I am fortunate enough to have as a tutor at Blackburn College, the painter Peter Layzell (here) and we were discussing some of my latest works and experiments and my desire to try and create something with oil paint, which I have never done before. What I found fascinating, was his mentioning my reproducing of a sort of personal mythology. I love the concept of personal mythology! Of course, as a therapist, I can see its appeal from a Jungian perspective and I have a profound respect for Eric Berne and its "scripts".
For once, in my creative experimenting, it feels that my writing and storytelling, which is so much an intrinsic part of me, meet colour (the horror!) and both make visible the mythology and my internal and very personal reference points.
This past month has been intense and concentrated on a deep self-reflection and exploration, underlined by a sense of acceptance. Reading (again!) Women who Run with the Wolves (here), discovering a possible different outlook on my own life with Human Design, embracing my invisibility as a superpower, together with the new blog The Perfect Wor[l]d (here) and the writing of the new book have pointed me in a specific direction, totally unbeknown to me.
I found soothing the possibility and permission I finally gave myself to converge my interests in one coherent piece of work: there you can find words, symbols, alphabets such as Safaitic or Akkadian, my worlds of adventure and dreams, the desire to make sense of Kaos, a bit of biology and some mapping, people as mirrors, daisies because they are the friendliest flowers, and just plain and simple ME. There I can unite my studies and interests in Maths, Physics, Biology and Electronic; my passions for semiotics, glottology, linguistics, and etymology; my fascination for Babylon and its Hanging Gardens; the exploration of dreams and imagery as a poor man's Lara Croft. For the first time tonight I left College almost at 8 pm: I was alone in the large studio, drawing while standing up, listening to my music and singing along and swaying while holding a brush.
This to me is the epitome of happiness.
I also recognise the (subtly subconscious?) hints of artists I explored and like:
Two Austrian and two Spanish: Klimt, Miró, Hundertwasser, and Gaudí.
All of the experiments I did are in mixed media with watercolour. Only one has a splash of oil paint, just as a teaser. Next stage is to explore more in oil on canvas and then... and then... trying to transpose everything on a larger scale and see what happens!
onwards and upwards and I will keep you posted!
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