thinkings – Page 5 – Mixy's Art Blog

on a quiet day

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

When a birthday falls mid week, mid winter, mid-school holidays (not to mention mid-life) – a less inventively inclined type might find this precludes fun activities – y’know, with friends, outdoors, not surrounded by a gazillion anxty families…. One thing was for sure, I wasn’t going to spend it in the office pretending it’s just another day. (Too many years have passed that way – a postponed birthday never really works for anyone over the age of 6)

So taking advantage of being close to London, I took myself off to the V&A.

It’s indoors (even the walk from the tube station is underground and out of the rain) and although families visit, it’s museumy and sedate with minimal shouting and squealing. (Even from me)

I’ve visited many times before, but despite this, hardly begun to see all there is on offer. I didn’t realise how much there was to see until I looked it up just now (thank you wikipedia)

The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A), London, is the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects.

….

The V&A covers 12.5 acres (51,000 m²)^[3] and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery, furniture,medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.

Several hours and 4 aching feet later, we sat down for a tea and food before wending our way back post rush hour chaos. Minds were blown. Awe was inspired. The extremes of the ancient, the enormous, the itsy teeny detailed, the extravagant and ornate are all there. Most too amazing for words.

A tiny handful came home in my camera and in my mind’s eye.

Some of these will be characters in future art…

And as always I’m drawn to the abstract imagery, both in the art and in the architecture, it kinda blurs into one big gestalt experience.

Wednesday to Wednesday: phase two.

Imagine. Just imagine… being able to make up your own rules.

Sure, some of the old ones still have to apply: do as you would be done by, two wrongs don’t make a right, gravity, etc. But what about the rest of them? Why ever would we allow anyone else to dictate the hows and the whys beyond these fundamentals?

This morning I was pondering this question.

So much is programmed into our thinking, our knowing, when we’re way too small to offer up much objection. Of if we try to we’re dismissed as not having enough understanding of the bigger picture. Right – like anyone has a mind broad and deep enough to encompass all of that. Our programmers – our significant care-givers, parents, family, teachers, and preferred celebrity heroes (real and fictional) – they’re still too little to get it all too. Everyone is. Even the oldests and the wisests. All of them!

Tomorrow is my birthday, my personal New Year, less arbitrary than January 1st (for those of us born on one of the other days of the year). As I was born on a Wednesday I’m attaching something to the fact it’s a Wednesday again this time round. Although this happens every 5-6 years, I just hadn’t given it much thought until this time.

To celebrate this turn of number, I’m considering making some new rules, some new truths, for this next phase of being me. I haven’t fine-tuned the details yet, but I think that being me is going to be different. Less limited. More fun.

I’m going out for a walk and a think, I’ll tell you more when I’ve mulled over the finer details.

Flow

My word for 2016 is Flow. I made a pinterest board for my word when I started doing this last year, but this time I’m amping up the imagery by having these pins printed out and in one of my journals.

This way it’s something I see most days, and I guess is more Vision-Board-y like this.

There’s space left for words and gaps for more images. I like to think it will develop as the year goes on.

A Treasure Hunt

Yesterpost I shared an exploration into the evolution of an abstract photo. If you liked that, you might like this too: My regular post on Dirty Footprints Studio gives a bit of insight into the process of gathering these images.

Happy idea-gathering, folks 🙂

wandering mind

Cooking dinner one evening last week, waiting for the pot to boil:

The condensation forming on the lid was developing into this fabulous leopardskin effect. Too good to miss. I love the ephemeral beauty in the everyday. It’s everywhere, once you start to look.

So I took this photo and shared it on social media in the circles who see abstract art more than the crazed doings of some weirdo who takes photos of her dinner before it’s even made 😉

And it made me think.

How far can I chase this one idea?
Where could it go?
How far can it evolve?

So today (following the theme – waiting for dinner to cook) I tweaked the colour a bit and printed it out.

And then I began to play: Doodles, re-photographed… leopard spots are evolving into seashells…

more doodles, different camera angle, slight colour tweaks…

more doodles, new camera angle, colours inverted…. I love the way the pen lines seem to sit on top of the photo, they’re in a different dimension of contrast.

Or shape shift: add dimension with concertina folds and photographed from every which way.

I’m sure given more time I could play with light and shadows for more drama. You get the idea, the possibilities go on… I hope this might spark some ideas for you too.

joining the dots

One of the things I want to achieve in 2016 is a greater sense of cohesiveness.

A few weeks ago I adopted a new (to me) method of ordering my days, weeks, things, lists and such: Bullet Journalling the ‘analog system for the digital age’.

While I reside on the edge of digital geekfulness where I appreciate I nicely formulated spreadsheet, some tidy code, but all too easily get weighed down in flipping between fonts pixel to pixel tweaks, and then endless subdivided minutiae.

