I am a very visual person. I think in images. I find words hard to use to describe unless it is in a series of visual metaphors so when I initially started to move beyond the awful despair and crying associated with the early days of my episode I looked to pictures to try to understand what was happening to me. The first image I worked with was a black well surrounded by grey stones in a dark place, without light , without colour. I tried in so many ways to colour the picture but each time I closed my eyes all I could see was the bottomless pit. I was now fortunately kneeling at the top of the pit looking in, previously I have been hanging on by my fingernails trying to claw myself out. Thankfully the help of family and a very good doctor pulled me out of the pit. Time and counselling have turned the bottomless dark well into a very pleasant place. Now it is a lovely stone labyrinth that I can journey through to an inner sanctuary of calm, the pit is now a beautiful still pool in the middle of the labyrinth . It is surrounded by a wild flower meadow. In my new found sanctuary it is always summer. Not the sweltering heat of mid summer rather the beautiful early summer weather in May , just hot enough to lie out in the sun. Where the ground is warm but still sit has the slight springyness of the damp winter rain. I have added it to my projects: to build that beautiful sanctuary in real life so that other troubled minds can find a place to revive and renew themselves.
I started this post in order to describe how I started to overcome the despair. Essentially I sought to visualise a happy place to counter-act the dark pit I felt I was in. I tried to find images on the internet, then I tried to take photos and piece them together, I tried to draw it. Eventually I started to collect images from books magazines and the internet. It lead me back to my love of art. I found that I have sky arts on my tv and started to watch art programmes. I was inspired by the film The gates. I had forgotten how much I loved Christo's work as a teenager, his wrapped landscape was so different from my previous view of art it was inspiring. What drew me to the film was the total vision he had and his inspirational self belief. This film should be compulsory viewing for the depressed. Pure joy was what he created. How long had I lived a life without joy, where I sought pleasure rather than joy and happiness. I did not even recognise the difference until last week while reading the art of happiness. Pleasure is fleeting but happiness comes from within and does not depend on pleasure for its existence. So I started to compile a list of projects that I would like to complete.
The first was a collage of Gustav Klimt: The kiss. I spent days and days looking and examining the image. For me it represented the pureness of female submission, something I had explored last year. I was still at odds with my desire to be submissive and could not reconcile it with my intellectual belief that I was equal with men. Who knows where this exploration will end up but for now I am working on the collage. at present I am collecting things to use in it. I examine the image form books and from the Internet. I have plans to go view it. Next year or later this year is a significant anniversary of his birth, 150 years and there are a number of exhibitions planned so I hope to travel to see them in reality, possibly by train but who knows yet.
The second project is a bubble machine. I love bubbles. As I looked out into the garden while washing up I thought how lovely it would be if there were bubbles blowing around in the garden. At the time I was reconnecting with my interest in kinetic art so I made the connection that I could make a wind powered bubble machine to blow bubbles for me. I have an endless permutation of possibilities. So far I am collecting different shaped bubble wands and drinks cans to make the anemometer-like windmill to power the fan to blow the bubbles. I decided to make it out of objects I find or that I have lying around so it could also even be from parts of old bikes , I love bikes and the rotation of the wheel on the bearings is so pure.
Again a work in progress but such fun to think about. I love the concept phase of a project where different ideas are considered. I love the initial creation stage and also the construction bit. work projects are just no fun for me anymore since it became all about money and paperwork. I miss the early days of my career where the creation of the project was the aim, not the keeping the stakeholder happy, not the balancing of the books but the essence of taking an idea and bringing it to its conclusion, then admiring the achievement. Hopefully my art projects will bring me the pleasure I lost in my work. Perhaps they might bring me the happiness of expressing myself through the creation of things. Or is that even possible.
The most important project is to start a business so that I can use my talents to create an income for myself that does not rely on paid work. I dont want to be defined by what I do for a living anymore. I invested too much of my time and effort doing things for others now it is time to do things for myself. Finally I know what I want in my life. I want a simple happy life, one that I can look back on without regret, one in which I create things of beauty, the life I have always wanted but put aside as I did all the things that I thought I should. The only should I need to keep in my life is I should take care of myself.
While writing I always listen to music. This post was accompanied by Leonard Cohen. I am off to read my book of Leonard Cohens poetry now.
Happy Wednesday
I started this post in order to describe how I started to overcome the despair. Essentially I sought to visualise a happy place to counter-act the dark pit I felt I was in. I tried to find images on the internet, then I tried to take photos and piece them together, I tried to draw it. Eventually I started to collect images from books magazines and the internet. It lead me back to my love of art. I found that I have sky arts on my tv and started to watch art programmes. I was inspired by the film The gates. I had forgotten how much I loved Christo's work as a teenager, his wrapped landscape was so different from my previous view of art it was inspiring. What drew me to the film was the total vision he had and his inspirational self belief. This film should be compulsory viewing for the depressed. Pure joy was what he created. How long had I lived a life without joy, where I sought pleasure rather than joy and happiness. I did not even recognise the difference until last week while reading the art of happiness. Pleasure is fleeting but happiness comes from within and does not depend on pleasure for its existence. So I started to compile a list of projects that I would like to complete.
The first was a collage of Gustav Klimt: The kiss. I spent days and days looking and examining the image. For me it represented the pureness of female submission, something I had explored last year. I was still at odds with my desire to be submissive and could not reconcile it with my intellectual belief that I was equal with men. Who knows where this exploration will end up but for now I am working on the collage. at present I am collecting things to use in it. I examine the image form books and from the Internet. I have plans to go view it. Next year or later this year is a significant anniversary of his birth, 150 years and there are a number of exhibitions planned so I hope to travel to see them in reality, possibly by train but who knows yet.
The second project is a bubble machine. I love bubbles. As I looked out into the garden while washing up I thought how lovely it would be if there were bubbles blowing around in the garden. At the time I was reconnecting with my interest in kinetic art so I made the connection that I could make a wind powered bubble machine to blow bubbles for me. I have an endless permutation of possibilities. So far I am collecting different shaped bubble wands and drinks cans to make the anemometer-like windmill to power the fan to blow the bubbles. I decided to make it out of objects I find or that I have lying around so it could also even be from parts of old bikes , I love bikes and the rotation of the wheel on the bearings is so pure.
 |
| my bubble farm created by the organic bubble machines(children). |
Again a work in progress but such fun to think about. I love the concept phase of a project where different ideas are considered. I love the initial creation stage and also the construction bit. work projects are just no fun for me anymore since it became all about money and paperwork. I miss the early days of my career where the creation of the project was the aim, not the keeping the stakeholder happy, not the balancing of the books but the essence of taking an idea and bringing it to its conclusion, then admiring the achievement. Hopefully my art projects will bring me the pleasure I lost in my work. Perhaps they might bring me the happiness of expressing myself through the creation of things. Or is that even possible.
The most important project is to start a business so that I can use my talents to create an income for myself that does not rely on paid work. I dont want to be defined by what I do for a living anymore. I invested too much of my time and effort doing things for others now it is time to do things for myself. Finally I know what I want in my life. I want a simple happy life, one that I can look back on without regret, one in which I create things of beauty, the life I have always wanted but put aside as I did all the things that I thought I should. The only should I need to keep in my life is I should take care of myself.
While writing I always listen to music. This post was accompanied by Leonard Cohen. I am off to read my book of Leonard Cohens poetry now.
Happy Wednesday
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