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Didn't Quite Catch It: Piercing Glare

A piercing glare. Do you see it? 

Capturing Sadness

Childhood Study: The Emotions They Ignored

When I was a child, I felt a lot of anger about the behavior of my parents. They despised each other and acted their hatred out on each other and on me. The story—even if it wasn't spoken out loud, I understood it—was that if it weren't for me, they wouldn't have to be together. I spent most of my childhood in quiet sadness, fear, and anger, and unable to speak with anyone about my feelings.  My parents liked it better when I disappeared, so I seethed inside, while chaos reigned around me. I, the child, was more in control of myself than the adults around me were. The cost was that I became a self-controlled adult, dissociated from myself and my feelings. After years of self-work, I grow more in touch with myself and my feelings every day, and I have found my voice to speak about them. Anger, however—I still sometimes don't know that I feel it for days. 

The Content of Experience

 

"The Content of Experience"

Painting with a palet knife using mixed media and grunge on wood

Grungy Rothko-Inspired Journal Cover

I decided to try a Rothko-inspired painting on the cover of my latest journal. It looks better in person, and I look forward to doing more abstract paintings, with the goal of creating some to hang on my walls. Just the thought of attempting it brings up an inner critic. Creating art is so emotionally painful! I keep hoping the more I do it, the less it will hurt. The problem is, I don't do it because it hurts, and then I never get to the point where it hurts less. After finishing this cover on my journal, I need to write inside in order to sort out the discomfort of creating. It feels like a knife in my gut.

Broken Doll In Color

This could probably use more work, more details, but I get so attached to the marks I've made that I don't want to cover them. Lots of random playing might help with that fear, but a "broken doll" isn't very good at playing. (My mother liked to tell me I looked like a perfect little doll as a baby.)

I've moved my art studio, up from the dark and dirty basement and into the clean, bright kitchen. My art supplies are organized in the pantry, and my kitchen table has become my art space. Who eats in the kitchen, anyway? I may as well put it to good use.

The way I'm imaging it is that I'll create until I feel emotionally stuck, and then I'll sprint on the treadmill in my living room to loosen my defenses up, and then when I get my mind cleared and my body relaxed and tired out, I'll come back out to the kitchen for more drawing and painting. The problem is that my treadmill is broken, too. I think it would be a worthy investment to get it fixed!

Broken Doll

Here's a drawing I worked on today. I'll probably add paint to it. The good eye is a little droopy, but she's broken. What's a little deformation, too? I resist erasing something I've spent time on and redoing it. I also worked on a spread in my art journal. A grungy, weathered painting a la Julie Prichard. I'd work on it some more, but it's cold down in my basement art studio tonight.

Art Journaling In My New Art Space

I have my own art space in my own house! It's in my basement, so it's not the most beautiful or cozy place, but it will be all the more comfortable for throwing paint around and not worrying about making a mess or getting paint on anything, or everything. :-) I want better lighting, but I'll figure that out at some point.

Today I had stuff I "had" to do that I wasn't looking forward to. My plan was to spend the day ripping up carpets in the apartment I'll be renting out—I bought a duplex—and cleaning. Difficult and dirty work. I did get the carpets ripped up, but I sandwiched it with artwork. Part of the reason I got the sudden desire to do art was (one) to use my new space, but also to procrastinate. :-) 

I worked on a painting of a child before the dirty work, and then tonight (afterward) I made a collage in my art journal. I'm not happy with the painting, but it did get me working with art materials, after months of not doing much artwork at all. The last time I did a lot of art was for 29 Faces in May last year. This year, with the new house and other things taking a lot of energy, I didn't have the motivation, and I still don't. I'd like to focus on painting and creating more abstract works, and just playing with color and materials. I have a couple of classes with Julie Prichard that I paid for a long time ago and never completed, plus tons of Lifebook 2012 lessons that I never did. I'm going to work on those, but I think I'm more interested in Julie's lessons, creating some paintings to hang on my walls and color my rooms with my own artwork.

So tonight I played with scraps of paper, glue, and a little paint. It was quite relaxing, despite the fact that I thought being down in the basement might be dark, depressing, and cold. I listened to a podcast and just played (playing is usually difficult for me), without worrying too much about what I was doing, or how it would come out. I'd like to do more of this, and perhaps spend at least a few minutes every day working on something, until doing art comes as naturally as ... anything else I do every day.

 

I'm feeling very wordy tonight. It must be the relaxation of creation. Art as therapy!

Passing Ships Dream

"Passing Ships"

This is an image from a dream. Three weeks ago, I lay in bed journaling, drifting in and out of sleep. This image popped into my head. There was another ship in the dream just like this one. It carried my former boyfriend. Our ships passed each other, and we leaned outward toward one another, but facing and traveling in opposite directions. The mood was one of bright happiness. The relationship ended on good terms, with clear and mutual understanding of why we chose to go our separate ways. The dream conveyed the clarity of our decision and the new hope for the future that our relationship gave to each of us.