So many dots. So many dots that at one point they drove me crazy!
And that crazy had me challenge the all black and white strike I'd been on for long and enter the world of colour!
I was going to visit my sister. This was perhaps 10 years ago, when she was living in London. I was excited to see her, and excited to be on a plane, going somewhere. Since I have family in England, I had been to London before, but it had been more than ten years since the last time. As I landed I started seeing everything in a different way. The airport with the landing strips, so grey and boring appeared to me like some sort of pattern. The yellow and white stripes bending, the rows of glass windows, the rectangles of concrete, the metal boxes with blue and white lights. Like pictures from a glossy design magazine, trying to enhance the grey glory of industrial grounds and creating fashion. I pictured dresses made out of these patterns – airport fashion. Had I been a clothes designer, something cool might have emerged from that. But I’m not. I can’t sow a straight line even with the best ever intentions. I had my eyes opened for another way of looking at things though. And an awakened interest for patterns. I don't often see beautiful or interesting patterns in the city or everyday things so much, but I like the thought that if we look close enough at things, there will be a beautiful pattern at the structur level. Two obvious examples are to look in a microscope at snowflakes or at the structure of water affected by sound: the most enchanting shapes emerge. For quite a while I have wanted to incorporate patterns and shapes into my art, but haven't quite figured out how. When I started drawing, I added shapes made of small dots. Like shadows or clouds. And then I experimented with larger and smaller dots. So many dots. So many dots that at one point they drove me crazy! And that crazy had me challenge the all black and white strike I'd been on for long and enter the world of colour! And I love it! I wont abandon the black and white illustrations. I love their straight forward ways. And I love making them. But I will never again think colour is "not my thing", because it totally also is!
0 Comments
Again. Finding focus. Breathing. Moving. Listening closely to the music with ears and body. Pouring out colours. Picking up brushes, etsing tools, dipping my fingers. Stepping in. Stepping in. Spreading out whatever comes from inside. Stepping back, observing. Diving in, continuing. Calm spreading inside me as chaos spreads in front of me. Taking a break. Dancing. Breathing. Yoga.
Looking. Looking. Looking for a clue to a pattern, a shape. Trying to make some sense of the flurry of colours and marks. Trying to find something that may be of meaning. Taking a leap. Braving a decision. Shaping, moulding, covering up, controlling. Until I feel content. Then stepping back again to see. Smile spreading on my face, realizing. If you try to control your chaos – what do you end up with? Volcanoes! I am practising keeping on in the face of resistance. When I run, and I get really tired and think I can go no further. Then I tell myself that it is not about winning, just keep going. It is not about going fast, I can go at any speed I like, just keep going. And then I keep going. And afterwards it feels good. And I know next time I run I will hit the same resistance. And I will tell myself the same things. And I will keep going. I have been a true "give up-er" forever it seems. And I started running partly to practice my mind overcoming that. And now I am applicating this into other areas of my life. Like when I feel resistance at work, where before I would have started browsing, going to get a fifth cup of coffee or started looking for other jobs (all those things occasionally still happen) now I challenge myself to do the very thing that seems most scary. Usually it is fear that brings resistance for me. And then I go have my fifth cup of coffee. I have given up on my dreams countless times in my life because of fear. Since I now have come to experience that they don't go away, they come back with a vengeance, I have decided to practice keeping going with my creating as well. It doesn't have to look great, I just have to do it. I don't have to know what it is for or who is going to like it, I just have to keep going. So this week, I have been keeping going: I instantly felt drawn to the method. Intuitive painting. I hadn’t been painting for a long while, maybe 15 years. I love drawing and creating images that tell a story, but I felt a longing for something that built on letting go of control and creating more wildly. So I signed up for the Bloom True e-course by Flora Bowley. At the beginning of the course we were asked to set an intention for the course, and mine was to find another language with which to express my inner world. I wanted to see if I could attain a better (or maybe just different) connection with myself and what goes on inside. Maybe because I work as a psychologist, sometimes I feel that talking about my own inner life distances me from it rather than bring me closer. I had no specific expectations about what would happen, didn’t feel any pressure to succeed in creating wonderful things. I just wanted to dive into a new kind of creative process. And so I did. And now I never intend to ever leave it. With one of the paintings I wanted to depict my inner chaos, to gain a better perspective: I have been working really hard, to let go of controlling, of trying to direct the process, just following my intuition again and again with each layer. And I have ended up slowly building a more positive attitude towards my chaos. In the images I see that even though it is indeed chaotic and restless and the paintings are not harmonious and look even “unfinished”, I see beauty in there. And I see the freedom and wilderness I long for in my everyday life. I have been so tired of trying to put into words and come up with ideas to solve certain themes in my inner world. And now through painting I am suddenly curious to find out what more can come out of it. I sense I may find a long silenced part of me.
