ONE OF MY KIND ISSUE ONE: FABRIC
Hana Tajima
Rachel Dadd
Hannah Habibi
Betsy Greer
Ceri May
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some of our kind printed: Ex Why Zed, Cambridge, UK www.exwhyzed.co.uk editor: Holly Meier
contributors
Issue One 2012 Front Cover Image credited to: (add C) OOMK Zine. If you wish to reproduce any artwork or writing from OOMK Zine please contact the relevant artist/s. For submissions, advertising and press queries please contact: Email: oomkzine@gmail.com Facebook: OOMK Zine Twitter: @oomkzine Web: www.oomk.net
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welcome
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contents ILLUSTRATION + 14 REENA MAKWANA
+ 15 ROSE NORDIN + 17 SABBA KHAN
+ 42 SIMONE RODNEY FOLI + 46 RAMA MASRI ZADA + 64 SOFIA NIAZI FABRIC + 10 HANNAH HABIBI + 23 RUQIA BEGUM
+ 18 CERI MAY
+ 24 RACHAEL DADD + 40 HANA TAJIMA WRITTEN WORDS
+ 20 BETSY GREER + 28 KATE ROLISON + 48 HOLLY MEIER + 52 TALHA AHSAN + 56 TOLU ADEBANJO PHOTOGRAPHY + 33 NAZMIN KHANOM & HUDDA KHAIREH MORE + 09 BATTLE SISTERS + 26 CHARLOTTE CULLEN + 32 NABILA CHOUDHURY + 54 SNORKUS + 60 SHAMILA SPAUL
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the oomks one of my kind is a highly visual, handcrafted smallpress publication. Our content largely pivots upon the imaginations, creativity and spirituality of women. Sofia, Sabba And Rose
sofia
illustrator + zine maker
sabba
illustrator + cat lover
rose
designer + illustrator
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fabric In our first issue we unpick the work of artists who work with fabric in inspiring ways. Their individual involvement, appreciation or struggle with the material gives us an insight into how women today incorporate fabric into their art and into their lives.
From the curtains that shut the world out to the bandages that help us heal, to the clothes that cover and protect us, we keep fabric close and always have. The fabric of society: that which holds it together. Strength and the ability to bind together are just two characteristics that we attribute to fabric. But fabric is more than that and has a powerful everyday presence much closer to home.
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A H a b e r d a s hery trail london IN THE HEART OF LONDON FIELDS’ BROADWAY JUST OFF MARYLEBONE HIGH STREET SITS A GORGEOUSLY LUSH SHOP CALLED VV ROULEAUX. This gem promises the most beautiful and exquisite trimmings, ribbons and laces one could possibly desire. Visit with a full purse and wide eyes as this place has much to offer for any kind of DIY project. WWW.VVROULEAUX.COM, 02072245179 JUST OFF MARYLEBONE STREET LANE WIU 2QD 102HIGH MARYLEBONE SITS A GORGEOUSLY LUSH CALLED JUSTSHOP OFF OFF MARYLEBONE HIGH STREET JUST MARYLEBONE HIGH STREET JUST OFF MARYLEBONE HIGH STREET VV ROULEAUX. SITS SITS A GORGEOUSLY LUSH SHOP CALLED A GORGEOUSLY LUSH SHOP CALLED A GORGEOUSLY LUSH SHOP CALLED This gem promises the most SITS beautiful VVand ROULEAUX. VV ROULEAUX. exquisite trimmings, ribbons laces oneVVtheROULEAUX. Thisand gem promises most beautiful and This gem promises the most beautiful This gem promises the most beautiful and and exquisite trimmings, ribbons and laces one could possibly desire. Visit with aexquisite full purse and ribbons trimmings, exquisite trimmings, ribbonsand andlaces laces one one couldmuch possibly desire. VisitVisit with awith fullaapurse andand could desire. full wide eyes as this place has topossibly offer for couldpossibly desire. Visitwith fullpurse purse and wide asasplace this totooffer eyes as this has has much to offer for for wideeyes eyes thisplace place hasmuch much offer for any kind of DIYwide project. any kind of DIY project. any kind of DIY project. any kind of DIY project. WWW.VVROULEAUX.COM, 02072245179 WWW.VVROULEAUX.COM, 02072245179 WWW.VVROULEAUX.COM, 02072245179 WWW.VVROULEAUX.COM, 02072245179 102 MARYLEBONE LANE WIU 1022QD MARYLEBONE LANE 102 MARYLEBONE LANE WIUWIU 2QD2QD
MARLEYBONE HIGH STREET W1 102 MARYLEBONE LANE WIU 2QD CITY OF WESTMINSTER
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COME TO EAST LONDON TO FIND A ROAD FULL OF COME GLITZY COLOURFUL INDIAN AND COME TO EAST LONDON TO FIND AAFRICAN ROAD EAST LONDON FIND A ROAD FULLFULL COME TOTO EAST LONDON TOTO FIND A ROAD FULL OF GLITZY COLOURFUL INDIAN AND AFRICAN FABRIC SHOPS AND A HISTORIC MARKET CALLED GLITZY COLOURFUL INDIAN AND AFRICAN OFOF GLITZY COLOURFUL INDIAN AND AFRICAN FABRIC SHOPS AMARKET. HISTORIC MARKET CALLED FABRIC SHOPS AND A HISTORIC MARKET CALLED QUEENS FABRIC SHOPS AND AAND HISTORIC MARKET CALLED QUEENS MARKET. QUEENS MARKET. MARKET. Within it you canQUEENS find some of the cheapest delightful Within it you can find some of the cheapest delightful Within it you can find some of the cheapest delightful Within you can some ofhas the cheapest DIY bitsitand bobsfindLondon to offer,delightful quite happily DIY bits and bobs London has to offer, quite happily DIYand bitsbobs and London bobs London has toquite offer, quite happily DIY bits has offer, happily leaving enough change fortosome glorious food! leaving enough change some glorious food! leaving enough change forglorious some glorious food! leaving enough change for for some food! QUEENS MARKET. E13. QUEENS MARKET. QUEENS MARKET. E13. QUEENS MARKET. E13.E13.
