What happens when you've left one chapter behind but haven't quite arrived at the next?
Inspired by Frances Featherstone's Dower House from her Threshold series, this Reflection Room episode explores the psychology of liminality—the in-between spaces where identity, perspective and possibility begin to shift.
https://www.francesfeatherstone.co.uk/paintings
Transcripts
Speaker:
Welcome back to the reflection room and this is your tasting tour for August.
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If you've been curious about joining us in September, every prompt is paired either with
art or poetry or both.
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And usually reflection room prompts come first and then get paired with art.
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But this week, the art is definitely the springboard.
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I've chosen Frances Featherstone's Dower House, which is part of her threshold series.
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This image captures a domestic doorway in movement and she's used layers of translucent
paint, there's people objects and it seems as if the movement overlaps and this gives the
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impression that we're seeing traces of time passing rather than it all being um solid in
one go.
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There's parcels, a pair of crocs,
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It looks like leaves have blown in and we can see footsteps or like people coming and
going.
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I suppose the doorway is a place where the pieces of life accumulate in this image.
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What particularly caught my attention here was the transients.
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Those translucent layers made it feel as if the moment hadn't quite disappeared before the
next one had begun.
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I also love
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and this is very typical of Francis's work, this idea that we're looking down on the scene
from above.
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It's almost as though we're witnessing those movements from the perspective of memory.
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And this elevated view encourages us to observe a bit like the act of reflection.
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Psychologically, this painting made me think about liminality.
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Now the word comes from the Latin limin.
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meaning threshold and it describes those in-between moments in life when we've left one
role or identity or chapter behind but haven't quite arrived at the next.
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There was an anthropologist called Victor Turner and his description is that liminality is
being betwixt and between a place and it can also feel uncertain but at the same time full
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of possibility.
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What's particularly interesting to me is that liminal spaces are often where reflection
happens and it might be because our old way of thinking is no longer fitting what we are
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going to become and we might be more open to noticing things, questioning or imagining
something different.
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Turner described these periods as times of creativity, freedom and new possibilities
instead of
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just uncertainty.
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Today's prompt then is simple.
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Where in your life are you standing on threshold?
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What happens if you shift your perspective?
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So you can have a play with this.
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You could look through, look down on what is happening as a neutral observer.
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Play with this prompt in whatever way works for you.
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P.S.
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I'm going to encourage you to check out Frances's website for another collection of her
paintings.
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And this one's called From the Perspective of Angels.
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Now these depict women surrounded by colorful bread spreads and are again using that
overhead perspective.
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The images are delightful.
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There's one or two that have like really bright yellow, kind of yellow ochre type colored
bread spreads.
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And when I went on retreat,
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a few years ago with my family to France to Rive Retreat, the bedding was yellow and it
just reminded me of being completely wrapped up in those comfortable beds and lovely
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duvets, so there's something really nice in there.
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Links to everything are in the main email and also in the show notes.
