Welcome to a series inspired by Sister Cody’s work, previously featured on the blog, where we find messages of hope and feeling in art.

Picture this. It’s summer 2003, you’re listening to Busted’s ‘Year 3000’ on a CD on your walkman, you have jelly flips flops on and a Von Dutch cap perched on your head, dancing along with a fruit winder in one hand and a SunnyD in the other, dreaming of marrying Alex Pettyfer in a Juicy Couture tracksuit. Life is good…

I’ll be honest; I shudder at the thought of going beyond Zone 5. Simply put, I’m obsessed with London. I’ve tried to get rid of my city snobbery, I’ve tried elsewhere - I even had a brief stint in the countryside. It was decidedly not for me - I personally love the fact that taking the northern line is the equivalent of smoking a cigarette. It adds a real spontaneous zest for life ! If rolling hills, fresh air, open vistas, cheaper rent and fresher produce are your jam, then go off, live your best life, you do you, but I will die on a (primrose) hill for London…

I have not much to say, because they really say it all…

Understatement of the year; we spend a lot of time online. This isn’t something that is going to change, in fact we will spend even more time lost in the digital tundra. It’s time to level up and make a digital space for us all to enjoy together. Embracing techno-shamanism methodologies, theVOV is a wonderful new place to explore…

Deep in the second lockdown (is it the 2nd or the 45th?) galleries and museums once again with nowhere else to go and their hallowed halls empty, have turned to the digital sphere, asking us to warmly embrace the cool breeze of the digital world.

To start again! How often will I get that offer in my lifetime? With the pandemic being a magnifying glass to the problems of, as my flatmate likes to refer to it, ‘the before times’, I asked myself where to start. No better place, in my personal opinion, than with art. Yes, I hear you shout out ‘How frivolous!’ Could our energy not be placed better elsewhere? Perhaps, yes, but hear me out.

In the eye of the storm of 2020, which began with Australia on fire, and ended with a worldwide pandemic still hurling, we somehow, white-knuckled, found a certain sense of clarity and at times, even calm in what mattered to us all the most. Some took up painting and yoga, some danced and ran, others read and some even became obsessed with jewellery making (me!) and we all came a little bit closer to ourselves.