ASU2. And the virgin mother and child and for reference one of the newspaper pictures of Shamina Begum i found in the newspapers i was using underneath my copper plates when i was inking and wiping them before printing.

And so to begin again after hand-in. In education terms and deadlines become the points of focus. I have missed, i think, having very definite points of focus. Self-driven work is another kind of hard, easier in some ways because the pace is driven by oneself, but harder because without the clock ticking outside of oneself the drive forward can lose momentum. It makes for different work. The struggle at uni is to keep up with the pace whilst simultaneously owning the path taken and not squandering internal resources. 
The last term's hand in was on election day. I wasn't sure if i was wired because of the election or the hand in but either which way it has taken me some days to come down. I did not want the Conservatives to win this election so my moods have passed through some changes, from numb to denial to anger to resignation. I am not sure where i am this morning it's quite early so i guess i'll have to wait and see. 
My next term's source story is the stations of the cross, christ's journey to crucifixion, and i think to rising again. Are there comparisons to be made between Corbyn's modern day crucifixion by most of the press and the old Blairite-Labour people who resented his leadership and his call to socialism as the way forward ? Perhaps it does bear comparison in so much as great stories, stories that are told over and over become guiding myths, with characters that become icons. At present Corbyn is just a man who came to be a leader. But there are similarities between the two stories. The crowds that gathered, the ask that all should be treated kindly, the calling out of those whose worship falls to money & false idols, and now the pillorying of the man and those closest to him. I will be interested to see how he rises again. I am sure that he will. 
Politics and art and religion, what a combination, i guess it's always been this way. They stand as bedrock to humanity. Politics is body, if we are not fed & sheltered our bodies cannot thrive, if this is denied us the body dies. Art is soul, life blood poured onto page, take page as any form of art, it is expression, how soul takes form. And religion, religion can be corrupt, religion can be debased, defiled, made unworthy, but religion as faith is not religion that has made it's bed in corporeal pleasure. Let me say that religion is spirit but the spirit can rise only so far as the body will allow.
Before the election the Archbishop, Justin Welby, and Chief Rabbi Mirfiz firmly placed their faiths in the hands of the Conservative leaders. There is no distance now between these men and those they gave their colours to. Welby is tweeting empty prayers for the poor. His prayers are only for himself, a throwaway token that carries his hope that he would still like to be seen as worthy and good. 
Oh how they wish to seen as kind. Oh how we wish to be seen as kind but the election result has also brought me up sharply against my own worst nature. I want a government who cares for those who are struggling so i don't have to. Honestly, that's my truth. I am not a brilliant or good person. It will be interesting negotiating Christ's path from birth to death and beyond this term as someone who is decidedly not a saint or martyr and has no inclination to be either. I have no doubt this is going to bring me up against myself and teach me some hard truths. 
The Bible is the holy story i was brought up on. I was Church of England as a child, my mum took us to church and later i sang in the village church choir. I can remember being confirmed. I love to visit churches now and i would say that christianity is a lingering scent but i have no religion as such. I take a little of any that ring true and walk away from doctrine because i'm uncomfortable with tethering, it doesn't suit me. However, as with the Ramayana which i have just spent three months researching, drawing it in to my body and then letting it out again as i have understood it, i am looking forward to immersing myself in Christ's story. It's more familiar, i know parts so the path may feel more familiar, but a path trod over and over again changes all the time. 
At the beginning of my MA we were taken on a trip and asked to think about psycho-geography which is a coined phrase for how we know a place, not just physically but emotionally too. I suppose that my meeting with these great stories, the birth of christianity and the Ramayana is a similar kind of knowing. By immersing myself in the storyline i begin to know my way, i begin to map the story, knowing it as i might know landscape. 
With this second term's story i have begun by thinking about the birth of Christ. It is good timing as we are coming up to christmas tho' i think Father Christmas is the more cherished god at this time of the year. Still if anyone is interested i have scribbled a Madonna & Child as part of my thinking and posted it on my Instagram rebeccaclifford8379. I think most people will only see scribble but most of my ideas begin with a scribble.   
  

Nearly a week on from the European referendum in the U.K, and what a week it's been. I voted to stay in, I looked at coming out, I know that there are valid arguments for coming out but not one of the main proponents for leaving mentioned these. Their vision was not for a caring, sharing society it was for more grasp, more greed, more nastiness so in the end it was an easy decision for me. I voted to remain for environmental protection, freedom of movement, human rights, workers rights, for the sake of peace and stability. 
As it happens, when the majority tipped by a whisker to the leavers, I found that I am actually more attached to being a European than I thought, that my continental blood ran angry at the petty parochialism of people fixated on a "British" way of life. And that the briton in me baulked at the notion of belonging to the same nation as those that follow the repulsive Nigel Farage.
It could be argued that my desire to maintain my European status is also petty parochialism, that we can make new alliances now all over the world and not just with those countries that are our closest neighbours. But there was another way, put forward by the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, to remain and reform. 
There is no doubt that the European Union is a flawed machine, that it has become greater than it's parts perhaps. As a member of that union it seemed that we could have helped to bring about a change for the better, not just for ourselves but for the whole union, for the whole world. 
Here in my town, Norwich, it is all strange; people don't look at each other; who voted in, who voted out .. most of us will have friends and family who voted against us .. do we stop loving those people ? no .. but do we see them differently, do they see us differently ? I don't know. Was this what it was like when Hitler came to power in Germany ? Small seeds of mistrust turned citizen against citizen. I hope we are better than that. 
The leave campaign are very keen to say this referendum result is a done deal and for the Remainers to now, shut up and put up with the new order. But that wouldn't have happened if they had lost this vote. Farage would have been on tv whining about another referendum and so on and so on. And so, why shouldn't thousands of people mass outside Westminster calling for their voices to be heard. Why would Westminster not listen ? 
So the division in Britain continues, those that would normally hold the status quo are also most likely to have voted remain and so their motive for holding the peace is no longer there. There is a tension in the air and it is hard to know how it will be dissipated. 
So I watch and wait. No day is the same. Some days I feel numb, some days I feel hopeful, some days angry, and some days - most days - ambivalent and anxious. 
And what can anyone do in that space but carry on with their work, whatever that work might be. Today I am making paper from recycled envelopes. It happens to be grey but it's not a statement on my mood, other days I've made blue and pink and green. The paper is for my piece for the Waveney River Sculpture Trail which I did last year too. 
In the midst of the craziness post referendum it is nice to fall back into making, particularly as this piece was always about change and release and response and movement so I can use the making as a chance to reflect. Deep inside of me, the part of me that knows itself to be creature not man, I know that whatever must be, there is a way through, even if the death of my body, my being, is a part of that way through.