Sheree Angela Matthews: artist profile
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Creative expression has saved my life more times than I can count, especially in the depths of anxiety, grief, and depression. I firmly believe that creative practice is essential for all humans, giving us safe space to explore the deepest parts of ourselves. It doesn’t matter how you express, only that you do. Scrawl thoughts in a journal or notes app. Swirl paint on canvas. Pour your heart out in an art journal. Dance your emotion. Sing at the top of your lungs. No matter whether you create for your eyes/ears only, or you send your creations out into the world, crafting your unique creative practice will support your wild phoenix soul, in all its messy glory.
Join us in this exciting new series of Artist Profiles, featuring a wide range of makers. They’ll each answer the same set of questions, but bring their own truth. Whether you’re new to creativity or already know its healing benefits, my hope is that this series will inspire you to go forth and create!
—Amanda (The Phoenix Soul creator & editor)
Interested in participating in our Artist Profiles? Find details here.
TYPE OF CREATIVE EXPRESSION:
visual journaling, abstract arts, folk art, writing, poetry
What does your creative practice look like right now?
At the moment, my creative practice is in transition—an ever changing myriad of genres and activities as I feel the need to push myself out of my comfort zone and learn new artistic techniques and writing devices. I’m on my way to completing my third 100 days project for 2019.
I’ve tried to complete a 100 days project many a year in the past but have never managed it. This time, starting at the beginning of 2019, to complete 100 abstract paintings on paper, then painting black women’s faces and bodies, worked like a charm. I even finished earlier than the 100 day point. My third 100 days project is focusing on the goddess in nature which feeds into my other creative practice, writing. I’m constantly writing and researching my next creative non-fiction book which focuses on black women’s bodies with/in nature.
I’m trying to find the language and traditions of black nature experiences with creativity as I project manage a Heritage Fund project offering opportunities to people of the Global majority (PGM) in the U.K. the great British countryside.
artwork by Sheree Angela Matthews
What are some of your essential tools?
I’ve fallen in love with mark-making while completing #100daysofabstracts, so anything that can manipulate paint on the page is something I want to get my hands on. My trusty old disused credit card is always by my side as I use it to create the background for my visual journaling, but lately this has been accompanied by a Catalyst pebble sculptor No.6 white, a plaster trowel, and a spaghetti scoop.
I love creating mixed media layers of papers, pencil, pastels, gesso, and acrylic paint, and then scraping layers away so the past is revealed. Take the term palimpsest, which I’ve come to understand through my writing practice as a piece of paper where the text has been scraped or washed off so that it can be reused but each use is still visible, like a ghost. I see the abstracts I’ve been creating in the same light when I create layers and scrape areas back so previous layers or versions haunt the finished piece. I’ve always been interested in how to read history and heritage in light of the present so we can learn for the future. Through these abstracts I’ve been exploring these concepts visually. Placing the outline of a black woman on top of these layers brings in another dimension to the piece. It creates a narrative.
artwork by Sheree Angela Matthews
What routines or rituals support your process?
I’ve been searching all my life for some kind of routine to make my creative life more organized and maybe productive but something that works one day might not work the next. But if I’m being honest with myself, I would hate routines because I got out of teaching because of the regularity of it all, the regime and rules and lack of creativity. I’m coming around to the reality that my creativity thrives on unpredictability and intuition.
For example, while taking the course Painting the Feminine (Connie Solera), to foster a daily practice following a ritual was recommended to get yourself into the mindset to paint. So I would switch on some music, gather my brushes and paints, a glass of water, and put an apron on. This would signal to my unconscious that I was ready to create, bring on the message. And this worked not just for me, but also for my family. They knew I was entering the zone once that apron was on and they’d better leave me alone to get on with it.
But recently, during the 100 days project, I’m not sure if it’s been lack of time or just inspiration, but some days I’ve just been grabbing the paints and getting them on the paper. Other days, I’m just mixing paints to create new colors, putting them into little sealed boxes ready to start a painting series. It’s even easier with the goddess series as I just have to grab my instant camera and head out the door. With the goddess, of course, as sometimes I have forgotten her and reached a lovely spot for her to be and then realized that she’s still at home!