GREEN STREET
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Some of the handpicked jewels London has to offer for the DIY-Habdash artist. Lets get on with it and fuel the culture of craft!
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b a t t l e s i sters faces
Wistful photos of a seemingly long lost past, Battle Sisters hand embroider and stitch memories, forever encapsulating and framing in cotton and thread.
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modest ambition hannah habibi
Stitch. Stitch. Stitch. The patience, the precision, the delicacy. Stitch after stitch lulling you into a sleep-like state. The repetition, the carefulness, the endurance. Stitch. Stitch. Stitch. The mantras of the seamstress: “Keep your hands clean”; “Don’t pull too tight”; “Keep your threads short”. With each stitch, seemingly surrendering your free will in the service of the creation of a bigger picture. Stitch. Stitch. Occasionally a needle pricks your finger, you pause to suck the blood away then carry on.
This is the image of the submissive seamstress. There is something about needlework that seems to epitomise the so-called ‘virtues’ of womanhood. Throughout history and across the world, sewing, needlework, and embroidery have generally been the preserve of women. It conjures up visions of upper class women passing the time, middle class women with a ladylike occupation, and working class women weaving and sewing to
serve and survive. And it appears that even today we continue to see contemporary sewing in the same light: a modest ambition, acceptable and unthreatening. Work for women. Last year I started making a series of pieces involving all types of needlework: embroidery, appliqué, and quilting.
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Modest Ambition
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I am not sure exactly what drove me to the needle and thread, but it is having a profound effect on my understanding of what it means to be a female artist. My work has always had a throbbing feminist vein running through it and as a result it has been hard for some to accept. That, coupled with my portrayal of women in burqa and niqaab, has particularly challenged my audience and especially those men who believe that as a woman, I shouldn’t have an audience at all. It appears that to some people a female artist is an unpalatable thing! Easily dismissed by the industry and easily disliked by the public, the work of female artists rarely fascinates as much as their ‘shocking’ personal lives. How often do you hear male artists being critiqued with as much vitriol as Tracey Emin for her ‘attention seeking’ or Sam Taylor Wood for her relationship with a ‘toyboy’? When it boils down to it, as a female artist, you are seen as clamouring for attention and pandering to your ego, both particularly unbecoming for a woman. There is a hierarchy in art that is most definitely defined by the connotations of male/female, and embroidery comes very low down the ladder, if at all. As the art historian Rozika Parker explained
in her book The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery & The Making of the Feminine, “when women paint their work is categorized as homogeneously feminine – but it is acknowledged to be art. When women embroider, it is seen not as art, but entirely as the expression of femininity.”
As a result of its association with women and ‘the home’, sewing has never properly been accepted as a ‘real’ art form. It is a folk art, a handicraft, a homemaker’s skill. I exhibited my first two pieces of needlework last year and at the show a visiting curator told me that I needed to decide if I wanted to be an artist or an artisan. That was when I realised for myself the perceived inferiority of this ‘female’ medium as a mode of artistic expression. Perhaps that’s why those men who struggled to accept me as a painter are not so threatened by my embroidery. I am making pretty things, rugs, dresses, scarves, and there’s nothing threatening in that, right? Wrong. Despite its perceived inferiority embroidery has always been the predominant outlet for female expression, and in fact what looks like a humble sampler is really the rendering of an identity on cloth. This seems
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to be lost on many audiences who still suffuse embroidery with an idealised perception of female infantile sexuality. Within the sexual values of the Victorian climate, the seamstress embodied a seductive docility and virginity (virtues that are still prized in our century). What these male onlookers failed to understand was that the silence that surrounded the seamstress was not submission: instead, there sat a woman devoting herself to thinking for herself. One just has to look at the works of the late Louise de Bourgeois and more recently Tracey Emin to see that stitching has been used (and increasingly so) as a ‘weapon of resistance’ against gender constraints. Earlier this year I created a sewn piece titled Modest Ambition. It represented the way in which I felt certain people wanted me to tone myself down as an artist, and to conform, and fulfil an ideal as a woman. The act of creating this piece was destructive: I took items of homeware; a prayer mat, bedding and cushions, and either cut them up, obscured or rearranged them. With the reassembled pieces I created a wall hanging reading HOME SWEET HOME, the most common, most innocuous type of sentiment one might typically find on a cross stitch. The process itself, as well as the final piece of work, reflected the act of conformity and the moulding of the self into a palatable form.
