Access it not our priority

Written for Slamalamadingdong, September 2020

Hello. I was just wondering if you’re going to livestream this event?

Hi, is there any way to attend virtually?

Will this be recorded and available afterwards?

Just wondering if I can Zoom in?

Can I? Will you? Is there any way to?

It’s not just me.

Four walls and an abdomen on fire. An acre of dust and trees and a highway they’ve forgotten. Brain fog on top of shaky hands and leaking eyes. An unsteady ferry and someone else’s money. Skin kept on the edges and time paused and rewound, paused and rewound, paused and rewound, paused and rewound, paused and rewound.

You’re just finally catching up. This screen has been our home for years.

Catching collaborations in the cracks. Sending love hearts and insufficient GIFS. I’ve been made of screen dreams and clocking up hours on

Zoom

Google hang-outs

Discord

Slack

Facebook

Insta

Skype

And I’ve been there in every event listing asking – can I? will you? Is there any way to?

But

Face to face is better

Face to face is better

Face to face is better

So I just can’t attend.

Twenty-twenty slides into our hands. Sickness and wealth and a one hundred year echo on a fresh new plate. Around me they’re toppling like dominoes into one or the other:

Zoom, Google-hang outs, Mattermost, Facetime, Mighty networks, rediscovering those conference calls.

You’re on mute. Everyone laughs but I don’t laugh because I’ve been on mute for years asking

Can I? will you? Is there any way to?

Face to face is better.

Face to face is better.

Face to face is better.

Better than me, better than you. Better than dreams made out of silicone screens. Better than time twisting itself into knots and trying to pick up where we left off.

I want to reach my hands through. I want to touch you.

But I can’t and I don’t. And this is better than nothing. Better

than goodbye. Better than never saying hi. You’re sick of it?

Can I? Will you? Is there any way to?

Ten thousand hours to be an expert. I’ve had a rural postcode for more than ten thousand days. How much of an expert does that make me?

Face to face is better.

Face to face is better.

Face to face is better.

Better.

Face to face is better.

For who?

For

You.

Envelope(d)

I made a stop motion animation for a uni assignment last month (October 2016).

500 or so individual pages with hand drawn images in black texta.

I passed the assignment, so yay on that front.

And now I have 500ish sheets of paper that I am giving another life to.

I’m recycling them into snail mail as a rolling project of connection, hello and sharing for anyone who wants in.

So if you’d like a letter/poem/something else sent to you or someone you know, just email me with the address details and who you’d like it addressed to. Put ‘Envelope(d)’ as the subject line.

pressurelands AT me DOT com

Or fill out the contact form below.

x

Name(required)

Email(required)

Adddress(required)

Special requests(required)

Submit

Δ

Save

A Caring Portrait – 2015

Four artists. Ten carers.

 

Many stories. One exhibition.

 

 

 

Weight I’m trying to hold for you/

a gift I’m trying to save for you/

these words I try to tame for you//

poem by @lylyee

 

 

A Caring Portrait was a micro community arts and cultural development project bringing together individuals with a caring role as a collaborating partner with professional artists. Together the artists and participants created fantasy portraits, which celebrate and share the diversity and strength of what lays beneath the exterior of individuals in a caring role. The project was commissioned by Carer Support and proudly supported by the Australian Government HACC (Home and Community Care) Program.

 

As an artist and maker and as a person I’m particularly fascinated by the secret dreams everyone has for themselves and how these dreams influence our daily lives and stories. And the tension between who we are inside and who we sometimes need to be for others which is especially relevant when you have a caring role. And so with A Caring Portrait I really hoped that the project could be an invitation for the participating carers to share their stories and hopes with us and that in some small way the end product would celebrate and document the diversity and strength of the amazing carers that are part of the Carer Support community.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

(…)

 

“It reminded me of what is important and what I would like to achieve for myself,” she said.

 

By shifting the focus from her family to herself, Danielle felt the process began to motivate her to think about areas of her life that she may have previously not been able to make time for.

 

“It was empowering,” Danielle said.

 

(…)

 

– Brett Williamson 891 ABC Adelaide (full article: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-01/mother-and-daughter-carers-empowered-by-face-painting-project/6512278)

 

 

 

My cake collection baked a fierce feminist/

I am she/

she is me/

I accept//

poem by @lylyee

 

 

L – R: Siobhan, Alysha, Vanessa, Brianna

*

A Caring Portrait

 

February to May 2015

 

Alysha Herrmann – Creative Producer and Poet (@lylyee)

 

Vanessa Kalderovskis –Body and Face Artist

 

Siobhan Fearon – Photographer

 

Brianna Obst – Assistant artist

 

Collaborating Carers:

Marissa Wilkinson

Jessica Scoble

Penelope Monk

Vanessa Kalderovskis

Danielle Crew

Jade Teigeler

Dianne Hill

Mark Woodhouse

Jacinta Woodhouse

Joshua Stokes

 

 

Thank you to all of the fantastic staff at Carer Support who supported this project and for their ongoing passion for the work they do of caring for carers.

