نویسنده: AliBina

Reflections on my artist residency with the Berghof Foundation 2: How to begin?

My vision for this work is best described as bringing my art practice alongside conflict transformation in the belief that something positive can happen in that shared creative space.

I don’t claim to know what will happen or even how. My experience does convince me that opening up my painting practice offers opportunities for other people to feel energised and more vibrant. And that feels like something valuable to offer to people engaged in the vital, difficult work of conflict transformation and peace building, the people who do the field work and the people who produce resources for them.*

So there I was with these ideas offered to the Berghof Foundation and received with interest. How to proceed when the pandemic prevented me travelling?

Home studio

As an artist, paintings emerge out of my, almost daily, studio practice and are intrinsically connected to my lived experience: what I’m reflecting on, what I’m reading, who and what I’m seeing day by day. In my original vision, residency artwork would come out of taking that studio practice into dialogue with the new environment, responding creatively to the work of the organization through empathic engagement with its people, practices, and processes.

Instead I began this engagement online, watching interviews and documentaries on the website, attending a Zoom staff meeting where I introduced myself and the idea of the residency. To these ‘watchings’ I took along my sketchbook, capturing words and images that resonated for me, later adding colour as I reflected on what I’d heard and see. The tempo of a voice might prompt a line moving across the page. The emotion heard behind a related experience might prompt a colour.

I started a series of online ‘Studio Interludes’ with staff, inviting them to my studio to see what was in progress, talking about art and conflict transformation, and about other artists. (More on these in la later post.)

In the summer of my missed visit, BF sent me a copy of their 50th anniversary book that celebrates the work they have done since being founded in 1970. The carefully wrought texts and images in the book helped me immerse myself further in the work of the Foundation. And as I continued my studio practice at home in Scotland, I began to see how these very pages could be the beginning of residency artworks, as ‘found poems’.

Next time, the process of creating the found poems…

*It seems likely that art can be of benefit to conflicted parties during the processes of negotiating and building peace. I’m not yet in a position to claim that or to offer many strategies for doing it. I am collecting examples of such work.

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13/04/2025
Create Your Own Event or The 5 C’s Of Events | Will Donovan

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Will Donovan | Episode 1120

Will Donovan is the founder of Donovan Pottery, where storytelling and craft collide to create fantasy-inspired ceramics. Passionate about blending history, literature, and art, Will explores how pottery can bring stories to life. Will also runs Mathom House, a brand championing craft, community, and creative storytelling.

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How do you come up with the concept for your events? Do you do it alone or with a group and how do you brainstorm for them?

A couple of different ways we conceptualize events in collections is one I try to listen a lot. I pay attention to what is happening online and what people are interested in, participating in with social media, books, or stories. I am always paying attention to what I think people are interested in, in a big scheme of things and I try to create in a little way in the middle of that.

Once you have decided on your theme how do you go about planning your budget for something like this?

That’s a great question and I don’t know if I have a perfect answer for how to plan a budget for an event. What I probably should have in place is a better system for that. But I tend to err on the rule of cool and if I can I fund it.

The rule of cool. (laughter)

If it’s cool we will try to do it.

How many people do you bring into the planning process?

It’s a whole team endeavor wo we have at any one time between five and seven employees and staff that help us coordinate everything. And when we are coming up to an event it’s all hands on deck to make sure we have the pots, the food, the entertainment and the people who feel like they are a part of something that is happening and not disorganized chaos.

Do you have an agenda laid out for the day of the event?

We do. We schedule everything out as best we can with some flexibility to make sure that people coming to the event know what’s happening and when, but also the team can be prepared for anything that we need to make sure we are coordinating and doing.

How do you keep the event tight and in control?

There is always room for strange things to happen when you are trying to control something like an event that contains a lot of people. One of the ways we try to mitigate that is clear communication. Whether that is through the staff or through people that are attending. If people are coming we say, Hey, this is the scope of the event. Here are some important things that are happening at these times and we want to make sure that we are able to do them for you and that you are able to enjoy them. We tend to post a schedule of any moments that we want to make sure that people are aware of and that helps to make sure anyone in attendance can be a part of it.

On the day of the event how do you keep yourself involved with both the participants and “staff”, the event leaders?