It helped me come to terms with the fundamental truth that women simply must not, and cannot, define themselves by the pursuit of love, either as artists or as human beings. So, whilst the dismissive words of that curator ring in my ears, I will continue to stitch regardless of its acceptability as art. All modes of creativity, however society chooses to perceive their worth, cultivate independent thought and so have an innate power.
So for those men who don’t think I should be an artist: when I sew, you should still be outraged!
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r e e na m a kwana city in stitch
Reena Makwana is one of our favorite illustrators. Her hand-embroidered illustrations never fail to impress. Over the years she has produced a body of work that has been exhibited widely. Reena is not afraid to explore her personal interests; in a series called ‘Science Fiction Ladies’ she produced several illustrations of iconic women including Scully (The X-Files) and Ellen Ripley (Alien). The above illustration of a street scene was featured in the last issue of the poetry and illustration publication inc. zine.
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R O S E N ORDIN a-z
Here graphic artist Rose Nordin illustrates a sweet and sad farewell narrative to an animal friend.
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R O S E N ORDIN vampire babies
Using textured digital painting, monochrome characters are highlighted with a second layer of playful dashes of colour.
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s a b b a khan moon juicing
At one time, according to Sir George H. Darwin, the Moon was very close to the Earth. Then the tides gradually pushed her far away: the tides that the Moon herself causes in the Earth’s waters, where the Earth slowly loses energy.
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Ceri May wool and felt creations
The Beginnings In November 2010 I discovered the existence of a thing called a feltograph, which is basically using fuzzy felt to tell stories. I promptly decided to create my own feltograph and used it to tell the Mabinogion tale of Blodeuwedd at Mike West’s Camden School of Enlightenment. A few months later, I was at a dinner party talking about my felty stories and someone asked me if I made my own felt. I lied and said yes I did. To atone for the lie I decided I probably ought to learn how to felt. I bought some wool tops and bubble wrap (an essential felt making tool) and made my first small rectangle of felt. I was a liar no more.
The Drive
Initially, what really excited me was how easy and satisfying it was to master the basics of feltmaking. tOn my first ever felting adventure I remember making a little rectangle of felt from grey massam wool in about 15 minutes, having read a brief tutorial about it online. So yes, I really like the fact that you can make a beautiful thing
pretty quickly, but that also there are a range of techniques and methods you can try where you make a beautiful thing very slowly. My love of felting has also grown into a real love of and appreciation for wool and the process that it has to go through to become something useable. Wool is an incredible material, versatile and also very environmentally sound. I’m very interested in using fibres from local breeds of sheep and in processing fleeces myself. I find it very satisfying going from the raw grubby stuff straight off a sheep and transforming it into a character for a story.
The Inspiration There is a wonderful feltmaker called Ellie Langley, who lives on a small-holding in the Pennines. She makes beautiful, imaginative pieces (including a coffin and a wedding dress), using wool from her own flock of sheep. She has my dream life I think.
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What advice would you give to someone who wanted to get into making their own felt? Well, first I would congratulate them on their excellent choice of wool craft and then encourage them to just start playing and especially to experiment with blending colours (which can be done by hand or using carders), as that is really quite a lot of fun. Another thing I’d really encourage is for people to try using a variety of different kinds of wool, and to try and source these from local suppliers if possible. Look beyond Merino wool, it’s great for felting and widely available, but wools from native British breeds such as Bluefaced Leicester are also great to work with.
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Craftism B e t s y g reer In a nutshell, craftivism is a term that defines the intersection of “craft” and “activism.” Or, if you prefer, here’s the Twitter-sized definition: “Activism helps you be the change. Craft helps heal. Craftivism = making to change and heal, whether alone or with a group.” I wish it was that simple to explain to people in realtime, however, because most people get stuck on figuring out what the hell I just said, “Crafti-what? Craftivision? Craftism?” instead of figuring out what craftivism actually is. And what is it? Outside of that wee little definition?
