Some of the characters I collected in my camera at the V&A last week, having filtered through my imagination, turned up in my art journal.
As they evolved along the way,
some got a little lost under the layers.
faces merge animals and human,
some characters from other projects join them.
As the weekend wore on,
the colours developed
The doodles built up
The tribe became established on the page
I can’t think of any meditation I enjoy more than getting lost in patterns and colours.
I’ve got old journals – the ‘dear diary’ variety – dating back over decades. Of no interest to anyone but occasionally me, I see what me-in-the-past was up to on this day however-many years ago.
At art school I began to keep sketchbooks, filled it with thoughts and plans, doodles and scraps. Mainly visual references and test grounds for techniques and materials. And they’re as rich in memories to me as the purely wordy versions that preceded them.
Last year I experimented with Julia Cameron’s morning pages in an on-again/off-again fashion. Not every morning has the space to accommodate all those words, but a bigger block is that part of me resented the paper it required for long, one-way streams of consciousness that I shouldn’t want to revisit. And the thought of scrawling longhand every last niggle and fuss didn’t sit comfortably either. I get the ‘better out than in’ motive. But I didn’t want to hold volumes of this in my life thought; that seemed to be merely displacing it from my head to another place of permanence.
Three things about things I do in books.
Without much connection beyond my voracious consumption of stationery.
Until I read this blog post by Deanna Jinjoe where she speaks of the power of transformation in burying words, thoughts, sentiments into the soul of our art we can transform them into a new beauty.
So the art journal I’m working through now is starting to embody this essence. With traces of the therapeutic brain dumps that keep my mind clear, intertwined with the doodles and splatterings of colour that keep my spirit buoyant.
Just a couple of weeks ago I found myself cutting out shapes from magazine pages and scrap paper.
Nothing particular in mind, just another odd compulsion. But I’ve been me all these years now, I’m used to this, I don’t give it another thought.
Some good will come of it. Meanwhile, I’ve got a heap of hands and fish and butterflies and cats and things. As you do.
Then this began to evolve.
Now I’m as curious as the next person: What does this mean?
Last year I was doing this (again, no idea why).
So I carry on, still not knowing, but enjoying the bejeepers out of the process.
Perhaps that’s reason enough, right?
The words that I remember as I play join the page, they get buried in the mix.
Somewhere under and amongst these layers sit the words:
“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it.
To deprive it of oxygen.
To shame it. To mock it.
…
…
With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories.
Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe
….
…
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
Remember this:
We be many and they be few.
They need us more than we need them.
…
…
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
– from Arundhati Roy, War Talk
2015 was tied up in this book, in the rigidity of one page: one week, when some weeks felt empty of expression and some pages felt too small for all that was flooding out of my imagination.
By mid year it had taken on a thick, heavy persona with paint all gooey and chewy and some weeks where no amount of layers would cover up the uncomfortable truths of ugly: a parallel to the world it was illustrating. Something intangibly off. Something meh. Some things I didn’t like, didn’t like confronting, didn’t like to witness. I didn’t want to relive, repeat, or even properly acknowledge.
The book served a purpose: A lesson in being a grown up is knowing when to persevere, and when to stop. I persevered. And when the year was up I was glad the book was full. Finished. Finally time to move on. Onto what next.
What next?
I found myself cutting out shapes from magazine pages, scrap paper and junk mail. Something was stirring, I didn’t know what…
Last week I fell into a new facebook group run by the gorgeously art journally Orly Avineri. It was the catalyst I needed to jump into this new book.
This book is different, there are no limitations and no rules.
Free to fly in and out, land a while –
– chat with my thoughts, flit off again.
It takes as long as it takes.
I’m getting more and more aware that by pouring out my unconscious I can steer myself through this life in a fashion not like anything else.
It’s a compulsion.
You get this too, right?
Everything that was feeling stale and sludgy has dropped away since just this first page.
Some weeks were easier, some were colourful, some were hard to start and some were hard to finish. Both in terms of the art, and in terms of the weeks out of which the pages emerged.
This year I’m revisiting my year of mixed media, and bringing the pages to life in a different form. Here I was, one year ago:
Starting out here, in January 2015, a blank book (year) ahead – full of possibilities 
Week 1 unfolded, bright, wordy and eye-filled.
Week 2 was a big ole brain dump. Funny how this process cements moments into the memory.
