Self Portrait

The project in one of my process art classes a few months ago, was to do a series of Self Portraits using clay, charcoal, and tea, coffee and ink.

For the first one we were given a mirror and a large lump of clay.
Sitting comfortably and holding the clay in our hands, we did a guided meditation.
We then placed the clay on the desk in front of us and with our eyes closed, were instructed to carefully and slowly feel our face, ... our ears, ... our head ... and our neck. We did this a few times using both our hands, first our fingertips and then our whole hand.
When we were done, we started to mould the ball of clay into a self portrait. We could look at our refection in the mirror and at times we closed our eyes and worked intuitively, feeling our way around the clay and occasionally referring back by feeling our faces and heads with our hands.

You would think that with all this care taken to explore your own face, and to carefully mould it out of clay, you would manage to achieve a pretty close resemblance of yourself  in your final sculpture.

So, I ask you, with tears in my eyes...

Who the hell is THIS Guy !??   LOL




Self Portrait in clay

Self Portrait in clay - side view



Charcoal sketch of Self Portrait in clay



Self Portrait in charcoal



Self Portrait - wet on wet using tea, coffee and black ink



Last Dance - mono prints

Printmaking (or Graphics as it was called) was my favourite subject when I was in high school. I've done the odd etching, woodcut and lino cut over the years and have always dreamt of one day having my own press. It is therefore not surprising that my favourite Process Art classes have become the ones where we work with Mono prints.

 

The class started with a guided meditation, which I always find really helpful. It calms your mind and helps you to switch off, or change gear, after a busy day.

We spent some time paging through magazines and tearing out pages of colour, texture or images that grabbed our attention. There was also a selection of items such as bubble wrap, textured fabric, lace, flowers, leaves etc. that could be used to make texture or patterns in the ink. We were free to experiment printing onto different papers, including the magazine pages we'd torn out.

 

 

My many printing experiments done on various papers, including some magazine pages.

 

 

When we were done, we stuck all our prints up on the wall and quietly sat and looked at them. We were to choose two prints that could then be worked into by adding colour with ink or pastels.

 

These were the two prints that stood out for me. They felt like they belonged together.

 

 

Last Dance

 

 

As always, the artwork that I do in these classes ends up reflecting something that is on my mind or in my subconscious at the time. In the days before this class I had been thinking and worrying a lot about my father who is ill and was due to start radiation therapy. I had been preoccupied by thoughts of human mortality, the fear of death, and the fear of, and inevitability of, one day losing my parents.

 

I called this work "Last Dance".

RAZIEL (by Anonymous)

I have been receiving some wonderful feedback about my blog posts to do with the Process Art classes that I am doing.

This message really made me smile... :)

"Hi Wendy I just wanted to share with you how you inspired me to join ASTAR. After your initial classes you shared your journey and I was intrigued. I found classes close by and have completed 2 courses and all I can say is WOW! And thank you for the inspiration. It's been an incredible, symbiotic, spiritual and artistic journey xxx"

I was very excited to hear that someone reading my blog had experienced something similar to what I'd been experiencing. Something magical. I was even more excited when they agreed to share their profound experience with us, here, on my blog. :D  They would like to remain anonymous.

Here is their story...


My ASTAR experience has been a deeply profound and spiritual one. The art has opened the spirit and the spirit has embodied the art.

The last course I attended was Chance Art and as a natural control freak I found the "letting go" to be most exhilarating and terrifying. Each lesson revealed a deeper understanding of myself and culminated in a mind blowing experience which I am still wrapping my head around.

The exercise involved cutting up our "poems" we had written through the previous weeks, putting all these individual words into a bowl, we sat with this bowl and then with eyes closed pulled out eight of these words.
We then strung these words together to make up a coherent or semi coherent sentence, after which we wrote this sentence over and over again on a sheet of paper using wax, bleach, ink – whatever we wanted to use. Once the entire sheet was haphazardly filled with these words we filled in the blanks with colour ink, coffee, tea, more bleach again whatever we wanted. By the end I thought my sheet looked like a morning after a heavy night.

After tea we sat quietly looking at what we had done as if we were cloud watching, forming images out of shapes and shadows.
When I looked, all I could see was the outline of a face and the suggestion of wings. So in the spirit of chance I went with it. The entire experience was out of this world. I did not feel as though I was doing it, as I followed the lines I found that the shadows that were there already revealed the lips, the eyes and the body. It was surreal.

After class I was exhilarated, and in the week following I kept thinking about my angel. During a meditation the letters RAZIEL flashed in my mind. I wondered if this was the name of an angel so after swinging between wondering and telling myself I was loosing my mind, I decided to Google it!

And there it was. Raziel, the angel that holds the messages of God. The angel that opens the third eye.

This experience has challenged my spiritual beliefs and has opened a whole new world of wonder to me.




Raziel

 

...

 

Dear anonymous.

This is so SO beautiful. It gave me goose bumps.

