Clare Jasmine Beloved

Artist/Poet/Creative

“Clares work is highly innovative. She delivered above and beyond what we could have hoped for with incredible passion and her work shaped how the arts was delivered on Merseyside and informed work going on today. She is a magic legacy maker”

Julie Hanna; Liverpool University / Manager Capital of Culture

I live in Liverpool and have created and work from The Beloved House Studio in the city which hosts visiting artists and writers on creative residencies.

I have been creating for as long as I can remember - the processes run through my blood and save my life over and over. Creating : transforming feelings, emotions, life stories, wounds and traumas, dreams and ideas into beauty. My art is very intimate and alive with lush goddesses, magic mermaids, sensual sistas, sacred imagery and my own personal symbolism. I paint intuitively working with deep layers which explore my own mythology. As I travel I create and explore what home means to me, how some places immediately feel like home.

I work in mixed media with mainly acrylics and then translate my work into rich colourful textiles in silks as well as exploring new materials. I have also transformed my symbolism and translated it into a jewellery collection and other usable wearable art. My work sells internationally.

I am passionate about words. My first poetry collection Love Hope and High Heels was published in 2010.

It was shortlisted for The Polari Book Prize for new gay and lesbian writing.

My groundbreaking creative community based work has been funded by Arts Council England and large scale creative projects have been rolled out through Public Health, NHS and Primary Care Teams and schools, prisons and probation services. They have been highlighted in independent research as innovative and highly effective programmes for working with depression, anxiety, dementia, cancer support, LGBTQI and the trans community.

I created and curated a large scale regional arts initiative with over 1000 women and girls which was exhibited at The Tate in a month long exhibition. This was then taken into cross sector settings and developed into Big Love Sista, Big Love My Brother, Big Love Little Sista.

I am dedicated to carrying on creating a body of work in the world and programmes that are diverse, real and down to earth but magical and deeply rooted in community.

I have lived through my own painful depressions, broken hearts and dreams & difficult experiences. In 2021 my beloved wife writer and poet Sandra died after a two year intense battle with stage 4 breast cancer - grief is an intense magical teacher for me.

I know what it is to be joyful and follow my bliss and also what it feels like to experience much sorrow and loss. I believe all our experiences & vulnerabilities can shape us into more compassionate human beings, willing to open our hearts more deeply & risk a wildly beautiful creative life.

Journeying through grief creatively…

Latest Exhibitions …

Home Girl

Roles:

Fairytale Medicine – a three-year international project looking at storytelling as a way of creating new narratives

Bad Lesbian Widows Club 2021–present

Founder Big Love Sista CIC 2012–2019
Director & Lead Artist/Facilitator, Wild Woman Social Enterprise 1997- present
Development Lead for Women Survivors of Abuse and Severe and Enduring Mental Health
Creative Group Therapist, The Umbrella Centre, PSS 1997-1999

Published Books:

The Belly Book, Beloved Press, 2022
Fairytale Medicine Journal, Beloved Press, 2020
The Fish Wives Tales 2020, Beloved Press, 2020
Love Hope and High Heels, Tollington Press, 2010. Shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize.

Editor:

Most Women I Know by Sandra Richardson, Beloved Press, 2022

Art Exhibitions:

Men of Halki – Greek Islands, Summer 2023

Forever Luminous – Lofoten Islands Norway, April 2023

Retrospective Exhibition – Aspen Yard, Spring 2022

Being a Girl, with 50 girls from schools in Sefton, funded by Sefton Public Health, 2018

Standing Up for Sistahood with Liverpool CCG, 2016-18

Big Love My Brother Knowsley, funded by Knowsley Council and Public Health, 2016

Big Love Little Sista Knowsley funded by Knowsley Council and Public Health, 2015