Craftivism is caring about others. It’s about taking your crafty (and creative) skills and using them to better the lives of another. You can do so publically or anonymously, in a group or by yourself, at the bus stop or on your sofa, quietly or loudly. It’s a form of activism that defies the notion that activism
is something that needs to be confrontational or jarring. It’s a form of activism that Sarah Corbett of The Craftivist Collective and I decided was “activism for introverts” over lunch one day. It’s a form of activism that allows you to speak your mind about a cause/ need/injustice/illness without forcing people to pay attention to you. By making something and then donating it/hanging it up/giving it away you’re allowing people to form their own questions about the cause at hand; if they have more questions, they will come to you. As long as the tenets of that intersection speak to you, you’re a craftivist. I think that point is particularly important to note because it’s not about what you do or how you do it (that’s where your individual creativity comes in), but about why you do what you do. It’s about making craft and creativity the best and brightest it can be by enjoying the process of making, and caring that the outcome makes a difference.
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Some craftivists knit booties for premature infants, chemo caps for cancer patients or helmet liners for soldiers. Some craftivists yarnbomb their local park to make it more beautiful. Some craftivists make protest banners (a la The Craftivist Collective) and put them up on the high street. Some craftivists make scarves and leave them around town for the needy and/or homeless to find. Some craftivists make sock monkeys to give to kids who have no toys who are sick or in need of comfort (a la Operation Sock Monkey). And that’s just the short-list.
Craftivists are people who care about others and want to use their creative skills to make the lives of others better, whether the aim is to comfort them, make them think, make them smile or keep them warm. As for what I do that’s craftivist work personally? Over the years I’ve knitted items and donated them to charities, knitted squares for group blankets to be donated,even made items for loved ones that are going through rough times. I’ve also been making cross stitch pieces based on anti-war graffiti from around the world off and on for the past 7 years. I started this project as a way to show that war is something that people all over the world are against, that the voices of the people (via graffiti)are anti-war, differing from the voices of the few that start wars (politicians, governments, rogue factions). This work has been shown in books, in galleries, on web sites around the world. What I like about it is that it is very vocal about being against war, while not being confrontational. If people want to ask me about why I made the work, we can then engage in a conversation similar to one that might be had at a traditional marching, chanting protest, but with less yelling, more dialogue and more peace.
I like the subversion of the paradigm that occurs when people ask me about my work how it becomes a dialogue opened without my even having to open my mouth.
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b e t s y greer liberty
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R U k I A B EGUM collar sculptures
“My vision of pattern is that, it shouldn’t be left to look just nice, it should have an impact, leave us wondering into another world”. We couldn’t help but be fascinated by Rukia’s intriguing collar sculptures. A recent graduate from Central St Martins, Rukia’s practice centres on surface design, she is interested in the pattern, textures colours and their meaning. To produce her beautiful designs she uses a combination of traditional screen printed methods with CAD software.
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Rachael Dadd Stitched Illustration
How did you get started with stitched illustration? The first thing I made using the drawing technique on my sewing machine was a card for my friend - it was so tricky at first and looked really childlike, which was quite nice actually.
Can you tell us a bit about your process? At first I thoughtt I had to leave the sewing machine foot on and spin the fabric/paper 360 degrees to make a circle - that`s a very difficult method by the way! If you take the foot off the machine and drop the teeth (most machines have a function to do so and if they don`t you can manually unscrew the teeth from with in if you feel confident you won’t harm the machine). Then it`s very easy - the fabric/paper moves freely - it`s as if the pen (needle) stays still and instead you move
the paper or fabric. Useful tips: use a embroidery hoop; use an embroidery attachment for your machine you can.
What is it about stitching that you love? Well I actually love the freedom - it`s fast and sometimes things sew themselves - especially faces. I love the intensity of color you can get from thread, especially when coloring in areas.Â
Do you have a favorite fabric/ embroidery artist/why do you like their work? Darrel Morris. I worked for a textile art publishers and this artist’s work stood out to me for its honesty and humour and skill. He hand stitches memories, often uncomfortable ones.
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C H A R L O T T E CULLEN self-portrait in stitch
Charlotte runs the feminist Art Collective called Project Babe supporting creative women through events, exhibitions and zines. Her latest submissions based zine ‘wannabe’ is ‘A zine for the spice girls generation, critically discussing the social pressures of the ambiguous age when society expects you to be getting married while you just want to be left alone to glitterate your face and to try and discover who you are, what you want to be and how to be it’.
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S o f i a Niazi make a wish
Drawing inspiration from African and Asian batik textiles Sofia uses a resist technique to create her vibrant, narrative paintings.
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Stitching in the Bay Window Kate Rolison The pop-up exhibition was in aid of this year’s E17 Art Trail, a festival of arts in my hometown, Walthamstow. Everyone gets stuck in, from toddlers to professional artists to pensioners. Trail listings (including a map) can be picked up from libraries, pubs or community centres, so that the eager art obsessives of the ‘Stow can plan their routes (and get their fix!) Despite the three weeks that the Trail lasts, it’s very unlikely that anyone will make it to everything – there’s simply too much to take in! My little contribution was a collection of embroideries on antique doilies and handkerchiefs. The embroideries were a sort of “year’s retrospective”; a selection of what I had made in my last year at university, and of the few pieces I had made since graduating in June. Pieces from three different bodies of work were on display; embroideries from The Cure for Love, from On Being Soft, and from The Onion Cutters’ Club.