Thank you so very much for sharing.

xxx Wendy

 

Full Moon Love Mandala

  

 

Back in April this year I was driving to art class in the direction of a giant, rising, full moon. The traffic was slow and every traffic light that I came to was red, so I had plenty of time to gaze in awe at how beautiful it was.

 

Coincidence and synchronicity have become very much part of my experience at my weekly process art classes. I have almost come to expect there to be some sort of coincidence. So when I arrived at class and found a large circular (full moon shaped) piece of paper on my desk, I simply gave a quiet little "huh".

 

We were going to do mandalas. (Mandala comes from Sanskrit meaning "circle.")

We started off, after a guided meditation, paging through magazines and tearing out pages that resonated with us. A smaller circle had been drawn in pencil in the middle of our paper. We collaged some of our magazine pictures into this smaller circle.

 

But THEN, the class took a whole new direction! We were instructed to pass our work to the person next to us, and in so doing we received someone else's work. We were then given a few minutes to add something to the work in front of us, using magazine pictures or ink. We passed each work around the class, stopping to add something to each person's work.

By the time your original work came back to you, it had taken on a new life and may have gone in a totally different direction to what you had "planned". (shock horror!) Which was precisely the reason for the exercise. You are not supposed to plan your work in these classes. It was a good way to force you to LET GO and to not be too precious about the outcome of your work.

 

The "gifts" I'd received on my mandala by the time it reached my desk again where lovely.

Someone had divided my page up with some ink lines which made me think of a clock. Time.

Someone else had painted an ink heart. Others had added magazine eyes, a picture of a fig, a stick like figure and star shape.

Funnily enough, the magazine pictures that I'd torn out at the beginning of the session, and later added to my mandala, worked very well with what had been added to my page by others.

My end result included many hearts, Cupid's arrows, men making eyes at and flirting with voluptuous women, rock paintings, two stags with locked horns and two Greek stamps with a picture of a centaur, the symbol for the zodiac sign of Sagittarius.

 

 

I made this mandala a few days after spending a lovely "date day" with my Sagittarius husband.

(I posted some pictures from that day here.)  I called it "Full Moon Love Mandala".

We have 3 young children who keep us very busy and we hadn't spent quality time together, just the two of us, in a really long time. Our "date day" felt a bit like starting from the beginning again. Courting. Flirting. Falling in love.

Collage work - Process Art classes

Earlier this year, in the fourth Process Art class that I attended, we were required to do a collage using pictures from magazines.

We started off (with the help of a guided meditation) by writing about a memory from our childhood to do with a book or story that someone had read to us or told us.

Mine was 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. I used to have a recurring bad dream about that story when I was little. In my dream the bears were at our front gate, coming for me, and I had nowhere to hide and nowhere to run to. I felt such fear of getting into trouble for doing something I'd been told not to do.

We paged through magazines and tore out pictures that caught out attention and resonated with us, not necessarily pictures that illustrated the story.

I was never a huge fan of collage work and found it hard to get into. I did not enjoy the class that much. I was also disappointed with my work at the end of the lesson.

In those early days of Process Art classes I was still hung up on the final artwork or end result and hadn't quite got into the 'process' yet.

The collage that I did in one of the first Process Art classes.

A month later, we did another collage. This time we started with wax crayons, inks and bleach before paging through the magazines and tearing out pictures to paste onto our work. Amazingly, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I was completely unconcerned about what the end result would look like. I was actually humming happily (but very quietly) while I worked. I was surprised at the end result but this time did not focus on it as an 'artwork' or place any judgement or criticism onto it.

The collage that I did a month after the first collage.

At the end of that term we were given all our work back in a large brown folder. I laid my work out on the floor to get a good look at what I had achieved and it immediately struck me that these two collages had strong similarities.

All the work done during the first term of my Process Art classes.

From top left: Guardian Figure, Flower - Symbol, Silenced Love, Gateway, Flow, Immerse Yourself, Creative Block, Untitled

The Two collages:

Both collages have a path leading to an open doorway positioned more or less in the middle of the picture.

At the start of the pathway in the first collage, is a jumble of torn pieces from a picture of dried autumn leaves. They look a lot like flames.

In the second collage there is the shape of a lotus flower made up of petals cut from a picture of flames.

In the first there are rays of light coming into the picture and in the second there are rays going out from the centre of the page.

While doing the first collage I felt stuck, frustrated and irritable. While doing the second one I felt free and full of joy!

I can read a lot more into both of these works, but for me the most exciting thing is the idea (or even the proof) that my subconscious is hard at work during these Process Art classes.

A friend asked me what it is that I gain from doing these classes. What 'therapy' am I getting from them?

I think what it is, is that I'm giving my subconscious a voice.

 A bit like analysing ones dreams?

A way to feel connected to something greater.

