kindness and generosity the bedrock of play..

Always learning…

This month I decided to start a series of 4 or 5 art sessions based on sharing my own methodology of making work with others. I have always naturally played when making art....and because I ducked out for @20 years or so...and realising and understanding the world through a neuro diverse aspect, I actually had forgotten that a thesis I wrote back from the RCA was comparing the play of a child to the way a painter paints...( something about object impermanence...and also learning that people with adhd tend to 'forget' their career highs / successes etc...and I am forever looking at my work and being surprised because its...can I say...'good'?

You may know that I do not have a studio / the past 8 months and moving to a new town has taken a while to settle in....

When I realised that there was always Play in how I worked..I also realised that peoples comments and descibers of my work tend to use words such as 'playful' 'fun' 'joyful' and 'generous'.

Without money to buy the materials I needed, and without a studio to work in, I am working hard with working with others. The king of working with what I have...is scary ( tick), sustainable ( tick), joyful ( tick), worrysome ( tick) and I have to be brave.

And thinking does not cost a thing.

I thought to create fluid collectives of people who come together to Jam. Not with sound / music nor by movement / dance..but visually and by noticing and responding. Art ( paint-ing) that is time/moment based, multi authored, documented by photographs ( also photo as souvenir)...and that is excellent work. By playing. I share my practise so others can dive in and ultimately become autonomous play-ers / artists / with joy as well.

( play...mimmick, process, alone, together, sharing, notsharing, safe spaces , freeflow).

and now...Im getting round to the whole point of this post :0)

Yesteray was the 2nd session of 4 and the cohort reached a point for me...that had only been accessed before one other time by a completely different group of people. In May the truly gorgeous, generous people at Counterplay in Denmark engaged in what i offered / shared as a means to play...voisually, with shadow, light, movement, costume (!) et all...and yesterday a small group of local people engaged with perhaps a wobbly start ( I really need to work on my starters)..and truly came together...to experiment, be curious and see what happens. Especially humbling ( as in Counterplay) was the generosity and understanding individuals took to help others and have fun. It reminded me of the beautiful equitable 3 days of discovetry love and joy that we all felt in Denmark.

So, with enormous thanks to those people and forever to the players who were at Counterplay for giving me and us the spaces to be and to learn.

All amazing of course.

** COUNTERPLAY 2026 / Mathias Pouuleson / Kollding Design School, Denmark

#play#counterplay#making#playaspractice#equity#collaboration#painting#ephemeralart#community