Author: Lucy Calcott

I write poetry, children's stories and the occasional article. I also love to paint and usually work in acrylic, water based crayon and charcoal. I am principally interested in an emotional or spiritual response to landscape so I am more focused on creating atmosphere than actual representation. I like figures too. In my writing I am searching for a contemporary religious female voice which is tolerant and open hearted . I have a MA in Creative Writing from Sussex University and have had poetry published in various journals. I also have a small collection of poems in print; Magdalene and other poems. I have exhibited paintings and poetry locally in Eastbourne and the surrounding area and with Christian Arts nationally. I am also a nurse and a mother of three grown up children. I long for a greener, more compassionate, unified world and am active in the interfaith movement.

Poetry

In my poems I am often searching for a female contemporary religious voice which is tolerant and open hearted. I am looking for a personal authenticity and truth which is spiritual and a challenge to the materialism and cynicism of so many aspects of our contemporary culture. The poems tend to be visual and sprung from an image.

My poems have been published in magazines such as The London Magazine, Temenos Academy Review, Agenda and Scintilla. Three poems were included in an anthology edited by Peter Abbs; Earth Songs. My first collection Magdalene and other Poems is published by Ivory books and available by mail order. I have written a children’s story about my children growing up under the gaze of The Long Man Of Wilmington; Peter and Sam and The Long Chalk Man, illustrated by Helen Armstrong.

I usually paint with acrylics and water based crayon. For drawing I love the organic qualities of charcoal. Ocasionally I use oils.

My paintings are often an emotional response to landscape, especially the beautiful Downland and coastal areas in Sussex near where we live. I also respond to figures. I try to keep my work fluid, spontaneous and expressive.

My influences are Chagall, Anslem Keiffer, David Bomberg. Barbara Rae and locally Harold Mockford.

magdeleina and oil

Painting and poetry helps to keep my eyes open. Art works in such a different way to the way of much of the mainstream media that inflames fears and closes down imagination. Does it have to be like this? Words are powerful. I think we need more poetry which reminds people of the richness of experience.

Discovery

I was at an exhibition in Bristol last Saturday with my old family friends Jo and Katie. To my delight we walked into a room full of huge and wonderful paintings by Sonia Lawson. A painter I didn’t know previously. They were memorising, rich colour, thick texture and repetitive primitive images of animals and figures. What a discovery and a timely reminder to myself that painting can be uplifting. Despite the rain outside the paintings left me with a warm feeling of renewed wonder and hope. This is what art can do, it can be soul food and when those connections come they are priceless.

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