Firstly, art is endlessly broad. There is some form of art for everyone. Maybe they meant that they don’t like Classical artists? After all, Paris is absolutely swarming with all the Greats.

I understand that traditional art has a snobby, stuffy feeling around it. But that’s more about the institution that have grown around it. The people commissioning art were historically monarchs, the church and aristocrats. But this pretension and elitist attitude is not the art itself, nor that of the artists. Without these Masters, who we see now as classical but in their day would have been considered modern, you wouldn’t have the theatre stage. You wouldn’t have Game design or Virtual reality. You wouldn’t have the Eames chair you covet - or the Ikea version you bought instead. You wouldn’t have the naff mosaic garden table, the engagement rock on your finger, or the basket that you take to the French market when you want to feel chic.

Maybe it’s that they don’t like Modern Art? Did you never rip up magazines when you were a teenager and make a poster (& laminate it, like I did) or draw logo’s of your favourite band with Tipex on your army bag or build a den in the living room and call it your castle - this is all art; Collage, Graphic Design and Installation.

We make, we tear up, we build because, as humans, we need to express ourselves. And we need people to witness that expression. It is Art that forms the bridge between our minds and connects us in thought. It shows us how we’re different and how we’re the same.

Art is photography, art is cinema. If you don’t see the merit in art, then you don’t see the merit of lighting in film. As Hockney said:

“Caravaggio invented Hollywood lighting. He worked out how to light things dramatically.”

My husband bought me a brilliant book for my birthday called ‘The World According to David Hockey.’ As with the death of many brilliant people, I realised just how much I love Hockney when he recently passed this month. His charismatic outlook and profound words fortified how puerile I think the comment ‘I don’t like art’ is.

“Pictures have been helping us see for at least thirty thousand years.”

People have been ‘art-ing’ since they first discovered that a sharp stone could make geometric markings onto a piece of a ochre 100,000 years ago. Since then, people have been making art all over the world - Chinese calligraphy, Mughal painting, Persian miniature painting, Māori carving, Batik, Hopi pottery, Kente weaving. Without these art forms we wouldn’t understand the world as we do now.

If you like History, you like Art. All classical paintings are deeply connected to the historical moment in which they were made. One of the many reasons I love art so much is that it’s a passage back in time. Take Seurat. During the late 1800s, Paris was being transformed by industrialisation and urban redevelopment. People had more leisure time, and so public parks and riverside spaces became popular places to relax. One of Seurat’s most famous paintings, ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’, depicts ordinary Parisians spending a Sunday afternoon in a fashionable park. Rather than portraying kings or religious scenes, he painted the middle and working class enjoying their modern lives. This was a new thing to do as an artist. With the scientific discovery of the late nineteenth century, Seurat became fascinated by new theories about optics and colour and so instead of mixing pigments - the traditional way of painting - he placed thousands of tiny dots of pure colour next to each other. When you see the painting from a distance, the eye blends them together, a technique known as Pointillism.

Lets come back to today and take Ai Weiwei, one of the world's most influential contemporary artists known for combining art, architecture and activism. His work explores themes of freedom of expression and human rights and gives the rest of us an insight into political conversations that we might not otherwise know about. He himself was influenced by artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol!

When we look at art, not only are we reading a historical text but we have the added bonus of understanding someone’s perspective, their feelings and the meaning behind it.

I ran this article passed my mum who has been a huge influence on how I digest art, and she made the following point:

‘someone or something has to lead people into that world via an emotional, sensual, political connection etc. Such a big subject.  How does anyone who has no access in their home or social environment manage that? If people's only experience of "art" is huge incomprehensible  framed paintings of religious stories in Victorian galleries, as you say, then I understand why they say they don't like art. How to instil and facilitate an interest in knowing more?‘

I absolutely agree, but I stand by my point. Art is something, like dancing and singing, that we need to do because it makes us feel good, it makes us feel in our body, and gets us closer to understanding who we are.

So it’s a silly thing to say really, ‘I don’t like art.’ It’s as banal as when someone says ‘I wouldn’t have that on my wall.’

So kicking off with the first SSS, back to Riz Ahmed. During said interview he was asked by journalist Danny Leigh to comment on the difference between the culture in the UK versus the US. His response was something that profoundly grabbed my attention; that in the UK there’s a hidden mantra of ‘Know Your Place…’

As a British Asian, Riz Ahmed will have navigated a very different social script to me. His experience has been shaped by racism and mine hasn’t. The commonality between us is our age and that we grew up in London at the same time. And ‘Know Your Place,’ is a phrase that rings true with my upbringing too. Like many realisations about our pasts which, when they make themselves known hit you like an iron pan in the face, i found myself angry. I don’t know about you but it’s sometimes hard to pinpoint exactly what it was that made me feel inferior along the way. That’s because it’s cultural conditioning of this kind that got me to this point. It’s insidious. And it’s only when someone points it out plainly, that it all kind of makes sense - and the tumble weed of how we all become who we are starts to show itself.

