Mixed metaphors and tangents

“A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct..”

Dune -Frank Herbert

There is a feeling of directionless energy within me. I’m going to work my way through it. It’s due to positive changes in my llife. If I'm honest it scares me a little. A sea creature used to the crushing pressure of the midnight zone, I find my self emerging in to the sunlight zone. My form needs to adjust. Adjust to the new currents and pressures. There’s nothing unique in this, I think we all go through the same process.

I think it is the process of change; the energy it takes to put down roots, to stand in place that scares me.

When I put my poor mental health and unhelpful coping mechanisms in the past, I thought my growth was done. Heh it turns out I just cleared the chaff and weeds. Now the growth starts.

Combined with the challenges of the current state of the world and how to help my kids navigate it, it’s a lot. There’s the temptation to retreat to the familiar depths, to allow the weeds to take over again.

I truly no longer want that, but the depths and weeds, would be different this time. They promise. I know I don’t want that, so it’s one eye on my growth, one eye on the temptations and one eye on my mixed metaphors and biblically accurate eye count.

There is no option for me to add alt text so it’s here.

The above image is a fluid composition of text. The text is layered and written in different directions in a variety of media.

Some text is smudged out some is just about legible.

The negative space between unconnected words has been emphasised in places with zinc white oil paint.

I am trying to resolve a tension I see between my ideas, planning and completing a work. They all exist as integral parts of the whole, but not always given the same weight. Final image I just where I stop my process.

This is the thread of the intent of the text on display.

Above is another text composition. The same methodology as the previous image has been used.

The thoughts recored on this were a tangent to the previous image.

Here the thread of thought was information loss and thermodynamics. Just thoughts and wonderings. I gained no answers, I'm hoping my insights are on the way.

The negative spaces have again been emphasised but this time in paynes gray.

Does the process of emphasised negative space reveal what I seek?

The stage I’m at needs a review of my work and a dive into theory. The work will come. I’m thinking of books and visual research essays.

This ramble is long enough so, until next bat-time, adios.

3 things worked on

Three paintings worked on today. I've not got any great insights to share, other than I need to sort out the colour pallets of my hex-labrynths.

It’s been a quick and productive day.

I could also use a canopy to protect my art work from falling ceiling crumbs.

So here are the things im chuffed with today.

A somewhat self portrait. The right side of the mouth needs definition.

A figure study. based off a drawing and my own attempts to recall anatomy.

One of my building abstracts. I like the yellow but feel it’s too ‘yellow’

Day one (version 15)

I’m just going to ignore the inconsistent blogging and posting of work. That’s in the past.

Today I started a specific challenge for myself. It’s actually quite hard. I’m aiming to fill 14 pages of a sketch book a day. My focus currently is anatomy, but I don’t have to stick to that.

What have I learnt today.

• I’ve improved part of my skills.

• realised I have lots and lots to learn and practice.

• Drawing feet is annoying and difficult.

• I need to practice drawing legs and feet.

Thats really it. Theres lots of things I could type about, but I currently just don’t want to do that.

On me

I have been very sporadically present on this site.
As anyone who looks at it will most likely know me, there’s not much to tell that adds to that. Life has been very intense for the last few years. I lost my footing and fell. My mental health issues that I had no idea were issues came a calling. My marriage fell apart, I saw the woman I loved die a little day by day. I saw her become someone else. (I accept that I failed the marriage and her, but I won’t accept the totality of the blame of the situation. But all that is another bucket of thoughts I’m not getting into today.) My children suffered and needed more support, love and comfort than they were given. I was hit full on by the depth of my isolation and struggled to survive.
I followed my heart. I followed my head. I helped my children cope with their immediate grief. I was ostracised by those whose support I could have used. I’m not proud, but glad to have survived 3 attempted suicides. I found security and care and lost it again. I felt heartbreak and grief that overwhelmed, I almost lost the care of my children and was almost sectioned.
But I’m still here.

Why this post, why now? It’s not all been pain and clouds of sorrow. If you could see my thoughts as I type this. There is a side of me that yells how dare I. How dare I complain when others have suffered more and are suffering more. I accept that they have suffered more and are suffering more, but I’m not in a suffering competition. My experience is worthy as any others.
But I digress from my internal debate. I’m writing this for me and to me. It is the 14th of October 2024, and I am alive.

I want (no wishes - wishes are for the benefit of the world, if wishes exist I shall not waste them on personal whims.) I want to use this as a journal

. I have been struggling to find a format that works for me.

Throughout this whole life, I feel like literal chapters have been closed and opened. Along with the clouds and fogs in my head, I have experienced joys that I think few get to experience. I found the most intense love, I have been so deliriously happy. I have found all my senses overwhelmingly fulfilled. I have been moved to tears and ecstasy by trees in rainy sunlight. UI’m not a spiritual person. I was once, and I can see how some would view these moments as a lifting of the veil. I have experienced a depth of friendship that still seems s to grow. I have undergone therapy that has shaken the very foundations of who I thought I was.

Today? I’m growing. Since 2016 my life has been influx. Wall after wall of illusion and revelation have collapsed, and all the things I have done in the past now lie before me as actions. My therapy has allowed me to see the reasons for my choices and actions, and the thing I choose to do. Now I feel like I’m starting over. I try to picture myself younger, my internal vision of myself. It’s no longer there.

I am free to be me. However, I no longer have the full motivations for all the behaviours I want. My motivations in the past were never fully for me. They were to gain acceptance and to people please. To escape and not face who ever I am now. So I’m learning to do things again. But for me. And with that comes rebellion and fear. These actions like washing dishes, sweeping floors, self-care even my art, while part of these were completed for me. Overwhelmingly, they were completed for the benefit of others. The art is a different beast. I was away of shutting all of it out and dwelling with in.
I wanted love and acceptance. I wanted to feel worth. I was filled with self loathing and anger that I couldn’t love myself, that I was not worthy of that love.

So now I am learning how to be loving to myself and how to care for the human I am. I can forgive myself when I mess up as a parent. But I find it difficult to find that compassion for myself. I am full of what if, why can’t I, I should and other judgment thoughts.

So the why? I write this as an expression of the past and the current state. It’s not structured well. It’s a brain fart of a mind dump and that okay. It’s ambiguous, as I’m going to put it public. It’s for me, as I know where I have been and where I am. I think I know where I want to be. No, I don’t know where I’m going or how to get there, really. I just know those answers need to be found by doing in the here and now. The past only reveals to me patterns of behaviour that based on escape and giving up of responsibility.

Where I am now, is scary for different reasons. What if I die before I get to progress much further. What if I never love again. What if I’m wrong again. What if. What if. My choice is to be compassionate to myself. To take my internal voice and tell it how I want to be spoken to. Setting the boundaries I want. Stern enough to jolly myself along when I am capable of pushing more. Compassionate enough to know when I’m nearing my limit. Focused enough to help me cut the chaff from my behaviours.

I want this to be a daily practice and to see how I develop through the practice.