Big Love Sista Exhibitions across Knowsley funded by Knowsley Council, 2012-17

100 Women Create @ Tate Liverpool, June 2012

Goddesses - Vienna Women’s Conference @ Vienna, May 2012

The Big Self Love Valentine Show @ The Sparkly Heart Studio, 2012

We are Iconic @ moveable ongoing feast, 2012

Single Mothers as Madonnas @ The Sparkly Heart Studio 2012

We are Stars, Goddesses, Warriors, Queens... @ Blackburne House Gallery, March 2011

The Big Love Boudoir (funded @ BH by Liverpool PCT), 2011

Ridiculous Dreams, Radical, Forgiveness & Wild Gratitude @ Lopez Island, USA, April 2010

Shrines to Ourselves @ Blackburne House Summer Exhibition, 2009

Midsummer Night Dream – Arts In Health @ St Brides Church, 2008

Solo Show and Festival @ Jump Ship Rat, 2007

Interactive Poetry Performances:

Homotopia Festival, 2011
Writing on the Wall Festival Liverpool
Polari Book Awards Events in London (Shortlisted)
Seattle, Lopez Island, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Knowsley PCT, Knowsley Libraries

Longer Term Commissions & Tenders:

Big Love Sista commissions with 25 different communities and groups funded by Public Health and Arts Council 2014–2019
Fag Ends – Knowsley PCT & Fag Ends - Arts within Addiction, 2011–2012
Knowsley PCT – Creatively raising awareness of cervical cancer through art, 2011

Knowsley PCT – Preventing CVD in Knowsley through creative approach, 2010

Women’s Aid National Conference Workshops and exhibitions, 1995–2012
The Culture Company – Taking Arts into the NHS (1-year project), 2008

Wild Transformation Programme - A Community Arts Journey:

Clackmannashire Council, 2009–2010
Greenwich Council, 2009–2010
DWP Merseyside, 2007–2010
Knowsley Council, (3-year project) 2007–2010
Womens Enterprise Creativity Programme, 1996–2009
Art into Prisons – across the North West (6-month project) 2007
Artist in Residence Job Centre Plus Huyton, 2007
Artist in Residence Sure Starts Knowsley (6-month project), 2006

Sample of Partners over the last 25 years:

Sure Starts; Homestart; Manchester City Council; Liverpool City Council; Clackmannashire Council; Calderstones High Security Prison, Greenwich Council; Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council; Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley Youth Service & Youth Offending Team; Turn it Around; Hope University; Kirby Women’s Health Project; Brook Advisory Service; Tate Gallery, Liverpool; Liverpool Lifelong Learning; Department for Education and Skills (DfES); Liverpool Primary Care Trust; Armistead Project; Sex Workers National Meeting; PSS, The Umbrella Centre; PSS, The Avenue; Imagine Mental Health Project; Higher Side School Knowsley; Liverpool Knowsley School Mentors; Liverpool Excellence in Cities; Women’s Health Liverpool (WHISC); Women’s Health Initiative, South Tyneside (WHIST); Connexions Bradford; Connexions Liverpool; Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Knowsley; Post Natal Depression Support Groups; Kirby Unemployed Centre; Train 2000 Ltd – Centre For Women’s Enterprise; Christopher Swann Training; Women’s Business Network; Women’s Employment, Enterprise and Training Unit (WEETU); Burnley Women’s Enterprise; WIBDA; Business in Prisons; Young Gay Sefton; Lips - Young Lesbians Glasgow; Manchester Women’s Space - Pride; Liverpool Community College; Creative Partnerships Norwich; Chester/Crewe/Lincoln Women’s Aid; The Haven, Wolverhampton; Speke Garston Domestic Violence Project; Chrysalis Domestic Violence Project; Arts in Regeneration; Liverpool Culture Company; Heal 8; Include; Seeda; South East Economic Development Agency; Make your Mark; Latitude; Working Links; DWP; Job Centre Plus; FACT Centre; Fag Ends; Knowsley Heart Prevention Team; Knowsley Cervical Cancer Screening Team; Knowsley Disability Forum; The Big Issue in the North West; Great Places Young Womens Hostel; TIA CIC