I have always loved tracing my hand. Since I was a child. I love the sensation of the pen moving along the sides of my palm and fingers, slightly tickling. And looking at the beautiful shape that is somehow me, turned into a work of art. The first time was in daycare and I remember feeling proud and happy that such a pretty shape had been made from a part of my body. Maybe that is why I also love the marks from outlined hands in the Pech-Merle Caves. Somebody put their hand against the wall of the cave and blew colour onto it 25.000 years ago and perhaps took pride in looking at it. Perhaps felt happy sensing the paint spray over the skin of the back of the hand. I like picturing the face of that stone age woman, smiling, wiping the paint off and thinking about how others will look at her mark and wonder who she is. It is a statement – I was here, I can create something, I want to be remembered. It is a link between that woman and me who looks at it so many years later and feels a connection somehow. It looks like she waves hello, to me, 25.000 years later. And I feel the urge to respond. Maybe because I am thinking about the hand as an identity mark and a way to connect with the world, I have the urge to fill it with things that I like and that intrigue me.
Silence now for a long while. It happens to me every once in a while. Some periods more than others. I find myself in a good flow. And then a sudden stop. Words and images disappear. My mind goes blank. Silence. I used to agonize a lot about it. Maybe sometimes I still do a bit. Because when you are in a good flow you want to stay there, right? So I try to just take it easy, listen in and see if I can find out what the silence is about. This time I am not sure. I was away on summer vacation. Blog reader numbers were rising. I had a lot of inspiration and started getting ideas for the future. And then I went to my mother’s and my stepfather’s summer house and went silent. Trust me, I have psychologized this, I am after all a psychologist too. And I think part of it is the good old resistance rising – fear of success, fear of “people” finding out I am “a fraud in everything”, fear of losing what is there. I am sure you all recognize this. Some of it may be returning to childhood/youth and not thinking high enough of me or my abilities yet. But to a large extent this is also who I am. I am no constant. I am ebb and flow. In all things I feel and do. And so will this blog be. The work I produce. The themes I pursue. A lot of people say to be consistent is the only way to success, and perhaps it is true. But I think I am not the only one to be like this. And I believe if we tap into ourselves and listen for when there is resistance that need to be overcome, and when there is a true need for ebb, we can still keep going. Maybe at a different pace, but still going. Maybe not straight, but still forward. I find myself different ways out of each Ebb. This time I took an e-course in intuitive painting. There will be more to come on what art I have found myself creating after that!
What do you do to find your flow again? The ocean makes me feel like I ought to be inspired. But I am not. I become still. Empty out inside. Maybe because it is, in itself, so infinately beautiful, and the sound it makes so perfect. All I can do is watch and watch and watch. This origin of all life. Untouchable and yet so vulnerable. It flows through all of us. 70 % of us is water. 70 % of me is in direct kinship with this ocean in front of me. We are family. I long to immerse myself in it. Let it envelop my naked body. Swimming towards the horizon, if only for a few strokes, evokes in me a feeling of adventure and strength. A strand of wilderness still in me. A brief inner uproar against my domestication. (I ended up being a bit inspired after all, at the thought of swimming:) I wanted to capture how the waters of the ocean is everchanging, and the feeling of flow and silk against the body. ( I noticed when done that also, it looks like I'm farting :).)
We step out of the car and it overflows us at once. Scents, colours, shapes and sounds. Their garden is chaotic firework and peaceful haven at once. As I step into it, my body and soul both shift down a gear. It has the perfect blend of beauty, use and wilderness. Flowers planted to suit the needs of bees, of butterflies and bumblebees. Grass and hedges left uncut for the sake of hedgehogs. Salads in variety casting their green promises towards the sky. Strawberries, black and redcurrants, blackberries, gooseberries, apples and pears for the kids to discover with eyes alight. Everything pushes, twirls, climbs, stretches, blooms. Blues and pinks, yellows and whites, orangeas and purples. And greens in endless variation. Stand still, close your eyes, and listen to the choir of humming voices of insects singing the way for sunbeams. Bees and beetles. Butterflies and black flies. Wasps and bats. And birds singing, cooing, chanting, tweeting. Spiders stretching their thin, long legs around cracks and corners to lay their fishing net out at night. So soothing this calm life force flowing. So inspiring this creative outburst. (Awakening, it seems, the teenage poet in me too ;)) The second best thing for me, when my soul is hurting, when I feel lost or depressed, is to go outside and connect. Feel the grass and earth beneath my feet and hands. Smell the different flowers and herbs in the air. Hear the birds singing. And just taking in the greatest work of art there is with all my senses as much as I can. Nature, both wild and cultivated, never stops amazing me. And my father's and his wife's garden is one of my absolute favorite places in the world to be!