I’m not sure anyone actually ever said ‘Know Your Place’ to me. But it’s been implied - work out your social position, stay in your lane, be a good girl, don’t question too much, ‘don’t swear darling, it’s unbecoming’, don’t think too big, don’t put on weight, definitely don’t wear that and whatever you do, don’t show off.

When I mentioned this to my Mum over dinner just the two of us, she was surprised, almost shocked that i felt this way. And it occurred to me, she’s still of the generation that believe in those expectations.

“Well one should behave in a certain way Natalie”

The patriarchy obviously has a lot of answer for with regard to this subject (‘fulfillment is found in care,’ ‘ambition is unfeminine,’ ‘the home is your kingdom’ are just a few phrases that come to mind) but so does a history steeped in class and an elite education system that emphasises hierarchy and rank.

How often have you felt that anger has been reframed as hysteria, directness is construed as rudeness or confidence as arrogance? Social shame and embarrassment are the queues that keep us all in check. More often than not it’s a way to make sure we don’t challenge people or their ways of thinking.

Let’s take ‘respect your elders’ - does that mean EVERY elder. The one’s who’ve killed someone, the cruel ones, the stingy ones, the nosey ones. Surely behaviour earns respect, not age?

Yes, i have written this to get it off my chest, but also because i really want to take more note of the many times I still let this slide. I don’t want to ‘know my place.’ I want to keep finding new places where I constantly evolve and feel like i’m on the edge of discovering something exciting.

Leonora Oppenheim and I bonded over our creative journeys and recognising that we both have a mutual trait for trying out new things and entering new fields of interest. We share a love for creativity, movement and anything somatic, except Leonora earns a living from her interest and mine still remains an interest.

When I first properly sat down with Leonora at a friends house for dinner, she mentioned she was training in Feldenkrais. It took me a while to realise she wasn’t just swearing in a foreign language - it sounds like a swear word, doesn’t it - so eventually I asked, what is this ‘Feldenkrais’ you keep mentioning!?

Taken from Wikipedia: The Feldenkrais Method is a type of movement therapy devised by Israeli Moshé Feldenkrais(1904–1984) during the mid-20th century. The method is claimed to reorganise connections between the brain and body and so improve body movement and psychological state.

Image credit: Christine Barrat

Now a trained Feldenkrais practitioner, I have been lucky enough to have a few sessions with Leonora and have been completely amazed. The first session I had was for my back whenI picked up a side table in a stupid way and was brought to tears by the pain. I realised this was the reason I was waiting for to call Leonora!

Firstly Leonora has a little look at you. I’m not the expert but I understand she’s looking at posture - whether one shoulder rests higher than the other, that sort of thing.

Then, you’re invited to lie down, fully clothed, on a bed double the width of a massage bed which is low to the floor so she can kneel next to you and work her magic. I can’t explain why but it’s extremely satisfying to lie on. Leonora pays special attention to your comfort - a blanket under the head to rise the neck slightly, a bolster cushion under the knees etc. It’s all very slight, but has maximum impact.

Now, I am a sucker for touch. Someone just needs to slightly touch my hair or prod my face and I’m like a cat, yearning for more. So when Leonora sets the tone of the session by pressing down on my shoulders and then my feet, I start to melt into the bed.

As Leonora says, The Feldenkrais Method is a highly effective tool for getting unstuck. We all know that sitting at a desk fucks up our posture, or that we tense in various places when we’re anxious or stressed. On the back end of being diagnosed with acute anxiety in my late 20’s, I realised that I store tension in my left shoulder which contributed, at the time, to me regularly thinking I was having a heart attack. Because of this, my left shoulder always sits higher than my right.

As I’m lying on my back Leonora moves parts of my body with a tenderness and respect that I really have never experienced - and I’ve experimented with a lot of treatments! She holds underneath my shoulder for such a time that I gradually noticed myself sink into the bowl of her hands. As she very gradually lowers my shoulder she asks questions about how I feel in my body.

Feldenkrais discovered that incremental movements can create remarkable changes in the body and mind.

The second time I visit Leonora is because I’ve been writing a lot and my left arm has seized up - ‘Can she help relax my hands and arms so they’re not so painful?’ I lie on my side whilst we work on my position for a minute or two until she feels confident that I am relaxed and that she can manipulate my fingers. It is an extremely relaxing experience - a big side benefit to the practice - but the proof in the pudding is at the end of the session when I stand up. My left shoulder is not only lower than my right now but I feel like I have a new neck and the strain in my arm has gone. With all three of my sessions I have walked out being intrigued by how my body surprisingly feels.

