My Dad is dying slowly. As my Mum fell over a wall and died immediately, this slow dying I am not so sure about. How long will it take? I ask the carers at the hospice, and they tell me tales of weeks and months and minutes. All is possible. I feel a rock in my solar plexus, like I am waiting for something to happen. I want to throw up and yet have no tears.
I went to visit my Dad. He had shrunk. He became one of those shrunken heads on an equally skinny body. He had asked not to be seen, said he didn’t want us, his family, to experience his failing body and stumbling mind, and then he changed his mind. I am not sure what I feel about him changing his mind. I now know what death looks like and I wish I didn’t.
When my Mum died I became psychotic. I asked my bad next door neighbours who were up watching the football if they would take me to hospital. They said no and looked at me as if I was mad, which I was. I take lithium and that was just not enough. I eventually got to see a psychiatrist, I am not sure I would these days, who gave me a sleeping pill/antipsychotic which was like a cosh. A massive thug of a thing that made me walk round in circles in the morning, wondering which direction was best. Knowing none worked without my Mum.
The night after my Mum died I dreamt I was on a ski lift with my Mum (unlikely) and I turned to her and said: “Who died, Mum, you or Dad”.
I visited my Dad the week of my Mum’s death and asked if I could have a lie down, my sleep was non existent. He asked how long it would take me to get over my Mum’s death, ‘honestly’, and I dreamt that if I didn’t take a breath, mum would come back.
Of course I realise these two deaths of such key people in my life are conflated, tied together with velvet ribbon, part of a whole. I have tried hard not to pre-mourn my dad’s death as I don’t want to open that hole of madness that kept me on nasty meds for three months after my Mum died. I know it is not the same. This slow eking out of life, my dad slowly shrinking before my eyes, is not the same as the clunk and sudden disappearance of a vital force who lived around the corner from me and had my kids to stay every weekend and died falling over a wall. No, these are two different feelings, two different deaths and yet velcored together.
Talking with friends about the myriad of experiences of how death appears and how loved ones disappeared. Some were there, holding a hand, seeing the life force disappear out of an opened window. Some were not. The talk feels good, hearing stories, knowing I won’t know how it will be.
At the same time I have just finished shooting my short film looking at grief and ritual, and whether ritual can somehow help with the process of mourning.
It is the first time I have written a script with two people, obviously women, talking to each other. To see my protagonists Sabrena Osei-Tutu, Jemima Imbeah and Charlotte Randle talking these words that had been floating around in my head, then captured on a page. Seeing these beautiful, thoughtful actors remembering perfectly these words and being the characters I created was a truly wonderful experience.
And working with a crew, all ten of us working towards the goal of making over 100 shots work in three days. Miraculous really. The footage shines despite the midges in Wales. My DOP, Jay Wylie, with Ukrainian lenses and patience, caught it all. It is true, the crew seems like a family, a bit of infighting, a sense of all for one and one for all and a dedication from each person that blew me away.
I want a sound man and a focus puller and a runner in my life forever. My producer can produce my life from now on and my AD, who is now editing my film, is my hero.
Being a director taught me to stick with my vision, listen to others; and ideally always make sure you are staying somewhere beautiful with good food. Our location was heavenly, thanks Max @ Gyfyng Smallholding.
I would recommend reading Judith Weston’s book: Directing Actors, which should be for parents and anyone dealing with others. Learnt, not necessarily absorbed: Don’t read people’s lines, create a safe space where failure can be possible, don’t say what emotion should be portrayed or how intense, and mostly get everyone listening to each other.
I worried that Ana Mendieta’s exhibition of her fragile, brave, momentary work would be made clinical, fitted precisely into rooms and cabinets that don’t hold her essence but just capture a performance conjured up by her.
The videos make me happy, they are so considered and messy and leave room for error. She pours ox blood over her naked body and rolls around in feathers. The dark liquid becomes light and fluffy. She turns from a woman into a kind of swan creature.
Her work uses elemental fire, mud, turf and sand to mould her body into the landscape and uses photography, sculpture, gunpowder, drawing on leaves to connect art to nature.
There are so many of her series of photographs that I love. Her cutting the beard of a man to make herself a beard. Mendieta threw ox blood on the ground and surreptitiously took photographs of people’s reactions to a possible violent incident. She is playful, thoughtful and determined.
There were murmurings during the evening. The general consensus, loudly whispered, seemed to be that her premature death at 36, after falling from an open window, was due to her husband, Carl Andre
I listened to this podcast a while about the intrigue and discomfort around Mendieta’s death. Death of an Artist gives a good case for Andre’s guilt and how he was never successfully prosecuted.
This is a significant and groundbreaking show of a dynamic, prolific artist at her peak.
Another brilliant show. I took my godson and his girlfriend as a 21st-birthday outing. I am lucky to have a dear friend who works at TPG and gave us an impromptu tour of this show. She said that the main way of showing these photographers’ work was to create books. These are on display so you can see how a gallery becomes a publication and the power of the printed page.
