Joy in the Everyday: Celebrating Small Moments through Art

Getting Out of Bed

Sometimes, when things are tough, it's all the little things that hold us together. During my second year at university, I found myself stuck in a rut. Trapped in a cycle of not knowing what to make and feeling like everything I did make wasn't 'enough'. I hadn't yet learnt that most of making - if not all, in some way or other - is process. I missed home and I missed feeling inspired. But in spite of myself, I still wanted to make something. So I got up and went to make a cup of tea.

Collage (A4), 'Stirring Soup', 2022

Putting On The Kettle

I was thinking about home. All the little rituals and small traditions of home-life we develop over time. Regardless of whether you live alone or with others, we are creatures of habit and its these habits that stitch together to give the day structure. And as I stood there, in the kitchen of my student accommodation, I became aware of how lovely the sound is of water boiling in a kettle. The gradual rising roar of it, the anticipation of holding your beverage, fingers relaxing around a warm mug and steam floating up into your nose. Is that peppermint I smell? Chai, or chocolate?

Collage (A4), 'Tea Time', 2022

Making Breakfast

I know how privileged I was to have this time to essentially just exist without all that much responsibility. Time to tussle with the existential questions of what I wanted to make and how and why and who cares? But it is actually a very hard thing to do. Making art means confronting yourself. Building an art practice is to build a relationship with yourself, a way of moving, thinking, doing and being that generates outcomes which reflect, in some way, one's experience of living. And if I'm honest, my experience of living at that time was wrapped up in a lot of pain.

I was grieving and missing home, missing everything and everyone I knew and loved. When I sat down at my desk and made the first of these collages (Tea Time, see above), the words that accompany that image 'How Do You Take It?' definitely had a double meaning.

Collage (A4), 'A Good Breakfast', 2022

Ready For The Day

I'm really fond of these collages. They encapsulate so much of what I want to communicate in my practice: sharing the value in the understated, the ordinary, the gentle and the fleeting. I believe this is a powerful and radical way of looking, when we live in a society that so values excessive productivity — praying on our fears to make us want more, buy more, be more. If we shift our values to celebrate simpler and more considered living, we feel a greater sense of contentment and are less susceptible to the entrapments of consumerism.

There is nothing wrong with striving for or looking to be better. Of course, to improve and grow is essential. But what would happen if we slowed down a little, and did things in our own damn time? What would happen if we moved through our days spending a smidge more time noticing the little things? In acknowledging the worth of simple moments, our lives become not only so much richer, but more sustainable too.

Collage (A4), 'A Good Biscuit', 2022

All artworks by Rosemary Issitt

Collages (A4): mixed paper and glue.