I had a very tough day yesterday starting at about 2:30 pm and yes, it is still continuing.
Before I go on about the visual art I created, I did write this lovely meditation on my blog about "Places Left Behind." You may visit it here (though please return to see the rest! or wait until you have read this to go back to the reading.)
I am so grateful I had a SoulCollage (TM) event to attend so I could retreat into quiet and contemplation. Without that island of time and creativity previously orchestrated, I don't know how I would have made it through.
My soul collage cards have several similar themes in this batch.
I only made three, which is a low number for me. I usually make six, but I was very slow - as is usual for me when I have had a shock or a burst of emotional pain.
This first card pays homage to Ophelia in Hamlet. She is the character I relate to in this card. See her, there? That little blue eyed girl in the water, looking up through the doorway while no one else notices?
I usually make my cards completely intuitively. Last night I was primarily intuitively, but I also had certain plans for composition. This one, with the large flowers, did not turn out as I wanted it to at all.
I wanted the orange head to be splayed open more, like in the Emily Dickinson quote,"If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."
This isn't poetry, though, this is pain and me trying to avert it. That menacing man is representative of all the negative thoughts racing through my mind and the flowers are the Pollyanna thoughts I always tend to replace the negative thoughts with rather than integrating the ouchy thoughts into something better.
Here I acknowledge I am working on releasing those menacing thoughts, not willing myself to pretend them away and lacquer them with Georgia O'Keeffe sized flowers.
Again, usage of windows and doors with my character represented behind the window or door, again, not being noticed, seen or heard.
It appears, I am actually giggling now - I was creating Shadow cards and didn't realize it. At Mercy we have a workshop coming up about shadow and these are sooooooo evident of my deepest, darkest, least integrated shadow.
A Divine poke, perhaps, to continue getting more and more real before that workshop.
GOOD NEWS: I have created tomorrow's art and it isn't even 9 am.
I know I will feel better tomorrow.
Have you allowed room for your shadow to show up in your art? How might that help you to grow as a human being as well as an artist?
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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott
