We Can Still Drink Tea Together: new painting & poem

This piece was first published on The Weekly Service website, where Rose is an artist in residence.

What can you say when you are separated by distance from your loved ones, and they are grieving? Migrant grief was the theme of our most recent service with Farah Beaini.

I made this painting, called “We can still drink tea together”, whilst listening to her story, and I wrote the poem before hand.

I brewed some tea and I used the tea in the painting.

Can you spot the tea?

What to say, when…

What to say when I can’t be there with you?

So much space between us two

But I can feel you

I can feel you here in my heart

When I fill my cup

I think of you

I think of you

We are still connected

Maybe you can drink the same tea as me?

Each holding our own cups across the sea

What to say when I can’t be there with you?

Make this cup of tea

I am drinking it with you

We are drinking it together

We are drinking it together

Can you feel it?

Close up of painting "We Can Still Drink Tea Together", vibrant abstract expressionist art created by Rose Wintergreen, artist in residence at The Weekly Service 2021

Close up of painting "We Can Still Drink Tea Together", vibrant abstract expressionist art created by Rose Wintergreen, artist in residence at The Weekly Service 2021

Close up of painting "We Can Still Drink Tea Together", vibrant abstract expressionist art created by Rose Wintergreen, artist in residence at The Weekly Service 2021

Love,

Rose Wintergreen

x
(one of the artists in residence this season)

What To Say When We Can't Be Together?

This piece was first published on The Weekly Service website, where Rose is an artist in residence.

Let’s have a cup of tea together. Go on, put the kettle on.

Have you got your tea now?

I’m drinking chamomile. What’s yours?

I joke with friends who know me very well that words are not my native language.

My feelings have always felt too big for words, and my mind too fast for my mouth.

I love the shapes and sounds of words, and I love playing with them written down when there is no time pressure, but I trip over them when I try to make them come out my mouth, unless I concentrate with a lot of effort.

When I am in the same room as a person, it is easier. I can read their energy. I can show them in other ways that I understand, that I hear them and feel them.

When they are distressed, and the words are stuck, I can motion to the couch for them to sit.

I can hand them my teddy bear.

I can put the kettle on, make them a soothing chamomile tea, and hold it out to them.

I can light a candle and put lavender oil in an oil burner - a soothing sight to focus on, as well as a soothing sound.

I can place a hand on their shoulder, and it says more than words ever could.

How to connect when we can’t be together

The last two years — living much of the time alone in lockdown — has been a test of determination and creativity for staying connected through physical separation and distance.

I have taken selfies of myself hugging myself, pretending I was hugging a dear friend, and sent it to them, telling them it was me hugging them.

I have recorded the sound of myself making a cup of tea, and sent it to a friend, so they could listen to it as they also made tea, and we could “have tea together”.

I’ve bought beautiful, ethically handmade soy candles lovingly made by one friend, and given the same one to several different friends and family who know each other, and let them know, “every time you light this candle, it is the same one we all have, so you are connecting with all of us at once”.

I’ve recorded myself talking to them as if they are here, and sent them the recording as a voice message, so they can hear all the background noises of my home.

Migrant grief - this week’s service

This week’s service is touching on this theme, from the perspective of connecting across even larger distances. Farah Beani will be talking about migrant grief.

What does it feel like to be separated from loved ones and grieve from a distance?

I look forward to meeting with you online, with our cups of tea, to share time together. I’ll be there, painting as we listen. Book your ticket here.

Love,

Rose Wintergreen

(One of the artists in residence this season)

Creating through uncertainty (a painting and song for you)

This piece was first published on The Weekly Service website, where Rose is an artist in residence.

At the service on 18 September, called "Moments of Showing Up", Michelle Morgan shared how she manages to show up in moments of uncertainty in her own creative practice as an artist, studying art therapy and offering clinical pastoral care - non-religious spiritual support to people in hospital.

It was a strange experience for me.

We are in lockdown in Melbourne, so the service was online.

