The pictures you paint with your words are as beautiful, evocative, and equally as filled with luminosity, as those you paint with your colours. Touching. And tender. Thank you for all your sharing.
What Iona said. I loved this, thank you. Love the quotes and portraits you’ve shared. And the poigniant question you have about your work. I bet you will find clever ways to balance the beauty you portray in your visual work with the complexities you recognise in life. Maybe by amping it up when portraying how an act of friendship like the one you describe can change a whole perspective on place. I really like some of Anthony Brown’s work for this kind of thing, like Voices in the Park.
Lovely piece. I'm from Dundee, grew up in England mainly, and have spent my adult life in the States, but I keep coming back, in my head and in person. It's a place that haunts, and I keep checking that I didn't hallucinate it. It certainly makes a massive imprint on who we are, and it made me forever an outsider, but I'm okay with that. Nothing more Dundee than a blunt-spoken woman who insists on being herself.
Absolutely beautiful -- I’ve never been able to articulate my resistance to nature when I love nature. But your words that those beautiful spaces aren’t for you helped me understand myself so much better. Thank you!
This piece was stunning, Gillian—your words and the illustrations you shared alongside them. I feel so grateful to have discovered your Substack. Each post has been a balm. (I'm also in County Durham! Waving hello from my corner of it.)
"I realised some of the specific cultural experiences I’d had were not quite universal." This. It's quite the moment when you can see your own culture. The water you've been swimming in. It happened for me when I lived in London for my postgraduate studies (I'm from the American South.) Everything from language and cultural to norms to simple things like the way door handles work. 🤯
The pictures you paint with your words are as beautiful, evocative, and equally as filled with luminosity, as those you paint with your colours. Touching. And tender. Thank you for all your sharing.
Thank you so much Iona!
You have come a long way from where you began to where you are now.
And your stories are forever glowing.
Remember always where you came from.
Tell your children these stories in time to help with their growing. X
Your newsletters are like no other! Thank you. And your art provides hope and beauty in an unjust world.
What Iona said. I loved this, thank you. Love the quotes and portraits you’ve shared. And the poigniant question you have about your work. I bet you will find clever ways to balance the beauty you portray in your visual work with the complexities you recognise in life. Maybe by amping it up when portraying how an act of friendship like the one you describe can change a whole perspective on place. I really like some of Anthony Brown’s work for this kind of thing, like Voices in the Park.
Lovely piece. I'm from Dundee, grew up in England mainly, and have spent my adult life in the States, but I keep coming back, in my head and in person. It's a place that haunts, and I keep checking that I didn't hallucinate it. It certainly makes a massive imprint on who we are, and it made me forever an outsider, but I'm okay with that. Nothing more Dundee than a blunt-spoken woman who insists on being herself.
Absolutely beautiful -- I’ve never been able to articulate my resistance to nature when I love nature. But your words that those beautiful spaces aren’t for you helped me understand myself so much better. Thank you!
This piece was stunning, Gillian—your words and the illustrations you shared alongside them. I feel so grateful to have discovered your Substack. Each post has been a balm. (I'm also in County Durham! Waving hello from my corner of it.)
"I realised some of the specific cultural experiences I’d had were not quite universal." This. It's quite the moment when you can see your own culture. The water you've been swimming in. It happened for me when I lived in London for my postgraduate studies (I'm from the American South.) Everything from language and cultural to norms to simple things like the way door handles work. 🤯