The Sound of the Drum
An Interview with Kate Walters
For the Newlyn Society of Artists Exhibition Engage
Shamanic journeying is undertaken by those who have a question they need answered. So those who undertake this virtually assisted journey will need to arrive with an intention.
Kate Walters invites me into her house, ushering me into the cosy living room and a comfortable chair in the corner. Her dog, a whippet called Betsy, greets me softly before curling up next to Kate on the sofa. The house cascades with books: piles of them lie on the floor, tables, sofas, chairs. Kate explains that she has been making books for her next solo show. She explains that she likes to sit in the chair I occupy in the evenings, folding and stitching. A pile of these hand-made books are on the table next to me. I pick one up and thumb through it. Within the pages lie sketches and paintings, alongside patient blank pages. There is a warmth to these sketchbooks, the tracks of palms and fingers lingering in the stitches and folds.
Kate is an artist and shaman. She is forthright and piercing, as still and deep as an undisturbed pool. She is warm and funny too, laughter and wit coming easily alongside an endless store of empathy. She is, in short, a perfect spiritual and emotional guide.
Her piece for the NSA Engage show combines her artistic and shamanic practise. Using virtual reality technology, she has created an environment to facilitate a shamanic journey. Visual environments are coupled with a recording of Kate leading you through the experience. I ask her to expand.
KW: In Shamanic journeying, there are three worlds: the lower world, which is a world of nature and fruitfulness; the middle world, which is the normal world we inhabit (we tend to ignore this world in Shamanic journeying); and the upper world, a world of spirits, mountains, crystalline beings, and birds. I spend a lot of time on the Island of Iona in Scotland. It is a thin place, where the veils between the worlds are fragile. Iona, in the VR footage, represents the upper world. The lower world is figured by up-close shots of verdant undergrowth in the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall.
It is at this point that Kate stops, announcing casually ‘my drum is calling to me.’ Poised and deliberate, she collects the drum from under the dining table, unwraps it and begins to strike a rhythm. It is slow at first rising to a fast, almost manic rhythm. She explains that this is the kind of pace she drums at when leading a journey. A final note is struck and she waits for it to ring out, respecting the sound, before placing it back in its case.
Shamanic journeying is undertaken by those who have a question they need answered. So those who undertake this virtually assisted journey at the NSA show in spring this year, will need to arrive with an intention for the practice. At the start of the journey, the calling-in song is sung, before the recording explains how a
Shamanic journey is usually undertaken.
Then the drumming begins, a fast, relentless beat. There will be 5 minutes of drumming in the upper world before this 360 image dissolves into the lower world, where another five minutes of drumming will take place. The drumbeat will slow to a stop before the closing song commences, giving thanks for everything the viewer has been given in terms of visionary experiences or messages. A notebook will be provided to the journeyer. They will write or draw what they have seen, to clarify the answer to the question.
KRE: Why do you think it’s important for people to have access to a Shamanic experience?
KW: It’s a chance to have something expanded internally. It clears the possibility for visionary experience, which can be life enhancing. We always experience what we know and our minds are confirming the bias we already have. The thing about Shamanic journeying is that it expands the mind beyond everything we thought possible. It also may give you an answer to a question you hold when commencing the journey, one beyond the confines of ego and the self. The answers are often so elegant and beautiful that I find myself weeping.
The conversation drifts into talk about her physical work. A painting sits above the mantlepiece, raw and fleshy. A woman and a man in a sexual embrace. The painting could be deemed explicit but more than anything it is beautiful. The paint stands in peaks off the canvas, thick and wet like handfuls of flesh scooped by greedy, loving hands. Kate is encouraging this rawness in her material work, finding intense truth within it. I say goodbye to Kate, thoughts careering round my mind as they always do after a conversation with her. That night I dream of green shoots and springtime.