The Importance of the Creative Conversation

I can’t even begin to tell you what it felt like to know my story was being shared at Crinniú na Ceirde - Gathering Craft - Unravelling the story of Irish craft  -  9 May 2025 RDS Dublin while I was tucked up in bed in my ‘Treehouse’. 

Extraordinary to see some images of my video being shown on four or five screens. To see the huge crowds in attendance. The hear the applause after.

My friend Jane Jermyn had recorded it for me. So I could see and experience it.

Below is the Transcript of my talk  The Importance of the Creative Conversation 

SEE Youtube for video of the talk  (4.5min) 

For subtitles in English, click on the little wheel top right of YouTube page, and click on Captions. Choose English.

PECHA KUCHA SPEAKER  Corina Duyn. Artist, Writer, Puppet Designer.

Living with severe ME, Corina creates from her room in full-time care. 

She continues to explore creativity through collaboration, 

using a co-artist to help to formulate her ideas. 

Her work reflects deeply on illness and altered existence

(Design and words by Gathering Craft organisers)

The Importance of the Creative Conversation by Corina Duyn - Artist in care  

Hello everybody my name is Corina Duyn I was invited to give a little thought on … art and creativity. I can’t be there in person but we made this little video in advance, and I wrote a few words which I am going to read.

Thank you

Due to the increasing severity of ME, my body is always changing and my mind continuously having to adapt. As an eternal artist this necessitates the exploring of different art forms: from sculpture, to weaving, writing, and puppetry. Reality is my art. Art is my reality. This time round as Artist in care.

Still from the presentation of my video at the RDS

The time spend working with Caroline Schofield in my nursing home room, courtesy of Waterford Healing Arts, quickly turned from my wish to just have fun creating, to a deep reflection on what it was like to leave my home and studio behind. 

This work organically became our exhibition ‘I brought the dream of flying’ at GOMA and Creative Brain Week in 2023. We reused many of my existing puppetry work but telling a new story. As Caroline wrote: “…the room and the collages hold up a mirror to society what ‘home’ is…”

Still from the presentation of my video at the RDS

The bed-accessible-art came in the form of scraps of newspaper, words and images to make small collages. A year after the last one was made the limited edition book ‘In bed I cut words’ came into being through the collaboration with David Murphy from Red Heaven Design. 

The title came from the collage: “In  bed I cut words - until I can rest -  in a world - where loss and pain - live alongside beauty and hope”.

Both the exhibition and the book are probably my most honest and direct work I have ever created. Accidentally pushing boundaries, for myself as well as the viewer and reader. In equal measures there is vulnerability, necessity, pride, sadness, beauty, resilience and pain. However my creative mind will not stop. As Pascale De Coninck wrote: “it is as essential as breathing.”

Now, I don't make art. Apart from some small creative endeavours. But my mind remains active and has ample time to reflect on my creative life lived including the past four years in care. Throughout these musing I often come back to the importance of the creative conversation.  The importance to stay connected to a world I know. Or knew. A world I understood. And understood me. The world outside my room.

I am honoured that my work will live on and my book is republished. Katherine Collins from Creative Ireland - Waterford, wrote: “… 'In bed I cut words' provides us with a thought-provoking, vulnerable, honest artistic response to Corina’s situation and helps us consider what home is. We are delighted to provide funding for the paperback edition which brings this important work to a wider audience and I hope for a deeper conversation on the need to support creativity in all settings.”

As artist, as creatives, we see the world differently. It is removed from life of care. So, for me, the creative conversation, or even the creative thought, the creative connection, like here, right now, in this space, is vital for my well-being. As essential as breathing… 

Thank you Róisín (De Buitlear) for this opportunity.

Video: 

Written and recorded by Corina Duyn - With help from Caroline Schofield. Uploaded  to youtube by Myli Myriam Pincheira 

For Crinniú na Ceirde - Gathering Craft - Unravelling the story of Irish craft  - 9 May 2025

Images by Corina Duyn/Caroline Schofield/Keith Currams/Adrian Duyn/Jane Jermyn

Website: www.corinaduyn.com

In bed I cut words Book page: https://www.corinaduyn.com/site/in-bed-i-cut-words/

From biography in NA CEIRDE / GATHERING CRAFT RDS 9 May 2025 (scroll to Forum for full catalogue)

Corina Duyn

Dutch born Artist, Writer and Puppet Designer Corina Duyn trained as a nurse and social care worker before becoming a full-time artist after moving to Ireland in 1989.

Corina is an Artist in care. Moving into full time care, aged 59, Corina received support from Waterford Healing Arts to explore new ways to create by accepted use of her co-artist's hands to bring ideas into being.

Portrayal of life around her changed to exploring the inner world of illness to understand this utterly changed existence.

Despite living with Severe ME she continues to have access to her creative mind and values the Creative Conversation.

Creative highlights in recent years include facilitating ‘Life Outside the Box’ puppet project (2015), keynote speaker at ‘Broken Puppet Symposium on Puppetry, Disability and Health’ (2018) and the ’Invisible Octopus’ video poem (2020), an extraordinary and succinct illustration of life with ME.