I try to make myself as available as possible to attendees when it’s the day of the event because I know I am the front-facing person and the one people are most familiar with, so if they have questions or want to so hi, that’s mostly me. A lot of it is pre-delegation of making sure the team knows what’s happening, what their role is in it, and then mostly getting to enjoy the day.

What kind of evaluation do you do after the event about what could have been done better etc?

That’s a great question. We do two things. One is we make sure we publish and share the story of what happened either on social media or our newsletter list. And we invite feedback from all the attendees who went. And two, we have a debrief meeting with the team and we go over in the studio after the weekend is done and we just check in with each other and see what went well, what could have been better, and what we will improve on next time based on what we hear.

Book

Hundred Million Dollar Leads

The Alchemist

Contact

donovanpottery.com

Instagram: @donovanpottery

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13/04/2025
Creating found poems — Lynne Cameron Artworks

Given a page, a poem is found by letting words jump out to meet the eyes.

Then moving up and down the page, adding words or omitting them to let a new text take shape.

A different text that echoes with the original. Forged from metaphors. Allowing the richness of multiple and implied meanings.

Isolating the words out of the page and attending to the shape of the found poem.

Adding form and colour to re-connect the words into the new whole.

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13/04/2025
Art With Mr. E: My Odd Anniversary: Nashville Tornado 1998

Your first year of teaching is never “easy”. People have all kinds of stories from their beginnings in education. Some funny, some embarrassing, and some are just plain cringey.

My first year of teaching ended in disaster. This is not an exaggeration. There literally was a natural disaster. A tornado(s) went right through Nashville. Growing up in Appalachia in the middle of the forest, I had no idea a tornado could hit a city. It can. It did. I had left 15 min. before it hit, and had been in my classroom till six at night the whole week until the day of the tornado. Everyone thought I was still in there, and had the police dogs search my portable to see if I was still in there underneath the debris. I finished the year on a cart and working from the stage of the cafeteria. I learned a lot about myself & what a wonderful community can do in the face of adversity.

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13/04/2025
Maintaining a creative practice — Lynne Cameron Artworks
- how the physical space of the studio makes a difference, what’s on the walls, the materials, my tables and easel
- my use of images, sketchbooks, photos
- how my practice is about the intangible too: commitment, values, intention, life choices
- how rituals and routines support making art
- the daily practice of journal writing, reading, intuitive painting, and time in the studio space
- how the practice is nourished with gallery visits, books, talks
- influences on my work of other painters and philosophers
After reflecting on their own work, we discussed aspects of the physical space in which conflict transformation happens, the meeting rooms people sit in, the food offered. Every aspect incorporates a message to participants and contributes to the conditions in which dialogue happens.

We talked about visualising ideas to simplify and to adjust thinking.

And arising as perhaps most important was the question of how time and space for creative, non-linear thinking might be incorporated in the pressurised processes of conflict transformation and peace-building.

I labelled this idea ‘the imaginal space’ and next time, I’ll share our deeper dive into what happens there.
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13/04/2025
4th Grade Weaving

Here is a how-to video with tips/tricks/instructions!

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13/04/2025
A Year In And Going Fulltime | Aaron Raymond

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Aaron Raymond | Episode 1121

Aaron Raymond is a Canadian potter that started his pottery journey in March of 2024. He has learned everything so far from the school of YouTube and by watching videos on Instagram. Aaron’s work focuses on creating tiled designs on his work using both original designs or recreating tiled flooring from around the world. Aaron’s interest in handmade pottery began while living in Lisbon, Portugal, for 2 years from 2018 to 2020, and it was the intricate stone designs in the plazas and sidewalks of Lisbon that first transpired the idea of putting these designs onto clay.

SPONSORS

You can help support the show!

Number 1 brand in America for a reason. Skutt.com

For all your ceramic needs go to Georgies.com

What do you like about the life of a maker?

I think I like, especially with pottery, that it’s never the same thing day after day. Every day you have something new to do in the process. Whether you are throwing or attaching handles it’s never the same thing over and over again.

Do you feel like you were a creative person your whole life?

A little bit. One of my first jobs was with my family’s business, a stone yard. We were splitting granite to make different shapes for homes. It was hard work but in a sense creative work that I enjoyed.

How do you keep your ideas fresh?

With this style I am doing the possibilities are really endless. With the amount of different tile work that is out there in the world I don’t have any shortage of ideas of things I want to try.

