Wow… this week has been a busy one, out training and attending meetings in preparation for launching Your Turn, our little Community Interest Company. Our company registration will be complete and ready to roll by the new year… new year, new start, as my mum said.
I have been so busy that I haven’t had much time to make art work, in fact the last piece was featured in my last post on the pleasures of scribbling; although I have managed some doodling and writing. I have been uneasy for the second half of the week; daily making has become such a part of my practice that it has felt uncomfortable not making an image of some description each day, and although I have put pencil to paper to make entries in my notebook, it has felt forced, scratchy, disconnected; a final effort at the end of an exhausting day.
On Friday I felt more relaxed; before my daughter woke up I was able to get in some quality quiet writing time, and I felt my brain shift down a gear; I felt as though I was tuning back into my artistic mojo, and I began to appreciate and understand how and why maintaining my own regular artistic practice informs the other work that I do.
So this weekend I have holed it up at home with some good quality paper and some water-soluble mark-making tools, and made drawings. These drawings are muted, ephemeral, blurred, quiet; my brain unwinding on paper. I layered and sprayed, and the pencil marks dissipated and blurred; I relinquished control and let the drawings take on their own life. The movements I made became slower, calmer, reflecting the slowing of my breathing and heart rate after an adrenaline-filled week.
