Polaroids and Poems

Since the Lockdown started, we’ve been making the most of our designated outdoors time. Living in Chorlton, we’re very lucky to have access to Kenworthy Woods through the back gate and it’s an amazing time of year, with the trees turning green again and the wild garlic in bloom. I’ve seen a few butterflies around and can hear the owls calling from the trees at night. In some ways, with the streets so deserted, not seeing people as we might normally do, it feels as if we’re alone with the wildlife around us. It’s burgeoning, too. I’ve heard other people say that there are more bees this year, more birds. Even on a normal year, the kitchen slowly fills with cockchafers and damselflies, butterflies, moths and bees, creatures that (after being photographed, of course) have to be coaxed outside again. This year, unfortunately, our only indoor plague is a legion of mice, who have made quick work of my stock of rice, oats and lentils.

As is the case for many people, we have a fair bit of homeschooling to do, but most of it is quite fun: making dioramas and hats, doing science experiments with salt crystals, writing a graphic novel, burying a time capsule. It’s lucky that, being teachers, this part of the quarantine is easy and enjoyable for us, a welcome distraction from the inevitable anxiety the whole situation creates.

John has been using the time freed by not being able to teach in-person workshops to print prolifically, making beautiful gum prints. My work has been online for a while anyway, so that part isn’t much of an adjustment for me. I’ve been taking polaroids and making emulsion lifts and writing a fair bit of poetry. I won’t post the poems-in-progress, but here are the polaroids, just in time for Polaroid Week.