The gallery text is wonderful and tells you about each of the women photographers in a poignant way. Eiko Yamazawa was born in 1899. Her vibrant colour abstract photographs seem like a glossy Patrick Heron with a simple specific take on colour. Mari Katayama (b. 1987) contrasts with her body centre stage in her created world. Her decision to have her legs amputated informs her work, she carves out installations which make her body visible.
I got back from making my film and my youngest suggested we see this at the BFI. Sometimes a film hits the spot. It was beautifully filmed using a long lens, allowing the children to develop and seem so at ease with the camera. It made me aware that having time would be a joy, after filming so much so quickly.
It is the story seen from the point of view of a younger sister and her relationship with her troubled brother. It is light and also brutal. You are lulled into a false sense of security, slow shots of the Mum and daughter making potato cakes, playing outside with water, and then the turbulence of a troubled older son rumbles in. He puts his hand through a window, and damages himself whilst damaging the family.
If you can see this beautiful, quietly devastating Canadian/Hungarian film, do. It will be cathartic and enthralling.
Worth watching her related short Still Processing 2020 A box of photographs awakens lost moments.
Siblings Unpicked with Anita and Stephen Mangan BBC Radio 4
I quite liked Siblings Unpicked. Stephen Mangan as the precious eldest irritated me. They have good people looking at how siblings relate including Philippa Perry, and it all seems obviously true. No 1 wants to break free, show off, No 2 gets squashed, No 3 the rebel with lots to prove. Is there any truth to theories about birth order? Find out.
Bits from the garden that despite the heat keep me sane
Eva Rothschild at The Fruit Market, Edinburgh til 11 October 2026
Ranti Bam: Sacred Groves at South London Gallery til 23 August 2026
The Dagenham Agate by Ruth Evans - Each layer of the agate was laid by one of 187 local community members at Barking and Dagenham College, matching the 187 women who went on strike, and symbolising the power of collective action. Commissioned by Up Projects.
Now installed near the original picket line on Chequers Lane, the works celebrate the women whose actions led to the Equal Pay Act (1970) and recognition of their skills.
From afar
Gabriel Orozco - Public Nature
Public Art Fund on JCDECAUX BUS SHELTERS - New York City, Boston, Chicago til 6th September
A hero of mine, one of my favourites is his garden at South London Gallery. This new photographic work is a reflection of how nature and the built environment shape one another. A poetic reflection on contemporary cities as evolving environments available for all. I love it really is in view.
The Very Good and the Very Bad on Climate - The New York Times
I was feeling such climate-change anxiety, I wanted to hear an ‘opinion’. New York Times journalist Ezra Klein and Bill McKibben, the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies and author of Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, chatted solarpunk aesthetics and agrivoltaics (growing things under solar panels).
The discussion was upbeat, depressing and varied. In cities all over Pakistan solar panels brought across the border from China have been installed, reducing appalling pollution, and sodium is replacing lithium in batteries. Australia now makes so much electricity from the sun and the wind they can give it away from from noon until 3pm (Australia is also digging up minerals and shipping them with little regard to China). California’s renewable energy generated in the last three years is the same as building 12 nuclear power plants and advances in green technology are significant.
It is interesting to hear a bit of background, how President Carter installed solar panels on the roof of the White House and Reagan pulled them down and pulled money from the federal budget to research into alternative energy possibilities. Where might we have been…
This is an American point of view. While Trump says stuff like: “Wind doesn’t work, let me tell you, it is ruining our fields and valleys and is killing our birds…” and a green agenda is not part of left-wing rhetoric, we have so far to go and so little time. I am not less worried, maybe now marginally misinformed. Yes it is good that China can produce cars for 20k. Are the bits they use to make those cars wisely sourced?
So enough of two men talking I needed the expertise of two wise women.
Listen here: Instagram Live hosted by the brilliant Deborah Roberts with Kesha Bruce
This was the best most encouraging discussion for anyone being an artist. I love the way Roberts brings people into her space and talks about the art world in an honest, uncomplicated way.
Top Tips:
Research residencies and find out about access to art. They mentioned Vermont Studio Centre which changed my life and my art practice.
Internet as a tool not a measuring stick.
They both described building a career before the internet and discussed how you deal with artistic envy and legacy building.
Breaks in the art world don’t happen often. Don’t wait for someone to give you one, make it yourself
Be brave enough to fail
40 shitty paintings for 1 good one
Art has to be nourishing
Write your own press release become a part of the gallery, a partnership
Gallery won’t save you
No one will take over the business bit of it all
Thoughts on the sweetness of doing nothing and how to not do a show. Taking research time
How to write an artist statement. Read your statement out loud. It does matter
Best advice since How to Enter the Art World by Hettie Judah, drawings by me
Although I believe in the sweetness of doing nothing, as Roberts above suggests, and yes processing any discomfort is good. I also know that listening, looking, and thinking beyond my navel helps. I haven’t cooked recently I prefer to shop for carton gazpacho served with finely cut up, hard-boiled eggs, finely cut cucumber and crisp croutons. Little steps.
Keep taking those little creative steps or as we are obsessed in our household with Rocky Horror Picture Show .
Jemima/MW
Postscript: My Dad died yesterday and as in the musical A Chorus Line, our favourite, I am feeling Nothing. I suppose I’m figuring it out.
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