weekly art journal – Page 2

Sanctuary in Now 37/52

It’s been all this time since I posted. Cos I’ve been away.
But I’ve kept the book of weekly pages running, and so here we are with the page from the week before last.

Somewhere nice? Nah, it wasn’t that sort of away.

I didn’t leave the place, I just left the usual. I left the ordinary responsibilities of being me.
Time away to recombobulate.

I’ve been hiding out here in a sanctuary of colors.
Lost in time and lost in patterns.

And between you and me, I still haven’t gone back.
And between you and me, I’m not sure if I will.

Thing is, I’m just realising now as I explain my days to you, I’m making sense of it as I go along.
The reason I find so much warm comfort in these simple scribbles, blocks and lumps of colour…

As a kid I loved – more than almost anything – the simple pleasure of colouring in. It was as a meditative process then as it is now.

The only time I’ve had an out of body experience was sitting cross legged on my bed, aged about 9 or so, colouring in. I remember it like it was yesterday. My train of thoughts had wandered away from me and as I tried to back-track a mantra began to form in my head “what was it I was just thinking about – what was it I was just thinking about – what was it….’ then WHOOOSH I was somewhere up above looking down at this little girl sitting cross legged on my bed, colouring in.

In the moment I recognised that as me and had time to think Wow! and then How do I get back down? I was back.

I wanted to do it again. And I didn’t. But I did. Not for the first time I was utterly freaked.

So the part of my consciousness that heard How do I get back down? and set me back in my body, prevented me from trying (properly) again.

I carried on colouring.

So I’ve rediscovered this simple joy again as I’ve found myself still wanting to escape the real world in the way I did then as a little girl. I think the magic of getting lost in these colours is amplified by the knowledge that if I wanted to I could probably re-conjure that state again.

I’m soothed by the process, but I’m not looking to disappear now. I spent way to much life in escapism, I inherited traits and tricks that I see now didn’t serve me so well. I’m unpicking that past one bit at a time. Facing up to some ghosts.

Circumstances have set themselves out in front of me in a way I can’t ignore any more. This time I’m stepping up instead.

Fueled by Doubt 36/52

I look at them in their lives and their worlds, they do their things and they live their days.

I can do that. Look – watch me – I’m doing my things and living my days.

And then I turn sideways, and vanish.

Where did I go? All the fear folded in on me.

It all looked too big, I left. It’s all too familiar, so I run. .I hide from being me.

How am I not like the other people? Reasons crumple under their own weight and all the ideas dissolve into dust

Who thought the simple act of being me would become such a challenge, such a confusion, so fueled by doubt.

When this happens a lot I wonder if I should stop pretending.

Pretending the other people are real, or pretending I am.

I wonder at these words and fragments, at what will come next.

Most people will understand,

But most people aren’t real. Most people don’t exist.

evolution in paint chaos 34/52

Week 34 into the year, and this page was a struggle. Like they always do, it started out with scraps of I don’t know what.

Some scrubby paint, some leftover unwanted collage snips. Beginning at the familiar stage of: ‘Meh… but this will get buried. It will come good. See what happens’

Color usually helps…

Hmmm… more collage? … oil pastels?

What? What’s happening? It’s getting more chaotic.
White a load of this out, more collage, regroup:

The enthusiasm from that chirpy thumbs up is misplaced, and it’s psyching me out. It has to go. Smothering with color: that’s the way forward. Just follow the shapes

Looking back this would have been an adequate stopping point, but I remember thinking It just needs turquoise: that will sort it.
And then a lot of layers later…

It went on and on.

It went on and on a bit like this:

Even now I’ve declared it done I don’t love it. This is the first one that seems to have beaten me. I guess being beaten at a rate of 1 in 34 – I’m cool with that. Another new week begins tomorrow. Time for a change of strategy.

Courage, Faith, Trust. 33/52

Scribbled things. Filled in with nonsense and part heard words

Dabs, daubs, splosh. Dragged, drawn out, drawn on.

And more, and further. Anemones? meteors? Some frenzied chaos. (I honestly don’t know.)

But as usual, I like the details best of all

The title for this week – Courage, Faith, Trust – came from the same-named scrap of paper that got itself collaged into the frenzy. (it appeared a week early, as it’s numbered 34) but it also calls up the essence of this practice. Courage, Faith and Trust in the process:

Keep showing up, don’t plan, don’t expect, just keep doing and making and going. And all will be well.

Ramping up 32/52

Life is flooding along.

I measure out every one of these weeks and I see it unfurl new aspects, new intrigues.

