All About Love
“Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own, or another’s spiritual growth”
M. Scott Peck
A lot has happened in my life in the last three months including the death of my beloved father and being made redundant. These two unexpected losses have really stopped me in my tracks, and made me consider my faith as well as my vocation as an artist and community organiser.
My parents were both great advocates of creativity and supported me and my two brothers study Fine Art at university and to use our creativity for the common good. My father and I recently published co-written poetry and enjoyed sketching together as a way to share the old, and ancient, stories from his childhood home on the shores of Lough Neagh, County Tyrone in the north of Ireland. I miss them both deeply, and whilst I am in the process of developing my artist practice as a freelancer I think of their belief in me that I should use my art and commitment to justice and peace for the benefit of others.
In taking some time to heal, I have read several faith, art and inspirational books including bell hooks’ bestselling book ‘all about love’ which is helping me put things into perspective and feel comforted by her words of wisdom.
‘all about love’ published in 1999, is a cultural critique and self-help book that diagnoses modern society as suffering from a pervasive ‘lovelessness’, driven in part by consumerism and in her writing, she argues that because society fails to define love properly or provide clear models for it, people struggle to build healthy connections.
It was released for sale when I was in my final year at Liverpool Hope Art College training to become a Fine Art printmaker, and I wish I had known about it back then, as so much of my creative practice would have dovetailed to her writing.
I was first introduced to bell hook’s work when researching for a creativity retreat I delivered called ‘Creativity Catalyst’ back in 2022 which reflected on the Christian church’s role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and later in a case study I commissioned in 2024 with Leeds Beckett University looking at creative pedagogies in a Leeds faith based school. The lead researcher, Dr Lisa Stephenson quoted bell hooks throughout her final report on children’s dispositions and capacity for love, hospitality and welcome expressed through drama, creative writing and sculpture.
bell hook’s writing has a gentle force to encourage community organisers like myself, to shed the overwhelming complexity and distractions of modern consumption. Through her own lived experiences she describe how we can free up the emotional and physical energy needed to truly care for, respect, and know others. “Simplicity strips away our reliance on excess, allowing us to be present.”
Her inspiration is not merely in her writing, as she opted not to capitalise the spelling of her name, hoping to keep the public’s focus on her work. But over her decades at the forefront of Black feminist writing, the punctuation choice became a constant curiosity.
I feel like making the decision to read ‘all about love’ has helped me to challenge my views linked to the popular notion that love is merely a feeling. Instead, she described love as an action, a choice and a commitment to nurture our own and one another’s spiritual growth. Her vision resonates strongly with the Gospel commandment to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ in and offers a powerful framework for anyone seeking to work for justice and peace. These words are foundational to Christian ethics and Catholic Social Teaching, especially the two pillars of solidarity and subsidiarity that help navigate my own decision making.
Looking back over the past quarter century since ‘all about love’ was published, I can see how my own understanding of agape, self-sacrificing, love has influenced my work in the Catholic Diocese of Leeds as Community Participation Coordinator for CAFOD for 7 years, and more recently as Faith and Creativity Lead at Leeds Church Institute. Whether supporting parish communities, engaging with campaigns for global justice, or creating spaces where art and faith meet, I have been drawn to the conviction that social transformation begins with relationships rooted in dignity, compassion and solidarity.
The call to ‘live simply’ has been another thread running through both my faith and professional life. For hooks, love requires us to challenge systems built on domination, greed and inequality. Similarly, Catholic Social Teaching reminds us that our choices have consequences for our neighbours, especially those living in poverty and those most affected by environmental destruction.
This connection became particularly evident through conversations around climate justice and climate racism. The communities who contribute least to climate change are often those who suffer its harshest impacts. I have delivered creativity retreats for clergy and lay faith leaders on climate racism using the inspiration of Yinka Shonibare’s ‘Hibiscus Rising’ which exposes the unequal burdens carried by poorer nations and marginalised communities, reminding us that environmental issues cannot be separated from questions of justice, power and human dignity. To respond faithfully requires more than concern; it requires love in action.
These themes have also found expression through the Art Theology Festival, where Leeds based artists Janet Freckleton and Luke Walwyn, theologian Dr Tasia Scrutton, Leeds Craftivists and local communities have explored how creativity can help us imagine more just and hopeful futures. Art has the unique ability to connect head and heart, helping us see our neighbours differently and inviting us into deeper relationships with one another and with creation itself.
As a young graduate from Liverpool Hope Art College, I was inspired by the ecumenical witness of Bishops David Sheppard and Derek Worlock, whose leadership in Liverpool demonstrated the transformative potential of faith working for the common good. Their commitment reflected the vision of the landmark report Faith in the City, which challenged churches to engage seriously with poverty, exclusion and urban injustice. Those influences helped shape my understanding that faith is not something lived privately but expressed through active participation in the life of our communities.
These insights also echo the teaching of Pope Francis in Laudato Si’, where he reminds us that “everything is interconnected”. Care for creation, concern for the poor, and commitment to the common good are not separate tasks but part of a single vocation to love.
As Francis writes,
“We are not faced with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.”
As I look ahead to the next stage of my journey, I remain grateful for the writers, church leaders, communities and colleagues who have helped shape my understanding of faith in action. Twenty-five years on from graduation in Fine Art I am still learning that the most important creative work we can do is to practise love, not as sentiment, but as a way of living that seeks justice that builds a more compassionate world for all. I will be leading creative retreats in September for clergy and lay faith leaders alike, using fine art techniques to encourage dialogue on some of the hardest to talk about social injustices facing our communities today.
Keep an eye on my Instagram for dates and booking information.
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