All of the work in the past four years has taken place in Corina's room at Signacare. 'The Tree House', as Corina calls it, is an extraordinary space which Corina has utterly transformed with her artworks.

Within the nursing home Corina curated the photographic project Hands of Signacare and recently published her book of collages’ In bed I cut words’ which were spontaneous, intuitive responses to life in care. 

In 2023 ‘l Brought The Dream of Flying’ with co-artist Caroline Schofield was exhibited at GOMA modern art gallery Waterford, and Creative Brain Week 2023

"Artists move our world wherever they may find themselves." 

Dominic Campbell, Irish Hospice Foundation

Six hundred days

Six hundred days ago I moved into long term care and I ‘brought the dream of flying’

…

In conversation with my co-artist Caroline Schofield 
Photo © Keith Currams

I wake early and revel in the silence. I open the curtains and see the world awaken. The trees, birds, early squirrels. One of my favourite moments before the inevitable noises start in the hallway from staff, doors, and various televisions at volume. In those early mornings I imagine my home, my  Treehouse * to be unrelated to be in a nursing home. What Home means remains a very complicated question. 

After my daily bowl of readybrek reality sets in. I often listen to meditative music, through headphones if necessary, especially on days when I am a bit ‘frazzled’ about the prospect of the day ahead. I know the signs by now after 600 days living in a residential home.  The day can be caring, chaotic, safe, kind, restrictive, fun, fearful, unsettling, sad, happy, bewildering, finding acceptance and gratitude, as well as thought provoking moments due to the closeness of fragility and beauty of life around me and in me. It seems I am still learning to find my way, but ultimately know that I have to ‘get this’.

 

As my short day ends I watch the crows gather for the night. Every day a few minutes earlier. Headphones on to silence the noises of the house my thoughts go deep. It is at those moments I feel I need to write to make sense of life as it is right now. But writing on paper is not possible anymore beyond a few words. I scribble on my phone at times, creatively processing my experiences but as screen time is overwhelming my phone is often turned off. The words I did write/dictated are copied to my iPad however words jump around in a dizzying way and sadly I lose track in order to edit and make sense of the notes. Yet I keep telling myself to write that blogpost about what it is like to live here. I started so many times but realise that each day each minute it would be a different story. Anyway. I am here. It is going to take me a while. But I am going to do this and will, as usual, be explored through my creative mind. The writing perhaps a little frazzled and fragmented like my present jumbled brain.

“I identify deeply with my work especially my puppets. 

Creating them is one thing. By fully observing them

 I am learning to understand their true stories and thus my own.”

‘Miracle Miracle’ 
© Corina Duyn 2018-2022

Miracle Miracle 

In a roundabout way of dealing with the reality of also needing help to make a Christmas/Winter display for my room, I found my mind delving into the story of my puppet Miracle Miracle resting under the (Christmas) tree.

When I started making her in 2018 she was to tell a story of an ambulant wheelchair user. Perhaps her chair being pushed by a gay carer with a blue Mohican haircut. Throwing off her blanket she steps out of her wheelchair and with the help of her walking sticks takes off on her colourful roller skates. Revealing funky clothes. 

I had hoped to use puppetry to explore social perception and disadvantage but also resilience. Most of all challenge how you are are to behave as a disabled person. If you use a wheelchair, you are not suppose to stand up. “Miracle Miracle” a dear friend roared in fun a few decades ago when I did just that. Standing up from my wheelchair in front of a church. Miracle Miracle’s story was never properly told except the concept during my last public lecture in 2018 in Cork.  

Miracle Miracle came with me to Signacare; unpainted, undressed, just wearing a little black hat (toe part of sock) and wrapped in her orange blanket. She had been sitting with Póilin Puppet in my window on the bench looking into the garden. I always hoped to finish making her.

Stitching  

In March after a short spell in hospital I started stitching a long cloth. “Sewing the tears of exhaustion” I scribbled on a piece of paper. Stitching brought peace. Over the following months it told a story of drowning, reaching out and becoming the tree. I stopped sewing at the point a branch became a bird. It narrowly escaped to be binned, choosing to put it in my sewing drawer instead. In July one Sunday afternoon I took it out, folded it up, reincarnated as a magic flying carpet for Miracle Miracle. I was happy to see a new story appearing from two unfinished works.  

Lying on my dresser Miracle Miracle looked at peace at having given up her fight for social justice to look after herself and rest. Only covered by a thin blanket. Unpainted, undressed. But beautiful as she is. To be carried in the wind to dream worlds where life is simpler. Still wearing her roller skates she shows resilience in her vulnerability as a dear friend told me.

It took me almost five months of observing her resting on her flying carpet to come to the point I acknowledged that I too am ready to let go and am desperately in need of rest. 

Support 

Staff at times have limited ability to truly be Present so I am very grateful for the support of family and friends. I also have the great fortune to receive outside support from a Personal Assistant (PA) twice a week through Disability Support Services (as I am deemed inappropriately placed in nursing home care due to my age), as well working with artist Caroline Schofield through Waterford Healing Arts Trust. Both women have made living here much more doable. 

