(today I’ll let the images speak for themselves)
Wishing you all a Wonderful Weekends X
outpourings
Category: Uncategorized
imaginary animals
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.
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the ancient and the absurd
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.
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The Story of ONE
My enthusiasm for recycling, for waste-avoidance, for the bigger message of the cut up, my passion for protecting our environment for all who dwell within it. All that, and my (relatively) new found love of collage. ALL THAT – then I see this and WOW! This is an artist who thinks my thinkings and expresses it so loud n clear. Take a few minutes to reach into the treasures that Sandy Parsons has manifested here…
Doom and Gloom!!! Oh glorious, cruel, heartless, murderous, rapacious, malignant, magical, complex, artistic, fascinating, maddening, relentless, ravenous Civilization. What a reality we live in! Despite my abhorrence of all of the atrocities ever committed in Civilization, I appreciate the the arts and culture and the love that does exist only because of it. It’s so so so so complicated. Are the beautiful things begotten here by this insatiable monster worth all of the wars, slavery, deforestation, pollution, racism, sexism, animal torture, greed, political nonsense, climate change, and our looming 6th mass extinction? What used to look to me as fun filled opportunity, now looks more like a hell on Earth and a cancer to the planet. What is Civilization? I’ll explain it more below in the description of the artwork.
If I could sum up this art piece in a quick statement: ONE is basically a commentary on the complete…
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365 self love update
The pace of this project is slow but steady, marching through time at 1 inch per day. And already since the start of the year it’s a past the first page.
And the book is teaching me lessons already: Page one’s squares were measured and neatly spaced. Page two’s are are more in keeping with my style: eye-balled, uneven, bit wonky in places.
After the first few weeks I’ve wandered off from just doodle/painting to include collaged bits – fragments of that day’s doings. It intrigues me how different the mood of each day looks. It intrigues me to see how the coming weeks and months will look, and the lessons they will bring.
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The Stretchiness of Time
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?
…And then a really long time seemed to pass, and I rested. A really long time that went quickly, and dragged slowly and passed in a flash.
Because Time is Weird like that…
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.
I’ve got gesso under my nails and ink on my face again.
I feel like I’ve come home!
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.
Life feels like spring time: new pages are beginning to blossom.
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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.
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A is for Alphabet
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……
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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.
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wobbling, blurry…
It’s all metaphors, right?
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
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