Art by Post: Ross’ story
‘Proud isn’t a word I use often, but I bloody am of this, if I’m honest.’
Ross was attending a weekly arts group when the first Covid-19 lockdown hit. Through that group he discovered Art by Post, the Southbank Centre’s project to encourage creativity – and offer a space and a means for focus – during a very uncertain time.
This is Ross’ story of his involvement in Art by Post and how it helped him to find new art forms through which to express himself, as told to Mina Holland.
Ross
Art by Post participant, 59, Canterbury
‘I think of myself as having more pens than buttons to press. I’m a bit old school and I love the idea of a postal community. When I heard about Art by Post, it felt like a natural extension of what I was already doing. I’ve been involved in making mail art for about 20 years, an initiative that has its roots in the Fluxus movement. You’re sent an address to which you send a postcard-sized piece of art.
‘I found out about Art by Post through the Canterbury Umbrella Centre, where I attend an art group each week. Diana Jackson, who runs it, sent me one of the booklets in the spring of 2020 and I just got on with it. We’d all had the awful shock of lockdown, so many people were dying, and this came along and offered distraction. I’ve put a lot of time and energy into creating art in the last year or so and it’s made a great difference to me.
‘The haiku form seems to have found me in that time. I’ve become adept at it – 17 syllables split over three lines, five-seven-five. I’m in my late fifties now and have lived a lot of life – it’s been an interesting one! – but I love how haiku distils and refines that experience with its brevity. You can write pages full of words, then realise one line says it all. I like to put things in a nutshell if I can. I also take this approach to the visual art I produce. I live in a one bedroom flat and I’m running out of space for stuff, so I’ve had to learn restraint. It works for me to be sparing.
‘We’d had the awful shock of lockdown, and Art by Post came and offered distraction. I’ve put a lot of time and energy into creating art in the last year and it’s made a great difference to me’
‘My love of language started quite early. I’m not academic, more scholarly, perhaps. I’ve always been interested in words, how they link up with life. I got very upset about people turning down the vaccine, and I wrote a poem, ‘The Uneasing’, inspired by Covid-deniers. I see the virus as a killer on the loose. In one of the Art by Post booklets, we were asked to create a picture poem, and that appealed to how I was feeling at the time, my lighter, humorous side. Mine was about a football being melted by the sun.
‘I like to think I have big ears too – I have an eclectic and extensive music collection which I drew up for the Art by Post booklet with the music theme. I love lyrics with sharpness and lucidity. The same goes for my interest in poetry. In fact, it was at the Southbank Centre’s National Poetry Library that I found one of my favourite poets, Gavin Ewart. He wrote short, poignant poems called ‘shorties’, about love, heartbreak, death – all with killer punchlines.
‘Creatives, artists, poets in the past have brought out diamonds from the hardest of times’
‘My affinity with the Southbank Centre goes back a long way. I’ve seen lots of my favourites there – Ivor Cutler’s majestic retirement gig, Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band (although I think the Captain had died by that point), also Les Murray in conversation with Clive James at the Purcell Room, the annual jazz festival, Nick Cave’s excellent Meltdown… But it was the poetry library that sent me a bit crazy for it. I love the extraordinary technical room with all those doors that you pull out. They have the work of anybody relevant in the world of words and poetry – one day, me, perhaps – and I’ve never looked back since I found it.
‘Creatives, artists, poets in the past have brought out diamonds from the hardest of times. I used to read a lot of Kafka who said, ‘art is the axe that breaks the frozen sea within us’. He wasn’t wrong there. Art by Post has made an astonishing difference to my life during the pandemic. Proud isn’t a word I use often, but I bloody am of this, if I’m honest.’
An exhibition of selected works submitted as part of Art By Post, debuted at the Southbank Centre in September and is now on a UK tour. It is currently at De Montfort Leicester University until 19 February.
Ross was talking to Mina Holland. Deputy Editor of Guardian Feast, Holland writes about food, lifestyle and culture and is the author of The Edible Atlas, and Mamma: Reflections on the Food That Makes Us.