 

In particular thank you to Carer Support staff Marg, Tina, Julie and Josh for initiating the project with Alysha and Vanessa and collaborating with the artists to see it come to life.

 

You can see the final exhibition of photography and poetry at the Southern Carer Support Centre, 241B Main South Road Morphett Vale during office hours.

 

Photographer Siobhan Fearon shared some beautiful blog thoughts into the process along the way, which you can find here: http://siobhanfearon.weebly.com/blog/category/acaringportrait

 

Another Elusive Maybe

“Amidst all the rabble about the true meaning of Fringe, I can tell you that this is it. Real art that pushes the boundaries – art that is completely different to anything you’ve experienced before.” Jen St Jack, Great Scott

 

Every show performed in a different lounge room. A one woman theatre experiment asking “How can we feel so alone surrounded by people who love us?”

 

“The sound of a baby crying

The sound of a kettle boiling

The sound of a dog howling

The sound of a closing door”

 

 

Another Elusive Maybe was a performance experiment presented as part of the Adelaide Fringe 2016. Each ‘show’ was presented in a different (real life) lounge-room for a maximum of 8 people per show. The performance incorporated poetry & soundscape (via silent disco headsets), live text message conversations (with each individual audience member) and expressing breast milk.

 

What does motherhood, sleep deprivation, breastfeeding and mummy worries have to say about how we all connect in a world overloaded with sorrow?

 

“Nine people – performer and audience – sit in a suburban lounge room. We are ostensibly together, hearing the same words and seeing and doing the same things. We are intimate, and yet, we are isolated.” – Jenn St Jack, Great Scott

 

“There are so many simple, yet sophisticated layers to this wonderfully human work providing deep food for thought about the issues Herrmann set out to explore and experiment on. You feel comforted by what you hear, because the delivery takes the sting out of the real struggle those words are dealing with, as much as you love the genuine warmth and joy there too. Equally, because of this, you feel at ease anonymously having a frank and honest discussion about some deep things. You are in a comforting place known to most, a lounge room.” – David O’Brien, The Barefoot Review

 

Anonymous audience feedback (via text message)

“A BIG WoW!!! Thankyou!!! Really made me think….and feel! x”

“Wow. I’m literally blown away by how you guys create art. Like what makes you think this is the way I want to perform this story!! Yes well job well done!!! I hope you feel proud to try and make your way through this fucked up beautiful world!!”

“I really enjoyed it and I think I talked to my partner about it longer than it went for. I read the whole leaflet afterwards. Even yesterday. And that’s the thing with art and with what you did, you don’t know how long it lasts or when it takes hold. (….) I like that you talked about what we (I) think about. (…) Thanks again, so much for the inspiration. You at least made a difference here.”

“How do you this with kids? It must nearly break you surely. I feel like crying right now. From inspiration and appreciation, sadness for what I’m not doing. (….) Thank you for sharing. I loved and appreciated it. Hugely.”

“Impressed with your ability to maintain mulit threads of convo. I keep forgetting to listen while typing/reading. Which in itself is interesting..”

“This (your performance) is the strangest combination of intimate yet distant, personal yet remote, familiar yet unusual. Fascinating.”

“Very tightly structured, rich, densely packed with poetic fantasy and reality.”

 

 

Another Elusive Maybe

By Alysha Herrmann & Ryan Morrison

Public season, Adelaide Fringe 2016

16 & 23rd February, 8th March

Various lounge rooms.

Another Elusive Maybe Program Zine PDF

Listen to the headset audio from AEM: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2q9aa1fwf80rmvo/Another%20Elusive%20Maybe%20%28Final%20Draft%29.mp3?dl=0

 

Interview with The Upside News, which sheds light on the impetus and ideas behind Another Elusive Maybe: https://theupsidenews.com/2016/02/11/interview-another-elusive-maybe-the-fringe-show-in-your-lounge-room/

Great Scott Review by Jen St Jack: http://greatscott.media/2016/03/09/another-elusive-maybe/

The Barefoot Review by David O’Brien:http://www.thebarefootreview.com.au/menu/theatre/119-2014-adelaide-reviews/1292-another-elusive-maybe.html

*

A gathering of sticks and stones #poetry #thedirtythirtychallenge #fire

 

A gathering of sticks and stones:

 

I see the strain in your hunched shoulders little love

Your crouched knees show me everything

Eye to eye we curl into each other

My fingers reach towards you

Flickering and clean

But you –

   Retreat.