I remember listening to podcasts and YouTube things as I doodled this out. Words and phrases filtered through my ears down, out through my drawing hand – sometimes verbatim – sometimes slightly altered by the messages I heard inside the words.
‘Make 2015 the year you question everything’, said the scrap of paper. Glued into my book, glued into my imagination, this phrase was to inform the way the coming months played out. Question Everything.
Week 3: Comfortably into the new year I was setting myself some targets. I achieved the specific ones – way quicker than I expected too. But reflecting from a year further into this life, I see how woolly and unquantifiable some were. Lately I’ve been listening to Leonie Dawson. Do you know her? She’s also loud, smiley, fun and colourful. I like her a lot. She’s big on goal setting. I’m following her wisdom this time round.
Week 4 found time to pause for thought. I was brimming with optimism, which mirrored again this year as a time so rich in potential and beginningness. As much as anything else, I’m getting to know me a while lot better through doing this. Turns out that’s my happy place: just on the cusp of an ending and a beginning. (Oh, and in case you’re wondering – the computer came back in full health – having not forgotten anything).
Week 5 – the cross over from January into February. Another big week. (They’re even bigger looking back – it’s a trick of perspective, maybe).
So as we turn into the next month today, this seems a good point to pause. Part two will follow along soon.
I’ve had this book, Alphabetica by Lynne Perrella, on my shelf for a long time.
It’s a gorgeous reference for folks like me who play with mixed media art, and who love language, lettering, and for things to be organised alphabetically.
This year I’m taking a 12 month course by Carla Sonnheim called Y is for Yellow, where we have a new class each fortnight, one for each letter of the alphabet (26 fortnights: 26 letters)
So here two aspects of my creativity have overlapped beautifully and I’ve dived right into the All the A-things. Abstractly Adding All the A-things that come to mind here……
As I look at what I do I try to pick out clues as to what I mean and feel and understand.
Already in week two of this selflove365 day project (and LOVING it, btw).
The pictures are fuzzy. They mirror the way I’m fumbling my way into the new year and this new project.
I’m finding my feet.
How do I interpret Self Love?
I’m defining it to myself: until recently I wasn’t aware of it even being a thing in my world. It’s new and a little confusing, I’m taking it on as a project: here in this book, here in my life.
So far, this is what it looks like….
Starting out with a literal expression of the theme. First thoughts… It turns out 1″ square is both larger and smaller than I expected it to be. I can squish more into the space than expected, also it’s also more squinty to look at and to photograph than I expected.
I went to see Star Wars this day. It was fab. (Apropos to nothing at all.)
What’s this? – like a tunnel into the future? IDK. I’m still consumed in confusion from the holidays. It’s still a blur. It’s been a Sunday for a very long time now.
This was the day I would have gone back to work if I hadn’t spent it flat out on the sofa, back home, recombobulating. I was watching a lot of YouTube. A lot of Kyle Cease. He’s reminding me to re-establish a daily meditation practice. I’m reading Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project. She’s reminding me the same.
In terms of the daily practice, I’m beginning to see how the squares can join up to become a bigger picture. I’m beginning to get a grip on things again. Thank fuck for that.
Finally got into the year. Five days in… I’ve done than that worse before 😉
Last year’s book seemed to be full of eyes. (My word for the year was FOCUS, it that kept coming out.) Also my art often has eyes in. So here’s an image who is looking back at us.
Today I began another year long project. I’m feeling more comfortable with commitment than any time before in my life. (Strewth – I’m not becoming like an actual adult am I?) (NO)
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I hope the first week of the year has been gentle to you, dear friends. I look forward to reading your plans and adventures X
And Y is for Yellow is a course being run by Carla Sonheim – she of the adorable imaginary creatures – which must have lodged in my subconscious when the idea of made up animals came to me last summer (more on them later)
I read about Y is for Yellow a while ago and wrote myself a note to decide about it nearer the time. It’s about creating a body of work for mixed media artists. Well – that’s what I am and what I need to do.
Then suddenly we’re almost a week into January and it turns out the course begins in just 2 days. I thought I’d missed the beginning: this is an omen.
Y is for Yessy Yes Yes this Year for me. I signed up straight away!
Another new community of artists – another year of new art challenges – I just know I’m going to love this!
Yesterpost I showed you the first of three chapters of my book. So without any further fussing, here’s the next one.
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