With co-artist Caroline Schofield in the elevator 
at Signacare - retrieving puppet props
Photo © Caroline Schofield 2022

The collaborative creative process with artist Caroline Schofield started in August 2021. (See exhibition press release *).  Finding our way of working together began with making stunning prints using leaves. Many of these made their way, together with paper cut outs of shadow puppetry * era into a series of art boxes. Dioramas if you wish. Many depicting loss, grieve and gain of moving into care. Perhaps these works which will be in the exhibition say more than the written word ever can. 

I tried very hard not to use our creative time to explore this epic move but my mind wouldn’t let it go until it was done. Now I can say that I am glad it worked out this way. Work evolved by communicating about the pieces and stories in progress. Until there is this ‘Yes!, this is it’ moment. Caroline was/is my hands to add the detail about which I could only think and tried out with blue tack or masking tape. 

Some of this series of small boxes have taken a year to complete. Along the way we had tears, laughter, wonderment, friendship, and learning, evolving into an exhibition. 

I brought the dream of flying

One of these ‘boxes’ became the title of this shared exhibition: ‘I brought the dream of flying’ * Opening 14th January 2023 at Gallery of Modern Art - GOMA Waterford, with amazing support of Waterford Healing Arts Trust and Creative Waterford.

When I came for respite 600 days ago - but never went home again -  I had brought an unfinished bird puppet with me. I felt that by finishing the piece, which had one broken wing, it would be a symbol that I would fly again. I and others had truly hoped that moving into care would restore my health to some degree. Including recovering my lost creative abilities. For this hope and dream I brought my clay and all the tools. Not used for four years now, I am ready to let go of them.  

My creative ability is ever evolving at the same pace of my physical decline. I lost lots of weight over the past two years. As well as more and more of my independence. Food is puréed as I can’t chew or swallow for long. I now have a powerful fully reclining wheelchair. Walking is a few steps to the bathroom. Not even every day. My hands, although the dancing motions are a fascination to my co-artist, they often don’t want to do what I would like them to do. Creatively and in general. Recently my body goes ‘numb’ for hours. Followed by slow return of movement and speech and precious moments of the Phoenix rising again, Especially when I have an outing with my PA, those moments are lived and loved with all my heart. Then I rest. Like Miracle Miracle. In those moment of rest, even in the ‘numbness’, my creative mind stays alive. Thinking, planning. Re-thinking. Re-planning. 

I can cut paper and I can glue. The result is a series of A5 collages from newspaper words and found images, which I can make independently, often lying flat in bed. Exploring emotions and realities of life (here). As friends have said: “you needed to write, you couldn’t, now you found your way”; another said “you are writing a visual diary”. Many will be in the exhibition.

 

“In bed I cut words until I can rest in a world 

where loss and pain live alongside beauty and hope”

Collage © Corina Duyn 2022

Although the exhibition is a huge event for me mentally and physically it is a true honour to have this team of people believing in my work and a story they felt needed to be told. A team of creative professionals looking after everything. Wow. A first.

 

I feel I am finally reaching moments of being at peace with it all. Letting go of the ‘idea of home’. Letting go of this part of my story as well as my work, old and new. Especially after the exhibition I hope to feel my ‘job is done’. My advocacy having continued although I didn’t intended to do that. I hope I can be at peace and find ease with living in long term care doing so in undoubtedly a beautiful room. My Treehouse. Rest. Rest in the knowledge and acceptance that this is what I had to do. Moving into care and one last sharing of life with illness and this new perspective of life in care through the arts. A first perhaps.

Thanking you with much gratitude for your continued support.

Corina Duyn

17 December 2022 

Links for further reading:

• I will continue to write short observations on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/corina.duyn.7 which at this stage is easier than my blog, and allows for conversations with many.

• Website: https://www.corinaduyn.com/site/ 

• My Tree House. Moving into long term care. Blogpost May 2021 http://corinaduyn.blogspot.com/2021/05/my-tree-house-moving-into-long-term-care.html

• Exhibition press release by Maeve Butler from Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT): See Gallery of Modern Art Waterford (GOMA) https://www.gomawaterford.ie/exhibitions/i-brought-the-dream-of-flying/ or WHAT:  http://www.waterfordhealingarts.com/i-brought-the-dream-of-flying/ 

• Shadow puppetry and the Invisible Octopus http://corinaduyn.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-time-of-creative-change.html more posts on my blog and images on my now archived Facebook Art page https://www.facebook.com/CorinaDuyn  

• Thoughts on Puppetry - ME and the Phoenix - rising from the ashes http://corinaduyn.blogspot.com/2019/12/invisible-octopus-3-me-and-phoenix.html 

• Early image of Miracle Miracle and other puppets http://corinaduyn.blogspot.com/2019/11/invisible-octopus-2-puppet-design.html

• An interesting discussion on Facebook on ‘what is home’ (https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02vEm8pWKp9Gnjfw8eSfyeBvtUH5dWqkG36iiTDCufdUDZJqApkZgyZ5k4qn9uY5nol&id=100009582548792 ) 

• Information and guidance on ME Myalgic Encephalomyelitis  http://meadvocatesireland.blogspot.com/