I would say my only routine I do have is that I have to be creative every day, and for the majority of time of each day. It is so vital to my whole way of being. I realize this now and honor it daily.
photography by Sheree Angela Matthews
Which artists, writers, musicians, and/or makers are inspiring you lately?
I love Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration. I stress inspiration rather than comparison, as once you fall into that trap it’s looping torture.
So recently I’ve been finding inspiration in the words and images of A'Driane Nieves, otherwise known as addyeB. Her honesty about her practice and open heart in creating opportunities for other women of color is commendable as well as awe-inspiring. She creates the kind of work I wish I had created.
Mystele Kirkeeng is a mixed media folk artist who I love watching create, as her women figures seem to be lurking, lying in wait within the paint, between the pencil lines and paint layers, for her to see them and pull them out into life. It’s magical and wonderful and a curiosity.
I feel I’m an open filter where anything coming in, I’m receiving, is understood and re-made and shared through each and every creative genre I have at my disposal. In terms of writing, I’m enjoying re-reading essays by Roxane Gay, Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom, and Tobi Oredein, the creator and editor of Black Ballad, a website working to make the British media more diverse by allowing black women to talk about the issues that are important to us.
artwork by Sheree Angela Matthews
What sparks your soul?
Nature sparks my soul. It opens me up and reminds me to breathe and be. Solitude, taking myself off by myself, away from family and the usual distractions, is a must and a regular self-care practice I undertake. I’m lucky enough to have a family that understands this need in me to be off alone—being, thinking, creating—and this definitely feeds my soul. I might have different scenery around me, and be off my usual timetable, but the constant is me. I’m still me while away alone but I can see me clearer at these times. Myself is not tangled up with anyone else’s stuff or identity and I can focus on me, take care of me, and focus on making sure my soul is still shining bright.
What smothers your soul?
Feeling and being trapped. The time my husband says no, you can’t go away again, or you can’t go to Scotland or Iceland. Then I feel trapped. I don’t necessarily have to physically go away from home, as I have created at-home retreats and residencies for myself when I’m not working for anyone else but me. So I think it’s about time and space. If I feel as if I’m squeezed for time, don’t have the space to create and be me, then I’m trapped.
artwork by Sheree Angela Matthews
How has creativity been a healing presence in your life?
I know I wouldn’t be here today, and where I am today, if not for creativity. For years, I tried to walk the narrow path. Get the career and keep the 9-5 job, creativity only leaking out in controlled ways. And I thought I was satisfied. I was teaching English, the career of my dreams, and I was changing kids’ lives. But what I realized over time and experience is I was locked in a system which didn’t value creativity, imagination, and individuality—the pupils’ and mine.
So I took a major risk when I left teaching to pursue my writing career. This was me choosing creativity. But not wholesale. Only a small sliver of creativity and again under control. It wasn’t until the public shaming episode did I embrace all of creativity and embraced it as a way of life. The focus isn’t on the product, the end result, but it’s all about the process and the journey. At each major turn or twist or trauma in my life, creativity has always been there for me as a life raft. It is a constant presence within my life as I recognize, without it, I’m not really functioning well. I’m not vibrating at any frequency if I turn my back on creativity. My life would be pale and boring and sick. Creativity keeps me sane, healthy, and bright.
artwork by Sheree Angela Matthews
What encouragement would you offer readers who are feeling stuck in their creative practice?
If someone is feeling stuck in their creative practice, I suggest moving away from what they usually do and to focus on something new or different. For example, if you usually paint portraits and are sick of them, try exploring collages or printing. Just recently, after a long stint of creating black women’s faces after Painting the Feminine, I switched things up by concentrating on abstraction. And now just in the last couple of days, when I’ve come back to black women, my stroke is more confident. My abstracting of the figure out of the background is sharper and freer.
Even if you’re stuck to the point of doing nothing at all in terms of your creative practice, I would recommend being creative around the home, with changing up color schemes, or buying glass jars for your pulses and beans. Cooking a meal from scratch and going for a walk in nature. All are acts of creativity and can be put into the creative pot, filling it up with energy and inspiration for when you’re not stuck. Because we’re not really stuck, we’re just expressing our basic makeup of being changing people. Change is part of the natural process and getting stuck in your creative practice is just a signal telling you, you are changing or need a change.
