Healing Art (& Art 101 Week 4)

It’s been a fun, healing, playful, open hearted week in my art play room. 🙂  Trust has been the word of the week (day 22 – 29 of the art 101 challenge).

It all started with the bright, colorful paper towels that I saved (and sun dried) from the tie dye class I volunteered in recently.  I recycled some cardboard cereal boxes cutting them into 4×6, 5×7, and 8×10 pieces and glued the paper towels onto the cardboard.  Glue (of all kinds, Elmer’s, mod podge, tacky, etc) is one of my all time favorite art supplies!  I have a sweet childhood memory from 3rd grade using glue and crayon shavings to make nail polish with some of my friends (Missy, Amy, Stephane, Jonnie, I think it may have been with y’all in Ms. Harless’s class?!).  Getting my fingers all sticky and messy this week took me back to childhood… for many, I hope, that would be mostly fond memories.  For me, the memories that have been foremost for too long are from times of confusion and abuse.  Thankfully, my parents were loving and had my best interests at heart.  However, they never suspected that my grandfather, whom they trusted, was molesting their only daughter (his oldest grandchild).  It has taken me a long time to acknowledge the truth, much of which I had buried even from myself, and to move on, shedding the self-pity from being a victim.  This week, I was so grateful to think of more playful childhood times spent with friends, such as the glue nail polish mentioned above or making mud pies at recess or dandelion soup (with Sabrina at her grandma’s) or wandering the woods of southern West Virginia and building tree forts (with Timmy, Steven, and Cy and later, Beth) or playing blind man’s bluff in the upstairs of a friend’s old farm house (with Jenny and Courtney) or digging potatoes and making french fries (with Debbie).  I am so thankful to have had these other children around that helped foster and share these good times!

I made 3 post cards on Monday just reveling in the good memories and choosing to focus on those instead of the abuse.  I used whatever random scraps were on the art table without thought for the end result.  I was healing as I played.  I was also learning!  Writing with marker over the paper towels did not work so well.  The post card above didn’t turn out as one of the best due to using a marker, but I still love the message and am grateful for the joy it brought to my heart and soul.  Another one of the post cards from Monday has yet to be finished because I didn’t like the way the collaged flowers from a recycled catalog came out.

It was intended to have a quote about flowers blooming and not competing, which is a reminder to myself of a lesson I’ve been trying to learn since childhood!  Later in the week, I abandoned the one above in favor of painting my own flowers on a new one instead, which I also abandoned, literally, as my first art abandonment!  I am stubborn and tried the marker with my own handwriting again.  I was not thrilled with the result so I finally gave up on that.  I found the word “thrive” from a flower catalog to collage on to another card, which my kids and I gave to their teacher from this week’s tie dye class as a thank you.

I did eventually print out the quote I had initially intended to use and make a card with it.  Then, still not completely in love with it, I added text in photoshop instead.  This week, I have watched the evolution of the creative process as I’ve played and experimented. 🙂

The third post card started on Monday turned out to be my favorite from that day and my meditation on childhood.  It sat for a night with a blank sail on the boat and no particular message.  I thought about what the message would be, something about “course” or “sail” or “direction” or “flow”?  Then, the word “life” popped into my head.  It seemed just right for the sail (of what was now a lifeboat) with the message to “enjoy the journey” on the card (which also hangs from the rearview mirror of my car).  The sail had been done with gesso so writing with a marker seemed to work much better than my later attempts.  The bottom of the boat was made from a random scrap of sheet music laying on the art table, along with dried rose petals, a few pieces of mica from our driveway, and other paper scraps that volunteered from the mess on the table.  I picked them up and glued them on without a plan, just letting myself play and trusting the process without a preconceived outcome.  This is my way of inviting something beyond me to come forth and join me.

I had started out the week on Sunday, day 22 of art 101, with a simple doodle of a turtle just to do something creative after a long evening working on a tree house and picking blackberries.  The next day, I saw a turtle munching on a blackberry while I was picking more berries for jam. The day after that, I read a quote about a turtle while having breakfast! 🙂 It all came together without any plan on my part.

I also worked on other pieces, a little bit at a time, over several different days throughout the week.  I love the song, You’re Beautiful by Carole King, and wanted to create a girl to go with it.  Girls are something I rarely attempt!  Hence, I don’t have much practice with faces.  I have re-done this face almost everyday and I’m still not real happy with it so it will probably continue to be revised!  I do, however, love how the fabric lace for her skirt came out (which is only glued at the top so it can flow) and the funky yarn around her arms that reminds me of angel wings.  I foresee some other background elements being added.  This is still a work in progress.

The DLP (Documented Life Project) challenge for the week was to use a favorite bible verse or excerpt from a favorite book.  I chose a line from Desiderata, a poem by Max Ehrmann, that hangs in my home (and my parents’ home), because it is like a favorite scripture to me.  The back side has the complete text of the poem.

The one below with the butterfly is another that I’ve worked on over several days and is still in progress.  It has been another exercise with “intuitive” painting for me.  It started with a tie dye paper towel like the rest, but this time I looked for something in the paper towel to start from and saw the faint shape of a butterfly.  Then, I added the plant, which I had no plan for beyond the limbs.  It bloomed into a butterfly bush, inspired by a similar one out my kitchen window.  I kept repeating the word “trust” as I was painting so it became the mantra for this one.  Now, looking at it, I think the bottom bloom wants to be a cocoon instead.  It is still unfolding.  🙂

I also made these 2 smaller ones rather quickly intended to be more abandoned art.  The theme for June’s art abandonment is June bugs so that drove the dragonfly and butterfly aspects of these.

The one below might be my favorite from the whole week.  While driving the kids back and forth to their tie dye class, we listened to my happy music mix and this song played in my head the last few days of the week.  My son used to say he was painting a song when he was a toddler.  I’ve noticed that I often do that, too.

Keep on the sunny side of life! 🙂