The hairs on my arms were standing up and my stomach was churning at the sound of angry buzzing police helicopters overhead, surveying anti-lockdown protestors.

I was connected with a group of warm-hearted friendly people on my screen. Off screen, I was physically alone, and my body was telling me I was in danger.  

I smiled (concentrating hard to make sure it didn’t come across as a grimace) and concentrated on planting my feet as flat to the ground as I could, uncurling my toes, willing my belly calm, elongating my out breaths.

I internally sighed at the irony of my struggling so much to show up in the moment, when that was the theme of the service.

 

I made a painting as I listened

As Michelle spoke, I was watching and noticing how my feelings in my physical body changed, immersing myself in the motion of drips and colours melting into each other, and the calming repetition of drawing circles with my non-dominant hand (a response to Michelle's sharing of her mandala practice, and the release that circles have provided her).

Close up of “Uncertainty”, mixed media on paper, 42cm x 29.7cm ~ 16.5” x 11.7”, vibrant abstract expressionist painting by Rose Wintergreen, 2021

I focused on letting go of control, letting whatever colours and marks wanted to come out come out, letting my hand and brush follow the threads and push and pulls of the story.

Mauve for the quiet moments of asking a higher power for solidarity and strength on the hard days, flashes of yellow for the unexpected laughs shared with patients, lighter tracks of eddying grey lead pencil for the paths connecting it all, chains of little circles…

Close up of “Uncertainty”, mixed media on paper, 42cm x 29.7cm ~ 16.5” x 11.7”, vibrant abstract expressionist painting by Rose Wintergreen, 2021

Close up of “Uncertainty”, mixed media on paper, 42cm x 29.7cm ~ 16.5” x 11.7”, vibrant abstract expressionist painting by Rose Wintergreen, 2021

When it came time for breakout rooms (Michelle had finished her story, and there was an opportunity to join a small group for reflection and discussion), I opted out, to let it all sink in quietly.

I got my hairdryer out to dry the painting so I would be able to hold it up and show everyone when they came out. I hummed as it whirred.

A melody arrived…

It unfurled out of my mouth as I moved the hairdryer across the page, drying each little pool of colour in turn.

I managed to scrawl some notes of the words and sing it for everyone when we came back together for sharing. It wasn’t recorded.

After the session ended, I sung it again and recorded it into my phone before I would forget it.

The helicopters are buzzing again today, but I have been showing up for myself by making music. I opened my music program, imported the recording I made on my phone, and have transformed it into a fully structured recorded track.

The song that arrived - “Uncertainty”

I've combined the original lead melody with the sound of a pedestrian light crossing opposite the National Gallery of Victoria I recorded on a lockdown walk a month or so ago. I was mesmerised by the calming nature of its repetition, the comfort of the familiarity of the sound, the way it kept circling back again and again.

You may notice a tram and a seagull in the background, and a single car passing by. (I have repeated them throughout.) A strange juxtaposition of familiarity and eerie dystopia; usually this spot would be full of the sounds of happy pedestrians, lots of traffic noise, the sound of music playing from the tinny coffee shop speakers out the front of the Arts Centre, and people whizzing past on bicycles and electric scooters.  

The uncertainty of this time seems never-ending, but I am eternally grateful for being a part of The Weekly Service community.

I keep coming back, and it keeps helping me circle back to myself and what really matters: showing up and connecting authentically with other humans, holding space for what is, even if it is messy sometimes.

Thank you for sharing your story about how you do this, Michelle. It was exactly what I needed.

Lyrics 

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty follows me

No matter how hard I try

I can try to live

All my days

In a straight line

But the only thing certain

Is that life will keep shifting and turning

Maybe I can throw my arms in a circle

And hold myself as I keep learning…

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty follows me

No matter how hard I try

I can try to live

All my days

In a straight line

But the only thing certain

Is that life will keep shifting and turning

Maybe I can throw my arms in a circle

Hold myself as I keep learning…

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty follows me

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Uncertainty follows me

Love,

Rose Wintergreen

(One of the artists in residence this season)