I selected a handful of embroideries from each project to exhibit in the Art Trail, and it wasn’t long before I had an audience! I’d exhibited in the previous year’s Trail, and was beginning to get more involved in the community, so I think people were quite curious to see what I would come up with. There were one or two evenings when I’d come home from work to find six or seven people standing in my front garden! This made it a much more direct way of exhibiting, and a very humbling one. Exhibiting in the Art Trail was a wonderful way to meet other artists, neighbours, and members of my community, and of getting myself out there. I would really recommend this opportunity to anyone who considers themselves creative. And if your area doesn’t already offer one, why not start a petition for your own arts festival?
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In early September, I transformed the front window of my parents’ house into an art gallery. Pearlized pins were pushed through cloth, the display board was man-handled into the window, and beverages were quaffed.
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The Lost Art of Sewing Sabba Khan
This article was meant to be about the death of British manufacturing. For some reason, I had thought Singer sewing machines were British-made. I was wrong! The first ever patented sewing machine was by a Brit (woo hoo!), but unfortunately Isaac Singer, the daddy of the Singer Manufacturing Company, was from the States. So I’m left to wonder- what led me to believe such a thing? Ah ha! I remember! Its that damned All Saints from Spitafields parading all those unused (probably now dysfunctional) Singer machines in their shop fronts and all up in my face! Yes that’s probably it! But either way, British or otherwise, the Singer Sewing Machine has made its historic mark in the home.
This impeccable icon of industry, symbol of manufactured beauty, resonates in many souls and minds. It promises the perfect stitch, the neatest thread alignment, the most well-oiled foot pedal. I’ve just bought one myself actually. It has the most intricate foot pedals I’ve ever seen. Things that I have no idea how to operate! I mean, I know how to use a sewing machine (have always had one in the family home), but the Singer’s extension foots are just a visual feast for the eye. And as I gorge on the manufactured delicacies, the intricately moulded steel plates, and shapely curves of each needle holder, I quickly realise that I am fast becoming one of those antique hoarders.
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Those 10am-on-a-Saturday-morning Antique Road Show hosts who sit there revelling in a bygone era, talking so passionately about the object in all hopes that they’ll transport themselves to that time and era when George II held banqueting feasts and drank from the very chalice they are holding now.
But wait! Why have we let the sewing machine become a symbol of antiquity? We still clothe ourselves, and we still wear stitched clothing, woven with cotton and tailored using patterns. So if clothing and the production of clothing has not changed, why have our perceptions of the machines that produce the clothing altered? Is it because that kind of industrial labour has now become redundant in the UK? Is it because China, India and Vietnam have become some of the biggest exporters of clothed goods, so that we, as a nation, no longer need to think about the production of clothing? Is it that far gone from our day to day that we can now easily purchase a sewing machine from the second hand shop at a fraction of the original price and keep it in our homes as a glorified object of antiquity? Or is it because the mass manufacturing market cultivated by large expansive companies as
seen in Edward Bertynsky’s film Manufactured Landscapes have reduced the symbol of clothing to a mere easily forged and easily discardable garment? Are we so far removed from the process of clothing our bodies that these notions just don’t seem important anymore? I really don’t know. I think of the ever increasing global population, and I think of all those bundles of cheap clothing I send off to charity every year, and I wonder whether there is a balance in all these things. Are some poor children in a third world country entirely reliant on my rejected clothing from H&M, or am I just being a spoilt brat continuously wanting to be on the latest cusp of cheap high street fashion, whilst also buying antique sewing machines in order to maintain a thread of history? I look back at my Singer sewing machine, the type that transforms from writing desk/ dining desk /work surface to HEY PRESTO amazing-sewing-machine-fun-times!
And I realise that all those beautiful foot pedals will probably go unused…as I will most likely be in H&M shopping for the latest trends next weekend.
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T r a ns i t o f Venus R a y B r a d b ur y . 1 920 to 2012 Simone Rodney-Foli Nabila Chowdhury
He wrote prolifically, madly.
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K u r d i s h kind A photographic journal of Hudda Khaireh and Nazmin Khanom’s travels in Syria.
Syria is home to many different ethnic, religious and migrant communities. Concentrated in the southern regions of Syria, one its largest ethnic minorities are the Kurds. Syria’s Kurds have long faced routine discrimination and harassment at the hands of the Assad regime. In the face of the escalating conflict and uncertainty in Syria we turn the clocks back to 2009 and take a glimpse into the rural life of one Kurdish family through the eyes of two students from London.