REWIRED. Creative Block - artwork

The task in one of my process art classes was to create an artwork called 'Creative Block', using... a... block.
We were given a selection of wooden blocks in various shapes and sizes to choose from. The idea was to work on every surface, using anything we wanted (pencil, ink, paint, magazine pages, fabric, found objects etc.) to create our final work.

I am a "Creative Block Survivor" (more about that later), and could not help but interpret this project literally. The subject immediately brought up strong feelings for me .

I chose a beautiful small block of Oregon pine. I loved the colour, the grain, the smell. My plan was to do sophisticated, beautiful, emotional ink illustrations leaving much of the wood grain visible and to carve into the wood in places. I most certainly wasn't going to glue any bits onto the wood. That would just be ... um... tacky! ;)

I grabbed a magazine to page through for inspiration and to look for possible references for my illustrations I'd planned. (I'm not very good at drawing from my imagination).

Before I knew it, I was like a woman possessed, wielding a hot glue gun. I went mad sticking and gluing all sorts of bits and pieces onto my block. I was having so much fun.

The end result was really surprising. Not at all what I'd envisioned or set out to do.

But, it made me smile.

I called it "REWIRED".

My Lesson:

To let go, be free, have FUN, express yourself in WHATEVER way. Stop taking art and creativity so SERIOUSLY! Who cares what other people will think.

... But is it ART?... Hell Yes! Because it means something... to me.

... Would it sell? ... Hell no! Most probably not ... So then, why do we make art? ...

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."

- Thomas Merton in No man is an Island



My Guardian Figure

I attended my first ASTAR (Awakening Spirit Through Art) art class last night. Amazing. I loved it! I am very excited about the journey that lies ahead.

We were to create a Guardian Figure out of clay.
We started off by holding a large lump of clay in our hands, and with our eyes closed were given a guided visualisation to do.
At first I saw a tall man, broad shoulders, strong, caring, crouched down, embracing and comforting a tiny, fragile me. As the meditation continued my figure became very tall and thin, gentle, feminine, flowing and radiating light. I thought it was a woman with a flowing skirt and was then confused, was my guardian figure a large man or a tall thin woman?
When we started working with the clay I found myself moulding it into a tall, thin, flowing figure of a man. He reminded me of my late grandfather (whom I never met) with his bald head.
When we'd completed our clay objects we were given a cardboard tray of sand and asked to select anything we wanted from a table of 'found objects'. This included beads, old jewelry bits, sequence, feathers, seed pods, shells, bits of fabric, you name it.
At first I chose an ornate blue heart bead; a pretty, broken, ornate pendent and a pretty, patterned, antique tea strainer that would make a lovely impression into the clay. But my Guardian figure didn't like any of them and I found myself putting them all back.
I've never been big on sea shells and coral, but that is what I found myself returning to my desk with... a selection of things from the sea, and a small white feather. I arranged, and rearranged my objects. I balanced a broken oval shell on his head like a halo, but was then moved to embed it into his body, like a pregnant tummy that had opened up. A tea light candle, 2 kelp pods with 'umbilicle cords', 2 cowry shells, 3 beautiful pieces of coral, and 7 round, light reflecting, mirror mosaics now surrounded him. And the small white feather I inserted between his shoulder blades, like a wing, or a fin.
When our creations were complete, we took pencil and paper and did a short guided meditation. We asked our Guardian Figure what their name was and what message they had for us. We wrote down the first thoughts that came into our minds.

My Guardian Figure's name turned out to be the same name as a late friend, who sadly passed away at sea a few years ago when I was pregnant with my twins. My message that I received was a reassuring one about my twins and my older son, a compliment about me as a mom, and a blessing for my family. I'd spent time with this friend's family very recently so he had been on my mind, but I was not consiously thinking about him during the art session.

I found the experience to be very moving. The final result is special, but the sculpture will not last as it will not be fired. I will put it in the garden, to be slowly washed away... earth to earth...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASTAR Art Course

I love to Believe that synchronicity and coincidences are a sign that you're on the right track.
I'd heard about the ASTAR (Awakening Spirit Through Art) art classes through a friend but at the time was not in a position to do a course. Six months later, in December a friend of my sister came to buy one of my Origami Nightingale Mobiles which she wanted to give as a gift to her Art Teacher. It turned out that she is doing ASTAR Art classes.
This term a space became available in her class and she asked if I'd be interested to join. I had just been paid for a large order of Bird Strings that I'd made before Christmas, so I eagerly paid my deposit to secure my place.
I then started questioning... had I signed up for the right course?... will I be spending my money wisely?... was this course for me?...

I wanted to share some info about the course with another friend but the website link, for some reason, was not working that day. Frustrated, I did a search to see if there was maybe a Facebook page. This is what I found ... - Note the cover photo :) (two pebbles, one with the word "Believe" and the other with the word "Make"...)

The cover photo on the ASTAR Facebook page that I came across was of two pebbles,
one with the word "Believe" and the other with the word "Make"

 

 

I just had to smile. This was the affirmation that I'd needed. A message from the Universe, don't you think?