What places do you connect to the most? So I must give you the impression of being obsessed with feet. Never mind, because here is the thing: Ok, so my daughter is 2, almost 3 years old. As some of you may be familiar with, that particular age comes with a particular amount of... will. I won't go too deep into that. Just say that one of the ways this... will shows up for her is that apparently she will not wear shoes. As soon as she possibly has the opportunity to, she takes them off. As a parent, I do enforce the need to wear them from time tom time (like when it is minus 16 degrees Celsius outside, or when the ground is covered in glass and nails and whatnot). But I also vividly remember how my own feet felt closed in, crammed, tied down and sometimes even imprisoned in most of my shoes as a child. It seemed that the shape of my feet didn't fit well in any shoes that were made. I couldn't wait to get to the point where I could kick my shoes off and finally let my toes spread out as much as they wanted, and actually feeling the ground beneath my soles, and the air on the skin of my foot and ankle. My daughter apparently has inherited this attitude. I do worry that she will run onto something sharp and hurt herself, but I also don't want to deprive her from the feeling of freedom and of being connected with the ground she walks on and beneath that I can see she also loves. I still love taking my shoes of. To me it is absolute bliss to just connect sole to grass, rock, sand, moss. And to let the roots of your soul travel down through the feet and deep into the earth, feeling connected to it in a very real, sensual way. When I was a teenager, I hated my feet. I was ashamed of how big they were, that the were too wide to fit in any fashionable shoes, and I felt something was wrong with them, and probably with me too for having them. When I look at my daughter now, tearing her shoes off and tossing them away, I realize this: If something doesn't fit, it doesn't mean that it is no good, and it definitely doesn't mean that I am no good. It only means it isn't a good match. My daughter has good shoes, and her feet are perfect. And so are mine. They have carried me and allowed me to run and dance. They have given me connection to Nature, Water and Earth and been a doorway to mindfulness outdoors. So many different sensations walking on so many different grounds. We should all honour and care for our feet that work so hard for us! Work in progress. I'll post the finished image later :).
Anyways, the feet is a part of the body that many seem to dislike, so take a moment, step outside and set them bare against the ground, take a deep breath and think about something you like about your feet. Have a beautiful week! Funny thing: When I start practicing one of the arts; singing, theatre, writing, and now drawing, I start to avoid that kind of art. When I went to acting school I couldn’t stand going to the theatre, and I watched fewer movies than during any other period of my life. Same with writing – I love books, have always been an avid reader, I start to write, and don’t pick up a book in months. Only exception has been singing, maybe because I always felt sure I was good enough, I don’t know. Anyhow, I decided this whole avoidance thing was ridiculous, went to the library and borrowed as many books about art as I could carry. Didn’t look to closely on what books I pulled out of the shelves, just went with what called to me. And I am really glad I did. I found a book by Flora Bowley about painting intuitively and was instantly struck with inspiration. I used to play around a little with paint in my twenties, but never did much with it. I felt the demands for technique got in my way (since I didn’t have any). But now I was presented to a way of painting much freer and I got straight to it and made the first painting I’ve done in maybe 10 years (two mixed media projects excluded, I used painting in them). It is the first time ever I have tried to paint in several layers and I had so much fun, using different kinds of brushes, my hands, a spray bottle, a rag… I didn’t do many layers, just four, but here they are: I started out by standing on the board and making a circle to represent my foot chakra, and filled it with warmth since I needed grounding. And then of course I had to put my own feet there - since the foot chakra is also about feeling like you have a place in this world and it is safe to occupy that space. Playing with the bottle was fun, but I ended up almost ruining the painting :). But that gave me the opportunity to try out the rag, and I like the surface that the thinly smeared out white gave. I am definately going to try this out again! It felt so playful, intuitive and grounding. Which was exactly what the doctor ordered.
(The book is called Brave Intuitive Painting). Until next time, all my love to you! |