Painting, laughing with the village on a hot Saturday afternoon in Guyana 2025

 

Painting 

"Take the brush  and put something on the canvas" Nigel Niix Butler from Nine Nations advised us. "Just start.." as he applied different colours and layers on one side of the large canvas. 

Alvina Naughton from The Village Nook explained why she liked doing abstract art as she moved her brush on the opposite side of the large canvas which was in the middle of a group of about 10 people

Sun cooling as we like to say in Guyana. 

My hands start moving with brush and so even as mind trying to work out what to paint. 

I mess up a few leaves doing leaf print - you have to use the back of the leaf as Alvina advised, and a thin layer of paint.. but I thought I know everything.. and so we start on our small canvases and then move to the big canvas.  Canvas which has some lines , but blank otherwise.

The way we sitting down around the big canvas, I imagine this could be like a puja,.. a large havan.

Alvina and Nigel as the pandits, and the canvas as the place for offerings ..but all of us involved.. puja also because this is a collective activity with some people I am meeting for the first time, in a kind of collective pursuit of wellness. 

And the colours in the different sections of the canvas which eventually meet each other kind of like how we sit separate but together. Canvas connecting us and being the vessel for our offerings and the place to receive the sense of achievement of contribution to something good.

Hot Saturday afternoon

 Sun hot and I walking down the road to catch the bus and wondering what I get myself into. Big man, just turn 55 and body not moving as fast as it used to or bending to jump in the minibus and so as it used to.. what I doing going to paint in the park with people I don't really know?

But the National Park though, cool of course with breeze and what we forget is that the trees provide shade and so I stand up there in the Park and say.. you know it cooler here than if you had stayed in the house with the fan and watch TV series while dozing off as happens now some afternoons and late mornings?

And while the 'event' is to start at 3pm, I realise that just being here, standing there.. the event already start for me.. as we talk, watch around.. 

Alvina and Nigel set up.... they invited me to co-create with them but I was there too to benefit. The set up.. tarpaulin, blanket, cushions, pallet for the canvas. I am grateful for this labour for which they have asked nothing, not a thing.

Laughing

 "I don't know when I laughed so much" one woman said. Laughing was not on the agenda as such - we started with grounding and breathing.. barefoot on the grass (where it existed as dry weather has taken its toll in some places'.. and while 'watching for ants'... 

Then we sat around the blank canvas and talked about breast cancer, and other cancer and I joined in feeling my own breast (yep men can get breast cancer too,, and colon cancer and prostate cancer and all the things which I don't want to get).  But cancer hit the family again.

This was not in the plan this year, to set in the National Park with people I don't really know to feel up my left breast ..  

And then we talked about Body Positivity and I not sure what to say.. the belly as my greatest problem now as the stomach and so on say take it easy with what you eating and how you eating and so on. and bloating or so, or the whole blasted body which no longer moving as fast as it could, or flexible, or lifting or turning..or brain not storing memories the same way, or penis indicating that now is only an organ to work with bladder with a mind of its own and not for anything else really, 

 and if I follow all the reels that come up, I know I should not be sitting but I should be moving , moving, moving , moving all the time if I want to feel like if I was 50 again.. 

 But the cheese sandwiches, pink with beetroot, (thanks Nelsonia!) going down good with the biscuits and the conversation.. 

But we talk and laugh, and I realise that my belly not bloated and that I could get up off the ground without stumbling because laughing is really important at a time when it seems there is less and less to laugh at..

And people talk.. the negative images of thighs, skin, gray hair, feet , breasts, shoulders, being too skinny, being too fat,.. some people saying they learned young to accept what was God given... (

 the Village 

 And so in the talking, laughing.. shared vulnerability, shared wishes for wellness, different ways of applying colours to the large canvas - "use out the paint in the palette" .. sun goes down, cell phone light helping to finish off the paints in the palettes on the canvas..

One person said .. it was good to stop the busy-ness, make time and come. Another person said that they were glad they changed their mind from not coming, to coming. 

There were four creatives in the group.. all using creativity as a way to 'rest' from the work I think.

One participant shared a quote afterwards "Everyone needs a village, but no one wants to be a villager".. 

And so idea in the whole disconnected world, so big blessing of leaving the safety of my cocoon and so, and going to create the village with others in the National Park around a canvas. Thanks Alvina and Nigel and Nine Nations and Village Nook for inviting me to be in this village which was never in my imagination of where I would be at this age.

Alvina reminded us - "The body keeps the score" -  the story about body and trauma.. so I hoping my body will keep the score of the laughing and painting with people (and not just the flecks of paint on the hands and so); and release the other scores.