Leonora focuses on movement as a creative process and the body as a research tool and is a somatic researcher.

“Our bodies are constantly communicating with us, they have deep wells of information that we’re not tapping into. They hold all our life experiences, both joyful and traumatic.”

I am pleased to say, she is now posting short movement practices on Substack, based on Moshe Feldenkrais’ Awareness Through Movement. I encourage you to take a look and if you have the opportunity, book a Feldenkrais session!

Leonora’s Substack

Leonora’s Website

EXHIBITIONS

Wes Anderson archive - The Design Museum in January

Hepworth in Colour - Courtauld Gallery in June

Frida: The Making of an Icon - Tate Modern June

Ana Mendieta - Tate Modern in July

Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant - Tate Modern in November

Es Devlin - The Design Museum in September

BOOKS

‘Land’ by Maggie o’Farrell - a historical novel set in Ireland in the years before and after the Great Hunger.

My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy - Gertrude Stein is an avant-garde American poet and art collector who made her home in Paris and friend to Picasso and Hemingway. And the narrator has gone to paris to find out why she’s so important! can’t wait for this book.

BLOCKBUSTER FILMS

The Bride - a film by Maggie Gyllenhaal, this is a Frankenstein film but through a female lens. It’s got a great cast with Christian Bale, Jessie Buckley, Jake Gyllenhaal.

Disclosure day - Steven Spielberg’s new Sc-fi film starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell

Wuthering Heights - An adaptation of ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brontë’s classic 1847 novel with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi Heathcliff. I think this will be good, with tongues in cheeks.

The Odyssey - an adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey which tells the story of Odysseus (Matt Damon) in the aftermath of the Trojan War. Another film with a star-studded cast.

Digger - Alejandro González Iñárritu’s hotly anticipated next film starring Tom Cruise, a comedy of catastrophic proportions.

TV SHOWS

The Pitt - I never got into ER so maybe i’ll get into a gritty medical drama now instead.

Rivals 2 - Fingers crossed this isn’t a let down. RIP Jilly Cooper

Tip Toe - Russell T Davies's first drama for Channel Four since the award-winning, It's A Sin. ‘Tip Toe’ is a thriller about escalating feuds between two Manchester neighbours, highlighting growing impacting the LGBTQ+ community.

Line of Duty - Police corruption at it’s best is back.

Half Man - Richard Gadd’s follow up show after Baby Reindeer, this show explores the complex relationship between two estranged half-brothers.

Beef - The best road rage scene ever was in the first series of ‘Beef’. This shows brilliantly explores repressed anger and class differences. It’s back with Carey Mulligan in this next series.

Bait - A struggling actor whose life spirals into an existential crisis and conspiracy thriller after landing the role of a lifetimeI love Riz Ahmed so i’ll be watching this one

Imperfect Women - Elisabeth Moss is usually part of good things so i'll be tuning into this. Based on Araminta Hall’s novel of the same name, ‘Imperfect Women’ examines a crime that shatters the lives of three women in a decades-long friendship.

Widow’s Bay - blending horror with character-driven comedy, with Matthew Rhys.

I don’t really do resolutions at new year. For one thing, winter is about hibernating and preparation much like nature rests before spring's growth. I ease off the pressure a bit in these next months and allow myself to lean into the feeling of dormancy. I’ll probably be getting on the bike less and eating extra helpings of pasta tbh.

Instead, for the last three years, i’ve opted for contemplating on a word that I want to take with me into the following year that represents my focus and intention. I fall on the word instinctively rather than forcing a sentiment that I think should work. The first year I did this, a group of us climbed Glastonbury Tor and invited the word to come. It’s amazing what actually lands when you invite it to.

This years word is FREQUENCY. I want to really try and hone in on aligning with my own rhythm and frequency this year, rather than working to what everyone else’s is. I can be a real sucker for going to every party, drinking all the drinks and basically exhausting my body (mainly because it’s fun) when really I need to be on the sofa reading a book. But it’s more than just socialising. When you’re in tune with your own rhythm, you’re able to be more creative, more available, and basically more grounded. The word Frequency also relates to a gravity i’ve felt pulling my towards understanding more about ‘energy’ in a spiritual sense. Yup, it sounds a bit whoo whoo, I know but i’m into it. I want to understand more about reading energy.

I also love a vision board. I’ve shared these with lots of friends of mine who have gone on to regularly do their own, it’s very satisfying! With a focus in mind, I gather imagery (from the usual places - Pinterest, Cosmos, Instagram) that resonates or inspires. I’m often drawn to horses but with this year being the year of the Fire-Horse, they obviously had to appear on the board.

Alongside the vision board I write down a sentence that gives it an intention. I am feeling a bit self indulgent writing all this down here but it really does help channel my thoughts through a lens so hopefully it’s worth sharing.