Unlimited possibility in limited time.

But I’m also the girl who drools at the thought of the stationery store, giddily thinking about books, the kind I can write and draw and scribble in….. Mmmmmm… and All Those Pens. In All Those Colours.

The type of rules and systems I like are the flexible ones that adapt and evolve in a forgiving fashion.

And lists appeal to my sometime dithering confusion of too much to do/can’t remember if I did it/had an idea that I put down somewhere and can’t see it now for all the shit and kerfuffle that heaps up in my head….

And so far bullet journalling is fitting my contradictory character and fulfilling pretty much all the hopes I had for it. Organised chaos, checked off detail by detail. Coupled with an inconsistent colour-coding system that I reckon might figure itself out over time.

Many, many part-duplicated lists, notebooks, digital documents, scribbles on envelopes, diaries, journals, sketchbooks and whatnot occupy my world. I’m gonna keep them, but they’re going to rest quietly for future reminiscences while this episode plays out.

The current paradigm is one in which all the brain-dumps are contained between the covers of this delicious A5 turquoise leuchtturm 1917. 6 weeks and 51 pages in, me & book are getting along swimmingly. I’m enjoying the process of joining the dots of my thoughts, skimming back through old notes and scavenging usable information, ongoing plans and wishes.

… Lists of Lists … Things To Look Up … Art To Make … Projects To Begin … Projects To Complete … Books To Read … Places to Go … Bands to Explore … Quotes That Inspire … Universal Reusable Lists … Posts to Blog …

All these sandwiched between pages of What To Remember in annual, monthly & daily sized chunks.

The magic of it is: once they’re in the book they no longer take up space in my mind.

flowing…

My word for the year this year is FLOW. Last year it was FOCUS.

So I smiled when I happened across this from the king of motivational sound-bites himself, Mr Tony Robbins “Where focus goes energy flows”.

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Clearly I’m onto something.

But did I skip past the ENERGY part?

Darn it, I’d like some more of that right now! I’ve been feeling distinctly un-energetic for quite a while. No apparent cause or reason, I’m otherwise completely healthy. Just a bit too floppy and lacklustre.

So I’m exercising my word, and I’m going with the FLOW of it. From Friday night until this morning I’ve been pretty much asleep. I get up for some small meals, but really that’s been about it. I’m listening to my body, and she just keeps saying ‘let me sleep’. So I did. After years of insomnia, perhaps I’m catching up to some degree.

In my few days off from life I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts. I recently found Summer McStravick. Her thing is flowdreaming, she describes as not meditation, not visualisation, not hypnosis, kinda somewhere in between. I think this was partly where my word emerged from.

I’m trying to honour the flow of my life.

Today I managed to get up, showered, dressed and out to the office. Just a half day. Bit by bit.

Tonight I’ll do some drawing. I’ve sketched a little something every day in my selflove365 book, but tonight I’ll go back and add some colour. Now life feels a bit more colourful again. I’ll show you the latest tomorrow. Sleep well, lovely friends X

where’s my muse gone?

Y’know the thing, where you’ve cleared some time, you’ve made some space, you’ve got peace and quiet for a reasonable stretch of time. All those obstacles that prevent you from creating in the usual day-to-day-ness of life………….

……….. and where’s your muse gone?

…… when did that perpetual freaking flood of imagination dry up?

*the thing I was going to do that involved torn book pages and photos. Erm… Meh…*

Sometimes (I think) when the ideas sense you’ve made space especially for them – they simply evaporate. ‘Perhaps’ (they think) ‘we aren’t as wild or breathtaking as we seemed from a distance.’

They get shy and they hide. And they lurk, hushed, round the back of your mind, behind the mis-rememberings and the fluff. Where it’s quiet. They fall asleep there.

So It feels like your muse has abandoned you: but all those ideas just need to be coaxed back to the foreground where they can shine again.

In all my years of being and spending time with creatives I’ve seen this happen over and over. And I’ve learned a few ways to entice them back:

Check out these top tips to Reconnect with your Muse I put together for Dirty Footprints Studio.

back to life

During the daytime I’m usually found in this small office, tucked away behind the main road. Close to town, yet invisible to the world. I like it here.

I have my computer, kettle, all kinds of tea and more than enough music to accompany all moods and mental spaces – for soothing or wakening, for focussed thinking and for daydreaming – something appropriate to every volume these little speakers can kick out. I’ve got a stash of podcasts that accompany me in the more mundane non-thinky tasks. I’ve got spare socks and cardigan for the winter days when the little heater isn’t oomphy enough.

There’s a very fluffy cushion to remind me there’s always space for comfy-cosy in a world of the sometimes-serious when I have to pretend to be a real grown up.