Poems & Prayers by one who struggles with words in the lead up to my exhibition Pieces of Self. Please help me see Your presence & the beauty in decay weakness imperfection in the falling down in the random collection in texture in roughness in change in transition the loose ends the untied knots the run-offs the converging streams.. or seams the dry pools the mistakes and accidents in tangles in mismatched items in holes in incomplete wholeness in the fading in ageing the be

In approximately 5 weeks I have my very first solo exhibition - something both incredibly exciting & scary. Seeing as my exhibition is centred around my experience of chronic ill-health I thought I may as well put it all out there and blog some of my thoughts from the experience in the lead up to the exhibition. It's something that is very difficult to explain so it's all a bit esoteric, so we'll see how this goes... These 4 weeks of writing come from bits I've re-discovered

It's been a little while since I last posted despite my desire to be a bit more regular. However I have been working on a few different sorts of things, including a series about my own experience of art and ill-health. Rather than just write something up, I thought I'd make them into short videos because images are always much more interesting! They quality could be better - but this is what I'm able to do myself, at home, with my knowledge (lack there of?) of computer type s

This was an article I wrote in 2011 for Equip and given that I am re-entering a space where faith, art and health collide again, I thought it might be appropriate to reflect on again. (Re) Discovering Art within Faith How illness created the space to find a spiritual connection with creativity Over the past five years my life has gone through quite an upheaval. The year after completing a demanding (physically, mentally, emotionally) theatre degree my husband and I returned t

Self Portrait: Not quite, myself Karly Michelle Whalley Plaster, white paint on black material and wooden board. Water drops. Steaming hot water holds me, slowly encouraging a form of restoration. Water entices my muscles into action in the morning and soothes them towards sleep at night. My whole self enveloped; my thoughts drift between the productive, creative and the quiet, calm. Self portrait: lopsided, off-kilter, not quite right, but made from myself; slowly, qu

This document is for those who have fibromyalgia and for those who have friends who do. It is a bit of an unusual document but I put it together out of my own experience of struggling to adequately explain my condition to friends and therefore the difficulty of asking for help, something that has affected both my husband and I as I have been unwell and has he has had to live with me being unwell. When you an ongoing illness the greatest thing you can have is a supportive circ

Letter to my friends ‘The Well’ (those who are without chronic illness) from us, ‘The Presently Un-Well’ (those who have a chronic illness) To my friends ‘The Well’ I say this; we ‘The Presently Un-Well’ need you. We need you as friends, family, lovers, carers, comforters, suppliers of food, of things, of transportation