I don’t always tell you them – are they interesting to anyone but me?
Well, here you go:
These are three new facets of life which entered my world this week …..

The Speakeasy videos from the Wanderlust Festi.
The words are from Danielle Laporte’s talk ‘The Soul of Ambition’

IMG_5440a — *This weeks page is powered by left-overs from another project. (Too many to throw away)*

Tulsi Tea – I’m taking a rest from coffee in the interests of resting my adrenals and settling my cortisol levels. I’ve switched to Tulsi. It’s really grown on me. Yes, I kinda do miss coffee, but as a temporary substitute I’m glad it’s part of my world.

and finally:

Sauerkraut – from my ongoing fascination with all things prebiotic, probiotic & gut biome related.

An eclectic mix. Meanwhile, amid the above the following page took shape thus-ly:

Shine 30/52

This week started out, as they invariably do, with no plan, no ideas, just some scraps and a blank(ish) page.
I began with tissue paper. I love the semi-translucent. If you get the right stuff (usually cheap craft tissue) the dye runs beautifully and makes for water-colour kinda effect as soon as it comes in contact with water or glue or hands or pretty much anything. I think this must have been something more fancy, probably saved from gift wrap. (shame)

Anyhoo, it was the usual build up of layers…

There are bits of torn all sorts of paper in there now. I keep the box of scraps for recycling under my work table. There are bits from there. What the bits are don’t matter so much, it’s more just to let some shapes begin to develop.

And then the painting…. more layers

Just playing with the shapes

And there we have it.

Reach Out and You will Shine

See the face? 29/52

Close up, week 29 looked like this…

A lot of layers, a lot of buried words. A lot of rich, warm colour

Did you see the face?

Colour bomb 28/52

This week was full of colour.
Dabs and daubs.
Layer on layer on layer on layer on layer…

Eyes and spirals and circles and more…
Building up over and over and over and more and deeper and lusher and more.

That’s the sorta week it was.

reflecting ‘so much more’ 27/52

Every week I create something.

Some weeks I create more.

In fact – most days I create loads – but in terms of the tangible, the painty reality, every week of this year I am creating at least one something: One page of One book of One year

I’m over half way in now, and I’m detecting more and more patterns all the time, every one a metaphor for the unfolding times in which they’re made:

Some weeks start on the first day and incrementally develop a little at a time.
Some weeks are a flurry of fervour, forced into focus in a short few days: blurting out in totality at the start, or squished up against the finishing hours.

They all reflect some underlying aspects, some current cares and the modality of the moment:
Words and feelings ooze in and out.. You might not hear them, but we both know they are there.

Weaving in the elements: internal and external.

There’s what rests on the surface, and there’s so much more.

The surface reflects to you what you project out.
For everyone it’s something personal and new.

Each page, each week, each is contained within a season of interest with the cast of supporting characters who meander about and around my days. These recent weeks have been populated by some images that I printed more than I needed for a project I’ve since finished. Smiling, familiar faces from within the framework that structures these times. Left over faces smile out of these times.

Here from the perspective of a photo I see all that I’d like to do to ‘finish’ the image. But that week has passed so it’s another that I’ll leave as it is, almost ready, a little soft in the middle and a bit raw in places. It’s all ok.
Time pushes on, I’m over the other side of this one now.

fullmoon meltdown (26/52)

Everything begins with an idea. Everything.

See the little tiny bits of neon pink in there? That’s the idea that set this page running. I saw this colour in the art shop forever-ago. I’m not a pinky kinda person but I had a really visceral attraction to this particularly teeth-jangling shade, and it was in my head until I had to buy it last week.

It’s a colour that says Bite Me.

If I was in charge of naming paint colours it would be called Don’tFuckAbout Pink. Then for some reason that wouldn’t be allowed. So I’d call it BiteMe Pink. Then I’d get a job someplace else cos I can’t tolerate that level of being told what I can’t say, or what I can’t call colours.

But I digress….

Thing is, I didn’t know what this page would draw out of me. All I knew was it was going to be powerful, virtue of is starting out as these three modest shouts of BiteMe Pink.

Even under all this noise, they can still be heard.

And it was a cacophonous week.

The weekend in the middle (my weeks begin on a Thursday, remember? please keep up) consisted of more than my usual level of soul searching at a creativity workshop. Meeting with extraordinary minds and beautiful souls. Deeply spirit rattling. Still feeling the ripples now. And breathe….

This week concluded the first half of the year.
And this week concluded with a big fat full moon
And the hottest day of the year,
And a literal fullmoon meltdown.