Rosy Pendlebaby & her Smutty Letters workshop
Being in Lockdown 3.0 is hard and we’re all fed up of Zoom Quizzes. While we’ve been struggling in music rounds, Rosy Pendlebaby has been running her Smutty Letters workshops and she’s here with all the tantalising details to help you get your smut on and get writing.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
I'm a performer, workshop facilitator, activist, art nerd, and enthusiastic amateur at life in general. Much of my work is some sort of mixture of silly and soulful, and explores the intersection of creativity, human connection, and healing. I'm one half of Body Love Sketch Club, a body positivity and creative empowerment project. I like pottering about quietly in the early morning before anyone else is up, eating cake in bed, making a mess with paint, making a mess with writing, and going for long walks and pointing at things.
How did you get into the Smutty Letters workshop?
Last March, when we all found ourselves suddenly in lockdown, I was invited to run an online workshop by a brilliant sexuality, arts and events platform called Pinky Promise. Smutty Letters just flashed into my head as an immediate obvious choice, as a way of feeling connected while we were all shut in our homes, away from our friends and loved ones. I've always loved letters, ever since I was a child, and in recent years I've incorporated letter-writing into various interactive performances I've done and the results are so often really wonderful, intimate, magical and deeply human. There was a beautiful synchronicity soon after the first workshop too, which took place about a week after my Dad passed away from cancer, and as my Step-Mum and I were sorting through his belongings, I discovered a stash of love letters that my Grandfather had sent my Grandmother in the 50s when he was away in the army. They're masterfully written, the perfect blend of filthy and adoring, as well as being really quite hilarious. I had no idea that smutty letter-writing ran in the family, but apparently it does. Perhaps this is some sort of calling!
Why in your own words do you think the workshop is important?
Love letters are the antithesis to everything that's wrong about modern dating culture - or maybe even modern communication in general - which has become a fast and furious world of swiping away on dating apps and scatter-gunning instant messages into the ether. A love letter is a beautiful physical object, one of a kind, slowly-crafted, ideally handwritten, artefact that one person sends to another person and that person alone. We pour our hearts/ minds/ filthy thoughts onto a piece of paper, seal it up in an envelope, and then send it out into the world, hoping it doesn't get lost in the post, and that the other person is pleased with it when it gets to the other end. And it's such a vulnerable, excruciating, exciting, sensual process, whether you're sending or receiving a letter. I suppose 'in the old days' it was pretty commonplace, but these days it's a completely different quality of communication from much of what we've become used to. It's become something of a lost art, and all the more precious for its rarity. Especially at the moment, when we're all having to find creative ways of loving each other from afar.
What has been the most interesting thing you’ve discovered from holding the workshops?
So many things! But if I have to choose one, perhaps how universally difficult it seems to be to find the words to articulate the longings of our hearts and loins. I read lots of letters as research for the workshops and it's amazing how even famous authors who've built their fortunes from writing, will in their letters berate themselves and apologise for the inadequacies of their efforts. And it's true: love is so intangible, so inexpressible, so untranslatable. The trick, I suppose, is letting the struggle be part of the fun.
What would be the number one tip you would give for writing a Smutty Letter?
Give yourself permission to be messy, clumsy, inarticulate and awkward, and don't strive for perfection, especially not on a first draft. Shame and self-judgment are two of the biggest enemies of both our creativity and our sexuality, and most of us have picked up a fair amount of conditioning to be that way with ourselves, which takes kindness, courage, and a sense of humour to work through!
How can people attend your workshop to learn more?
The next Smutty Letters workshop ‘Smutty Letters for Desperate Times: The Lost Art of the Erotic Epistle’ is on March 11th - You can purchase tickets here! You can also see more of my arts and facilitation work through my new Instagram profile: @revoltingartsclub and to see more of my performance work follow: @revoltingrosy!
Featured Photo by: Maximillian Webster
