes.

Trying to see the world through another person’s eyes, and being able to hold onto our own vision is for me one of the central aspects of psychotherapy. What I understand about human development, attachment, psychodynamic patterns, thoughts and feelings, embodiment – the assortment of accrued information or even wisdom that I gave gained – this all has to be integrated with a concentrated attempt to sense how it is to be the other.

That is what happens in the writing too. I am trying to get a feel for the characters, looking at the world from their perspective, not mine. Of course, these are all people who live in my head or on a computer screen – rationally I can’t divorce them from my own experiences and perspectives. But it is the magic of creativity that liberates them from those confines and sets them free to be themselves. Then if I want to get to really encounter them, I can’t assume that I already know and understand them. There is always more to be discovered, just as there is more to the people in our lives and to us as well. And as for that maidenhair fern I have been trying to draw, there is obviously far more to get to know there too.

Chris