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Caravanserai Canning Town’s New Trading Post
1.An inn built around a large openair courtyard for accommodating caravans along trade routes, mainly in central and western Asia. 2.A large inn or hostelry. The Caravanserai; a community project in the heart of Newham, transforms a patch of left over land into a trading post for small upstarting businessess, as well as a respite for the locals. Materials have been salvaged from the construction of the nearby Olympic stadiums. Open daily, this exciting new experiment begins to redefine the traditional ‘market’, hosting language classes, skills workshops and night time gatherings. A continuously evolving site, it is a must see for anyone around East London.
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Stenciled Artwork at the front gates of the Canning Town Caravanserai
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Hana Tajima
Like hundreds of other women, I found Hana Tajima to be a stunning and inspiring visual embodiment of Islam. Personality, style, creativity and devotion are sewn together in the fabric of her garments and life story. As a fashion designer and convert to Islam, Tajima works to create stunning visual impact in her designs. She is an active supporter of DIY and craft and is currently working on a personal zine project. She is truly one of my kind.
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*****
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Simoné Rodney-Foli Illustrator A restless soul in a human body. Experimental I like to try everything because I never know what might come of it. Intuitive If I don’t trust my ‘gut instinct’ I usually regret it afterwards. Organized chaos I have to be organized enough to know what I’m aiming for but allow enough chaos in so that there’s always an element of surprise.
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What are the top five things that inspire you or your work? + Nature
+ Dreams
+ People
+ Reading
+ Music
What does the concept of faith mean to you? It’s almost like a crowd of people looking at something amazing, but you can’t see anything because you’re right at the back. You want to know what’s going on. People can tell you what they saw afterwards but it’s not the same as experiencing it for yourself.
Name your top five female heroes.
Unfortunately none that are real. Who do you look up to? I look up to anyone who has come from humble beginnings and has gone on to do something amazing, without forgetting the journey and the people who helped them along the way.
What is your favourite animal? I’ve always found that a difficult question to answer because every animal is special in its own way, so it’s difficult to choose. I guess I don’t have one!
What were your intentions behind the piece? As crazy as it may sound, my initial intention behind this piece was to make the most complex paper cut that I had ever attempted! Then as I began to work on the image I realised that I wanted both the medium and image to reflect the duality of nature itself - delicate/fragile, yet somehow robust/enduring. It was also important to somehow express how tranquil Richmond Park is.
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What does your work bring to the world?
A doorway into the inner workings of my mind. Describe the last time you felt delighted. When I was asked to contribute to One of My Kind.
What is the story behind your favourite possession? It was given to me by a friend’s mum when I was around the age of 9 or 10 because I always said that I couldn’t swim (I can but I’m not very strong). I think it was supposed to be light-hearted encouragement but I was more fascinated by the mechanics of how this automata worked. Every time I look at it I still am, and today I still maintain that I can’t swim.
What book would you recommend? Tell us about it. + The Raging Quiet by Sheryl Jordan It’s about two outsiders of a community, Marnie, who is a newcomer to the village, and Raven, deemed to be the village lunatic. Through their isolation they come together and form a new friendship, much to the distrust of the villagers. Marnie soon discovers that the villagers have mistaken Raven’s deafness for madness and develops basic sign language to communicate with him, but when her husband dies suddenly the villagers, in an age of superstition, are wary of these strange goings on and put her on trial for witchcraft.
Where can we see/visit/experience your work? You can see my work at www.simonedraws.com
What is your favourite quote?
Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
-Langston Hughes.
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ORIAN
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Rama Masrisada epic tales
Rama Masri Zada is a Syrian artist and writer whose charming depictions of Syrian life and culture have caught our eye. Rama paints instinctively, she has an eye for colour and despite receiving no formal training her paintings are wonderfully telling and full of life. Originally from Damascus, Rama currently works and resides in California, she is hopeful that the situation in her country will soon improve so she can return home. We hope Damascus will return to its former glory before too long and that it will offer her many more scenes to capture. Man in a Public Café- this painting depicts a typical scene from the old Damascene life, a man smoking “Arkila” or “Shisha”. Public cafes were the male place for entertainment, men would spend hours drinking chamomile or cumin tea or one of the many other traditional beverages and listening to the storytellers tell stories such as the epic love story Abla and Antara.
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Abla is the Juliet heroine of Arab folklore. Her love story with Antara is very famous. Antara was a pre-Islamic Arabian hero and poet (525-608) famous both for his poetry and his adventurous life. What many consider his best or chief poem is contained in the Mu’allaqat. The account of his life forms the basis of a long and extravagant romance with Abla. Many artists have made collections of paintings depicting the epic story of Antara and Abla. These paintings are displayed in the public cafes in Damascus, especially in one of its most famous cafes “Al- Nofara Cafe.
