In the summer of 2023 I was awarded a bursary from DAiSY (Disability Arts in Surrey) to become artist in residence at the New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, Surrey. The brief was to be in an ‘open studio’ situation, welcoming the gallery’s visitors and answering any questions they might have about my work and about creativityContinue reading “building joy”
Author Archives: Kate Kennington Steer
I am limited
Last week it was my great honour to have another ‘monk in the world’ post published on the Abbey of the Arts Blog. Here is that post: A few months ago I wrote these words in response to a series of photographs (some of which are pictured here) I made in collaboration with the KinshipContinue reading “I am limited”
Epiphany 2025: for coming home
It could be the name of a prehistoric beast that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary, or a lover in a myth who gets metamorphosed into a book. It means treasury, but it is just a place where words congregate with their relatives, a bigContinue reading “Epiphany 2025: for coming home”
Watchnight: for growth (unknowing)
I clear the surface of my desk and make a pool of light with my lamp. I go off to fetch matches and light a candle. One light is steady and sure, the other uncertain and flickering. I open my notebook and work between these two poles. On balance, it’s where I prefer to be:Continue reading “Watchnight: for growth (unknowing)”
Christmas Day: for birth
Light splashed this morning on the shell-pink anemones swaying on their tall stems; down blue-spiked veronica light flowed in rivulets over the humps of the honeybees; this morning I saw light kiss the silk of the roses in their second flowering. my late bloomers flushed with their brandy. A curious gladness shook me. So IContinue reading “Christmas Day: for birth”
Christmas Eve: for reframing
Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to me.Is someone here? I ask.The moon. The full moon is inside your house. My friends and I go running out into the street.I’m in here, comes a voice from the house,but we aren’t listening. We’re looking up at the sky.My pet nightingale sobs like a drunkContinue reading “Christmas Eve: for reframing”
day 23: for gratitude
If you find yourself half nakedand barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,again, the earth’s great, sonorous moan that saysyou are the air of the now and gone, that saysall you love will turn to dust,and will meet you there, do notraise your fist. Do not raiseyour small voice against it. And do nottake cover. Instead,Continue reading “day 23: for gratitude”
Sunday 4: for waiting
Do this work until you feel the delight of it. In the trying is the desire. The first time you practice contemplation, you’ll only experience a darkness, like a cloud of unknowing. You won’t know what this is. You’ll only know that in your will you feel a simple reaching out to God. You mustContinue reading “Sunday 4: for waiting”
Blue Christmas: for mourning
Grief is a response to an irreversible loss… To generate grief rather than sadness, the thing lost must carry great emotional weight, and it must pull back the veil that covers a transcendent aspect of the world. Breathe out to push the fog away from a brilliant pinpoint of light. … Gravity holds my feetContinue reading “Blue Christmas: for mourning”
day 20: for nourishment
In winter, we are prone to regard our trees as cold, bare, and dreary; and we bid them wait until they are again clothed in verdure before we may accord to them comradeship. However, it is during this winter resting time that the tree stands revealed to the uttermost, ready to give its most intimateContinue reading “day 20: for nourishment”
image into ikon 