Laura Coleman
Writer and Artist
Duetting: Weather Writing from Two Doorsteps
DUETTING is an ongoing collaborative writing project, inspired by four years of letter writing and journalling between myself and the artist Clare Whistler, from East Sussex to the Isle of Eigg in Scotland, and back again. Forging meaningful connections through writing: working in tandem with the environment, the weather, and with each other.
Whilst so many doorsteps around the world are under threat, this project acknowledges the privilege of having a place of safety on which to stand. considering how to look out onto and with the world, through the ever-shifting weather patterns of our times.
How did we begin?
With identical journals, we stood on our doorsteps every morning. me in Scotland and Clare in Ashburnham, East Sussex. We started to write a record of our internal and external weathers, limited to those two doorsteps.
Slowly, we found a way to observe, to get clearer and smaller, sifting through subjects and methods and ideas to find a map for ourselves. We created twelve instructions (barefoot; sitting; eyes closed…), and began to write letters around those instructions, with the intention of one per month for a year.
Each day, at first opening of the door, we collected seven words, guided by the weather and the instruction of that moment. Then at the end of each month, we met at 8am, from two doorsteps with spans of land, sea, and sky between us. We wrote letters to each other. Whatever arrived, from being ourselves, embodied in the weather of our surroundings. At the end of our writing, we spoke over the phone, reading our letters aloud. Our lives, and the worlds around us, went on in all the ways they do while this slow inner/outer weather gathering continued.
There were long stretches where nothing was written. Where we had no contact with each other. The intention of twelve letters over twelve months changed. There were long periods where we were not on our doorsteps, due to travel or the Covid-19 pandemic. But in the end, over four years, letters emerged from our twelve instructions, along with multiple sets of those seven daily words.
The project has culminated in the creation of a pair of journals, which include both of our letters, plus enough blank pages for a year of your own duetting. Instructions are included on how to weather-write from your doorstep to another.
DUETTING is also a workshop - as a one off, or a series. Please do get in touch if you're interested in myself and Clare running a DUETTING workshop in your community.
We hope this project might inspire others to write in collaboration and make connections across the span of landscapes, time zones and weatherings, both literal and emotional.