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On keep visual Holly In my youth I was a voracious keeper of diaries. As an adult, though, I missed having a regular outlet for my thoughts and observations.
drawn to different styles and materials, but one thing remains constant: these books amount to a record, one day at a time, of the
Welcome to the world of visual journal-keeping. A visual journal is so much more fun and interesting than a written one, and it can take any form at all. It really doesn’t matter what your artistic ability is at the moment. Mine was pretty poor when I started. Just the act of keeping a visual diary will help you improve, if that is a goal, but even if you feel that you can’t manage the simplest line drawing yet, you could start with some collaging of photos and ephemera or doodling in felt-tip and build up your confidence from there. I’ve produced a stack of visual journals in which I’ve tried out just about every technique under the sun. There are pages thick with acrylic and oil pastels and feathers and pages with nothing but minimalist pen-and-ink sketches of old buildings. I am periodically
world around me as I’ve experienced it for the last twenty-four months. Since starting my own, I have
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ping a journal Meier become obsessed with looking at the journals and sketchbooks of other people, and luckily there are lots of books and blogs where
find whole communities of people doing similar kinds of art, and again, the Internet is your friend. Following blogs of regular journalkeepers and sketchers is a great way to stay motivated and inspired to keep up your own. Life is precious and transitory. Don’t let it all slip though your fingers unappreciated: slow down and engage with it by getting down your best approximation of it in your journal while you can.
Learn to see what is really there. I promise you I can do just that. Once you have an idea of the kind of work you are interested in, it’s easy to
something magical will happen.
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+ hero
Ma l a l a Y o usafzai Below is a picture of Malala Yousafzai, a student and education activist from a town in the Swat District of Pakistan. On 9 October 2012, Malala was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. She was injured severely and is currently being treated in a hospital in Birmingham. Girls pursuing education in Pakistan face many difficulties and while hostility from the Taliban affects many children it is not the only threat they face. Since 2010 US drone attacks have killed thousands of innocent people in Pakistan, including children, and as a result many are being taken out of school either out of fear of a drone-strike or to compensate for income lost from a dead or wounded relative. We truly admire Malala and her efforts: she is a brave and inspiring girl growing up in a very difficult time. Get well soon Malala, the world needs you!
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g a r e t h peirce Gareth Peirce in an English solicitor who has been working since the 1970s on many cases that involve miscarriages of justice. Recently she has been representing two Muslim men from my local community, Talha Ahsan and Babar Ahmad, who have spent a total of 14 years in prison without trial, the longest to date. She, along with many others, had been trying to prevent their extradition to the US where they would ‘live’ in a supermax prison in solitary confinement for at least a year. Her tireless work to try and defend the human rights of men who many have condemned as terrorists and ‘unwelcome guests’ before they have even stood trial has been a great inspiration not only to me but to the men accused and their families and supporters. Even though both men have been extradited, Gareth continues to support them and has already arranged to see them in the US.
Poster by Sofia Niazi from Melanie Maddison’s zine ‘Shape and Situate #4: Posters of Inspirations European Women’. www.cotlzine.blogspot.co.uk
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t a l h a a hsan While British poet Talha Ahsan’s Koestler award winning poem ‘Grieving’ was projected in an exhibition in the London Southbank Centre, Talha was bunged up onto a plane and flown off to Northern Correctional Institution in the US. We share his poem ‘Extradition’ with you.
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extradition Five years ago they brought me to a cell and ever since a waiting games plays here. As they decide on sending me away, my parents grow so grey and sad at home. How will they manage visiting me there or must they wait until the end of time? Ma, hear my oath, by him whose hand is time, bars stand in worship with me in this cell. So even if I’m extradited there and taken from my humble parents here, then tell them paradise is our true home whose gardens years will never fade away. To Florence prison I’ll be sent away It doesn’t matter what will be my time. No prison ever can be called my home, how ever long they put me in a cell. A higher power occupies me here who’s closer to me even over there. Perhaps they’ll clean their hands of me once there. And then my country feels I’m wiped away. Though germs stay always floating from me here: these particles will gather born in time, a culture breeding from a tiny cell, to carry on infecting every home. Theresa May, a minister at home though feeble servant to her masters there; a solitary torture chamber cell, To put me in, she’ll simply say, ‘Away!’ So let me while I can devote my time to work for my own justice over here. I pitch a tent for battle waiting here. And in this heart of mine you’ll find a home, free from the crumbling effects of time or any rotting thoughts of being there. It is a sin for me to run away As patience brings my glory to this cell. For time will be a brief sojourning here, and there, or anywhere I make a home Away! A caravan escapes my cell.
www.freetalha.org
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s e w f a r s ew good snorkus
SNORKUS
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S i z e wise ** Cut-out Your own Poster **
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+ boo ks & zines
Suspicious Minds Tolu Adebanjo
I’d like to say that when I bought King of the Castle that I read it straight away, eager to rush into the deeper elements of existence. But that’s not what happened. When I bought this book, I left it on my bookshelf for over a month. I did this because I was scared. Scared and suspicious. Every few days I would pick up the book, muse over its back cover then hastily put it to the back of the shelf, or rather to the back of my mind.
