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I am a self-taught artist who loves and appreciates art and photography. Both capture moments of life with great meaning and beauty.
A photo or a piece of art can set off all kinds of emotions. I believe that looking at paintings and images can promote healing too, a form of colour therapy. Anyway, I hope my vision of my time on this planet can give you all some form of joy. |
 ‘I love experimenting with colour’ Posted by apc1606 Samira Butt Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance (ROAR) chief executive SHARON GILL talks to artist Samira Butt THERE has been a great deal of attention in recent years around everyday creativity, all those actions we may do naturally that we do not think of as being expressive. The Arts Council’s new 10 year strategy, Let’s Create, highlights this even further by embedding the idea into their three outcomes: Creative People, Cultural Communities and A Creative and Cultural Country. Samira Butt is potentially the embodiment of that ethos, as a self-taught artist with no formal training beyond O-Level but with ambitions for a creative career. I wanted to talk to Samira because she had just launched a new website – https://www.arimasarts.com/ – which is something many trained and mid-career artists do not do for themselves, partially because you need to generate an artist statement which is a challenging thing to do, to write about yourself. We begin with the decision to move their family to Rotherham in 2004, from nearby Tinsley. Samira and her husband have three sons who at one time were in different schools, and due to catchment areas and a reorganisation of the school system, the school run became a trial, so moving to Rotherham helped to minimise the travelling time. This also meant one of their sons could take the performing arts opportunities offered through Open Minds Theatre Company, which at that time was a thriving organisation. As supportive parents, this led to getting involved in the delivery of the Diversity Festival. In fact when I started at ROAR and began the journey with the Diversity Festival, both Samira’s husband and son were on the management committee... To read the full article, please click on the link below. ‘I love experimenting with colour’ Share this:
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ThI painted this about a year ago when I was practising figure drawing. At that time my sister in-law was opening up her own business selling organic produce and offering holistic therapies. She inspired me to think about how I could show the beauty of living off the land and eating food fresh from the ground. I really admire native African people who live harmoniously with their environment, being able to thrive in areas we would consider inhospitable. Their knowledge of the land and how they can use the local flora and fauna to survive in any situation is awe inspiring. I love how they are in tune with the seasons and the bounty that they bring. It makes me wonder how little I know of the land I live in and would I be able to thrive as comfortably as they do in their environment without supermarkets and NHS? Are we really evolved as we think we are? We rely heavily on others to maintain our lifestyle, which can be worrying when you think about it. In the olden days people knew how to heal themselves using local plants. They knew how to hunt and forage for food to survive. We do not have a clue about any of those things. I believe this knowledge is important and have decided to take a course in foraging. Anyway, just something to think about. Here is the painting depicting a beautiful African woman taking home an abundance of food fresh from the field for her family. This woman is not only beautiful on the outside, but also within. Her spirit is strong, resilient. There are not limits to her kindness and grace. Courage and honour is her natural state. She is mara mma, beautiful. ‘Mara mma’ means beautiful in the Igbo language of Africa. Take care Samira :)  Well folks it’s been a long time since my last blog, what can I say life happens. But hey, what a crazy year it has been for this planet! Covid-19 has stolen 2020 from us. It has been hard for everyone and I can’t help but feel a close connection to everybody because we all have something in common, now. There have been many positives and negatives with this predicament, but I am going to skip the negatives as we hear enough of that on the news. During the lock down, one of the wonderful things I noticed was families spending quality time together because they were forced to slow down and offered the opportunity to live in the present. Some who hardly left their house now discovered the great outdoors through shear boredom and spent a lot of time in nature contemplating their lives. Even the environment had time to heal from human activity as people noticed more animals appearing and less air pollution.  Anyway, as lock down began to ease around August we managed to take a road trip to Scotland, one of my favourite places in the UK. This time we explored more of the west coast. Well what can I say we started our trip with a bang on a zip wire at Laggan outdoor activity centre. The jeep ride that took us to the top of the hill was the cherry on top. Basically, I have never ever experienced such a rough ride in my life. What a blast, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world despite having acrophobia (just google it 😉). Zipping over fields with my legs wide open and trying hard not to behead the cows below me was a once in a lifetime experience.   We stayed at Glasgow then travelled up north to Inveraray Castle where we encountered one of the most majestic places I have ever visited. A sublime place, so serene, where you can easily lose yourself. Our next destination was Fort William where we had a little light lunch. From there we went across to the Isle of Skye hoping to see some fairies, but no luck. We took the ferry to a beautiful fishing village called Mallaig. We watched the glorious sunset from a restaurant next to the sea. The following day we travelled to the famous Glenfinnan viaduct, or for you and me the famous Harry Potter Bridge.  What can I say, the midges mistook us for food and attacked us so fiercely that we could not stay there for more than a few minutes. Our next destination was Inverness, the capital of the Highlands, a quaint city, but unfortunately Nessy did not want to make an appearance. From there we decided to go to John O’ Groats, just to say we had been there. Finally, we finished our road trip in Edinburgh. This is where I celebrated my birthday in style at Dishoom an Indian restaurant, with my family. A perfect ending to a perfect holiday.
So, all in all this trip made my year. I suppose this year has had its ups too, Covid gave us some respite during its takeover of our lives. On the bright side, I have spent a lot of time outside, in the garden, enjoying the beautiful warm weather playing scrabble so much that I was dreaming up words in my sleep. Take care and stay safe. Much love… Samira 😊 Madhubani Art-PeacockMadhubani Inspired-Peacock In my last blog, back in April, I wrote and posted about Madhubani/Mithila Art. Well running with the same theme, here is another painting which I have completed some time ago now, but never got round to posting a blog about it because life happens. Hope you like it. By the way, the Madhubani-Fish painting is displayed in Manchester at Healthy Spirit. If you wish to find out more about this kind of style then you can click on the link here- https://www.arimasarts.com/blog/madhubanimithila-art Much love Samira 😊  Madhubani Inspired-Fish Madhubani or Mithila art is an ancient folk art found in Bihar in the Mithila region of India. Its roots are found in the Ramayana (ancient Indian texts) where King Janak ordered many artists to decorate the whole village with paintings of Rama and Sita’s wedding. Originally these paintings adorned the walls and floors of houses and were formed mostly by women during religious ceremonies or weddings. The practise of Madhubani art has been passed down from person to person and is now widely recognised throughout the world. You can see images painted on paper cloth and canvas. Traditionally the paintings are constructed using mainly matchsticks, fingers, nib-pens, twigs and brushes, however, now more modern tools are used to create these beautifully elaborate paintings. Natural pigments are derived from plant material to create two dimensional paintings that contain geometric designs depicting scenes from ancient mythology, as well as folklore and nature. I found Madhubani art very exciting and colourful. Its intricate designs remind me of henna art commonly painted on hands and feet during holy festivals and weddings. For me painting in a two dimensional format felt very refreshing a huge change from what I usually paint. I love how this art form illustrates everyday life in a simple yet unique way, capturing the hearts and minds of both adults and children. I will be doing a series of these paintings loosely based on this form of art. For the first in this series I have made a painting based on the natural aspects of Madhubani art. It shows a fish. Madhubani has some associations with Feng Shui philosophy. The fish represents prosperity and fertility. I’m heading more towards the prosperity side of it though lol. The sun is very important in Madhubani design as it signifies life giving energy. Although this art form uses natural pigments and colours, I have opted for a more colourful approach and used acrylics for a very vibrant, eye catching painting. If you love bright colours then this painting is for you. I have named it ‘Prosperity’. |