 

*

 

Dirty Thirty Day 23 Prompt:

Write a poem from the perspective of a natural element ie. water, fire, earth etc., or a force of nature, for instance, a hurricane, earthquake, tornado etc.
The clincher: the poem gets shorter with each line.

 

The Dirty Thirty Challenge is one poem a day for the thirty days of April. Dirty Thirty prompts are from ‘The Dirty Thirty Challenge’ facebook group (admins). Poems published here are my own unless otherwise specified.

Light #poetry #lovestory #marriage #home

Light:

It spreads.
Inching it’s way across my smile. Across the lines around my mouth and the old tightness in my jaw. Curling into the moment of skin where my ears touch my face. Tickling its way up into my hair, ghost fingers of joy. Undeniable.
It spreads.
Whenever I look at you. Whenever you look at me.
It spreads.
In time. In space. In this.
It spreads.

 

*

 

Prompt – ‘freewrite friday”

Conjoin #oldflame #poetry #thedirtythirtychallenge

 

Conjoin:

 

Dear Him.

 

How many years now?

 

How many years have we folded into the secrets that time is made of?

 

My secrets.

Yours.

A bibliography of dreams untouched by truth. We seeded something though, you and I. In dark corners and deep dreams. In silliness and fire skin. In spiky grass and houses made of dust. In teenage legs and adult eyes. In too many truths and not enough sighs.

 

In windows that were too dirty to see through. I always stood looking out. Hands on hips. Words on lips.

 

And saw/

 

I made you into a troubadour. A perfect warrior poet. All muscles and skin and letting me – only me – in.

 

And

 

We seeded something, you and I. A poppy seed dream. An unlined seam. A sparkle in a stream. My feet cracked the banks and I looked down to see/

 

 

/I was losing me.

 

I don’t remember the last time.

 

The last time that I loved you.

 

But I remember the first.

 

Its skeletal remains a wind chime in my memory

Bones that scream and sing in the wind

Tones that make beauty taste like maybe

Love taste like I didn’t know how perfect I could be

Yesterday taste like salad without dressing

Today taste like tomorrow taught me how to roar

 

I stopped loving you. Because I started loving me.

 

Because that little seed of spinach made me taste a different song. A song that leads me on. And on. And on. And on.

 

It’s a song that tastes like grateful. A song with your son’s eyes. A song with my laugh.

 

How many years now?

 

How many more?

 

To find the peace I came for?

 

From Her.

 

*

Another Dirty Thirty poetry prompt:

Day Twenty One

Write a love letter to an old flame.
The catch? To make sure it doesn’t sink to a sea of sappiness, try to use 1 or more of the following word/phrases in the poem:
poppy seed, bibliography, troubadour, skeletal, spinach, conjoin

Adopted #thedirtythirty #poetrychallenge #poetry

 

Adopted

 

He is –

 

 

Murky breaths and midnight toenails

Perfect Tai Chi in between the walls

Headlight free and Sunday solid

He bends I told you so’s into spoons

 

 

                         – made in his mother’s image.

 

 

Silent in a father’s absence.

Light feet on cold floors

Old dreams starting new wars

Nothing in a name –

 

 

He’d like to ask. He doesn’t.

 

 

– but shame. Woven into brickwork clusters.

Filling in cardboard carpets and red flags.

A dented screen, a captured queen.

A ticking secret on the other end of an Instagram like.

 

 

He swallows.

He bends.

He –

 

 

                   – is.

 

 

*

Prompt: Free write Friday.

And then #thedirtythirty #poetrychallenge #micropoetry

Day 14 Dirty Thirty Prompt was to write a tiny poem.

 

“Your challenge is to experiment with brevity so much that it nearly destroys you.”

 

Micro poetry is my favourite form. #tinytwitterpoem (s) being my medium of choice.

Today’s poem:

 

*

 

Still falling.

 

*

 

 

Day Eleven. #thedirtythirty #poetrychallenge

 

The heel holds the world together.

Sweat stained upper lip.

Moustache dream.

 

Fingers made into mountains.

Uncurl today.

This, then.

 

Eyebrows pierced, hungry now.

For laughter,

joy.

 

Knit watercolour

Made new.

 

Swelled sound mouths drown

Now.

 

We sleep full.

 

We weep.

 

I.

 

*

 

Day 11 Dirty Thirty Prompt

Write a poem about the Deadly Sin you feel you’re guilty of most but without telling us what it is.

 

So guesses- which Deadly Sin am I most guilty of?