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The blurb said that the book dealt with “a consideration of secular societies” attempt to possess their citizens, body and soul, and how, as a consequence, the necessity of redefining human responsibility becomes [...] imperative”. I wouldn’t blame you if you suddenly have that same allergic reaction and want to dismiss this too. Possession of citizens, I thought? Not today. Redefinition, I thought? Don’t know what for. Responsibility, I thought... when was the last time I even read that word? Well, either way, I decided this book was strange. Too confrontational, too critical of a world where I was doing okay and I was getting by fine. When I did eventually get around to reading it, it was ‘made’ for me by the frank manner in which it had been written. Gai Eaton is an accidental writer, virtually stumbling into his first publishing experience with T.S.Elliot and the other publishing opportunities that followed it. Eaton’s essays are essentially a way for him to process his thoughts and his opinion in a style that is neither heavy handed nor whimsical. He explores, rather than answers, and reflects, rather than condemns. As a person fascinated by the study of religion all his life, Eaton seems like an individual naturally drawn to address the largest questions of existence.
So: just what are those questions? Throughout King of the Castle we see that it’s not just the ‘why am I here?’ It’s the ‘why are we here, in this form and for what purpose?’ It’s the question of whether this great modern individual is the ultimate development of selfrenovation or self-destruction. As ever, Eaton sees a reason in all arguments and replies in the visual. Imagine, he says, a group of people in the desert. Thirsty and in need they look towards one mountain for hope of sustenance. Some see part of this mountain and take that to be the whole. Some see a section of the mountain and take it as a part. There are still others who have their back turned to the mountain, denying all existence of it altogether. Their opinion is at best in error and at worst catastrophic. As I made my way through images like this, I took moments of reflection in the same way I used to take moments of rejection. I thought to myself: What if those with their backs to the mountain should convince others to deny it? What if they led others to face the desert and their existence as merely a functional routine to ‘survive’? I thought back to that blurb. Perhaps Eaton has a point…
And I read on.
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You Reap what your Neighbours Sow sofia niazi For the last few years I’ve been struggling to make the most of my small South London back garden by growing things we could eat.
But sadly, much of the time, the only thing I’ve grown is tired. My potatoes come out looking like mucky pebbles, my pumpkins start rotting and fall off as soon as they’ve grown to the size of a walnut and most of the time I’m left looking on while my seeds are engulfed by compost but never sprout a thing. While there have been some successful crops (thanks God), on the whole it has all been rather disappointing. So this year I decided that I wasn’t going to grow anything. If I don’t play, I can’t lose, right? Well, while I’ve taken a back seat to the gardening, nature, it seems, has had other plans.
Slowly and silently my back yard has become host to many new and exciting edibles that have got nothing to do with me. Several raspberry plants, which seem to have spread from my neighbour’s raspberry bush, have settled on our side of the fence and are flourishing. Lots of hazelnut shoots appeared shortly after our other neighbours had their squirrel heaven hazelnut tree chopped down. Blackberry plants from God-knows-where have been creeping up in several spots, and countless tomato plants, originating from the compost heap I imagine, have popped up all over the place. All this and I didn’t lift a finger.
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A few weeks ago one of my neighbours had part of their fence blown away by some freakishly strong wind. While she was waiting for someone from the council to come round and fix it, she invited me to come and have a nosy around her garden. My neighbour is under the illusion that I’m very good at gardening -- I think this is because of the amount of time I spend in the garden and because of this one time that I built a makeshift greenhouse. Anyway, she wanted me to look at some of her plants so I jumped over the broken fence and followed her around her garden. She led me up to a bushel of raspberry plants that she had planted last year but had failed to fruit. This year they were full of flowers and looking extremely healthy. I told her how they had even spread to our garden and she was very pleased. I felt a bit bad that our ones had a lot more fruit than hers, but she didn’t seem to mind. She then went on to show me a large unkempt patch of land at the back of her garden where nothing would grow. Her neighbours on the other side had a very impressive tree towering at the back of their garden. Over the years the vast network of roots had spread and now sit under many of the surrounding gardens. Consequently they have caused the soil in those regions to become acidic and the plants she likes never seem to grow there.
The state of our back yards have shown that, for better or worse, nature has had little regard for the barriers my neighbours and I have put up. The choices that we made in our own space have affected neighbouring areas. While neighbours with fruits have caused more fruit to grow, neighbours with other things have made it harder for us to grow what we want. So, gardeners, if you want things to flourish, consider carefully what is going on around you, because like it or not, it is bound to have an effect!
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make your own envelope an original tutorial
shamaila spaul
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+ books & zines
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t a l k t o t h e scarf a zine by sofia niazi
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o o m k 2 s u b missions print
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Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
www.oomk.net twitter@oomkzine spring 2013
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
www.oomk.net twitter@oomkzine spring 2013
ISSN 2051-9907