Where do you see yourself in one year?

I have a feeling it will be pretty similar just because I’ve had so much good response and people do want mugs and I just can’t make them that fast. So I think for the next while it will be very similar.

What has become your favorite studio tool?

I don’t even know what it’s called but you have probably seen it. A pottery clamp.

Another Canadian potter made that I believe, right?

That’s right and I forget her name off the top of my head but it allows it to spin freely without the handle getting in the way. Which is great for glazing.

How would you define creativity?

Being able to put what you have in your mind to something, whether it be on the page, in a painting, on clay. Whatever comes to your mind to be able to put that out into the world.

Book

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

Contact

redactedceramics.com

Instagram: @redacted_ceramics

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13/04/2025
Creative thinking in the Imaginal Space — Lynne Cameron Artworks

In the middle week of the residency we dived a little deeper into the idea of the imaginal space and what can happen there. Taking space literally, we held an in-person Studio Interlude and set up a table with materials for art-making in the canteen. But the term imaginal space is powerful as a metaphor to characterise creative thinking in project teams and by individuals.

The imaginal space is where

•       creative thinking happens

•       we catch whispers of possibility

•       unknowing is welcomed

•       opposites are held in creative tension

•       sparks fly

•       intuition speaks

•       we attend / listen / look

•       multiple ways forward reveal themselves and enter into creative tension with what is

If you were to watch me painting in the studio, you would see me in a physical space with resources that support my artwork. You would also notice that the work is marked by pauses and ponderings, periods of sitting and looking, of walking around the room, of doodling on scraps of paper and writing in notebooks. What’s going on in these times is all of the above – I take the painting in progress into my own imaginal space in order to find the next steps. These come out of letting new possibilities arise and holding them in creative tension with what is already on the canvas.

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13/04/2025
Painting and other arts — Lynne Cameron Artworks

It was interesting for me throughout my stay to hear about the creative activities of Berghof staff and how creativity inhabits people’s lives. I came with my painting practice and poetry; other people had experience in, and love for other art forms: theatre, photography, music. In our conversation, we talked about the performative arts and how they might offer ways of working with others to reframe situations and emotions.

Painting can be performative and collaborative, but is often a more private and silent activity. It is non-verbal, and there’s a power, I find, in losing oneself in colour, line and form. While busy with the material and mixing of paint with water, the body occupied with brushing and looking, the mind is quietened for a time and returns to some kind of equilibrium. From the time ‘lost in painting’, we can emerge invigorated and somehow more balanced. The activity is, in itself, restorative; the end result of the painting serves as a reminder of process and is not required to be more than that.

An edited summary of our conversation can be found here

https://berghof-foundation.org/news/transformation-through-art-talk-with-lynne-cameron

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13/04/2025
Art With Mr. E: Mural in Mexico

This summer my family (all five of us) went to Mexico to work in an orphanage for a week. My main “job” was to paint a mural. Having seen pictures of grounds/facilities, I knew it was mostly white & grey. I’m a huge believer in art being transformative visually & emotionally. I had asked prior to going if that was something they would like. They said yes, but wanted some sketches to select from. One of which was done in the style of Mexican embroidery. This is the one they wanted. I was fine with it because the design was similar to Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Signs (my mom’s side is from a Pennsylvania Dutch background). I brought in few teenagers each day to help me with painting of the mural.

Our first day I took about four hours to draw out the mural. The wall is kind of stucco “ish”, and wasn’t the easiest to draw upon.

On the second day, I had three high school students from the Texas team helping me paint. We focused on the blues & greens. It was a real “learning” day for me. The surface was so bumpy, and had to figure out what way of painting worked best.

On the third day three of the youth from our church helped me start adding in the other colors. I also started seeing some “holes” in the design that needed “MORE”. I added more leaves, butterflies, hearts, and flowers to fill out the design more. I worked on that and doing some larger blended flowers. My amazing crew filled in with solid color.

On the last day, my daughter (blue shirt) & her best friend helped me out on the last day. One of the wall texture “issues” was pitting in the paint. Little white “holes” that would appear after the paint started to dry. So the girls helped me for about an hour, and then I spent the next 7 1/2 blending colors, adding details, adding highlights…and other assorted things.

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13/04/2025