As i said project

As I Said brought together 15 emerging writers and six artists from Grafters Collective across 13 sessions to explore the possibilities of ekphrastic poetry.

Moving beyond traditional models of critique, the project asked a simple question: How might poetry reshape the way we experience visual art and influence how it is made?

Through a series of workshops at Saatchi Gallery Learning and Grafters Studios, participants developed new writing and artworks in conversation with one another, creating an ongoing exchange between text and image.

The project culminates in a public exhibition, four one-off workshops, and a programme of readings at the Poetry Society Café from 31 July to 13 August, alongside the launch of a printed anthology featuring work created throughout the series.

At its heart, As I Said explores new ways of engaging with visual art while questioning who gets to author culture. It invites collaboration, dialogue, and shared creative ownership.

With thanks to Saatchi Gallery Learning, The Poetry Society, and Grafters Collective.

Still Water

25.3 cm × 25.3 cm

Framed stills from an animation of the water's surface.

A piece made as part of a workshop series with One Word Workshops

The work is made from stills taken from an animation of the sea's surface. Each image is printed onto acetate, encased in transparency film, and mounted within a clear display frame. The transparency allows light to pass through the work, highlighting the images in a way that reflects how light moves across water.

As part of the workshops, artists brought works in progress for a group of poets to respond to. Their feedback, interpretations, and responses informed the development of this piece over two sessions.

Flick Through

25.3 cm × 25.3 cm

Layers of a painting printed onto acetate and mounted in a flip book. Displayed alongside notes from my sessions with the poets.

A piece made as part of a workshop series with One Word Wokshops.

The work is based on a painting that I brought to one of the workshop sessions at the Saatchi Gallery. A reproduction of the painting was separated into individual layers, printed onto acetate, and bound into a pocket notebook. Viewers can flip through the pages to build the image layer by layer, revealing the painting's construction.

The display frame also contains notes from the two sessions with the poets, whose responses informed the development of the final works. The notes can be rearranged within the frame, allowing the names and contributions of individual poets to be highlighted and making their influence on the pieces visible.

Proper 

The patch on the back is a rag once used to wipe paint from brushes, from hands, from the rim of jars. It covers an earlier attempt at a signature. I hid it because it didn’t look proper enough.

This feels pretty proper. The Artists. The Artists at the Saatchi. Feels pretty fucking proper to me.

I don’t quite believe it. I am scared they will look too hard and figure out that the whole thing is counterfeit. Me especially. I’m a phony. A phony who had to redo her signature because the first try didn’t look proper enough. A phony who hasn’t been to the studio in two months and primes her canvases with emulsion bought off Amazon.

Jay’s hand scribbles and thumps. I didn’t think there was that much to write? Isha and Amy seemed to understand it immediately. That must mean I’ve done something right. It is hard to keep this up. I am still so awkward. I called Clare “Charlotte”. I hope she didn’t mind.

Jayda said it reminded her of a Keats poem. I wonder if she said that to make herself sound cool, or if she meant it. She did sound cool. It made me feel cool too.

Everyone says the painting makes them uneasy. I wonder what my tutor from first year would think. Dan. He always used to say, “What are you going to paint when you get happy?” Jokes on you, Dan. Eight years later and I’m still painting uncomfortable shit.

I keep tonguing bits of bourbon biscuit from my teeth. Outside, people stood around with trays of takeaway oysters. One man drank from a coconut with complete sincerity.  I don’t like oysters, but I’d like to be the type of person who spaffs thirty quid on a tray of oysters and actually enjoys them.

I liked talking to Beryl and Eureka. Berrell has seen River Monsters and we discussed the fish that bites cocks off in the Amazon. Paula said she loved the painting immediately, no hesitation. They seem like really fun women but I am following Beth and I suspect they won’t find me nearly as interesting.

I do not wish to write about my work. The work feels secondary to the people orbiting around it. Everyone here is different in their own precise way. Different voices, different clothes, different ways of moving through the room. They’re all very cool, and much more interesting than they probably realise. Despite not knowing any of them properly, I like being among them. I feel good around this group of cool women.

There’s a big thought in there somewhere. Something about community and womanhood.

I shouldn’t talk to anyone for a while after today. 

But it was good in the end. I feel good. I feel proper.