Saturday, 5 July 2014
I took the circles over to my daughter's house to show Luca and his little sister asked if I had anything for her. Actually I have lots of ideas for Elidi but something that came out that visit is my recycled envelope project.
I had taken some origami paper over to play with and we began by making rabbits. The first step of the folding was to fold diagonally across the square and then fold in the edges to the centre fold. This made a kind of ice-cream cone and Elidi called out "it's a lollipop" and wanted one in just that shape and so did Luca. I carried on making rabbits but I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Elidi's lollipop had taken on a life of it's own and become a shoe amongst other things. A simple piece of paper had triggered her imagination and she was rapt in a story of her own making.
Meanwhile Jessamy and I shifted to making shrimps and boxes.
When I got home I picked up a pile of bank statement envelopes and decided to cut them up into squares for origami. It always feels like there is too much un-used paper in envelopes to throw away but I am never sure what I want to do that paper.
As I cut up the paper I began folding the squares into rabbits. There is something about rabbits. They are such fertile creatures, it seemed poetic that the rabbits should represent ideas. One idea gives birth to another and another until I am falling over ideas and I haven't enough time to make them manifest.
And in fact the rabbits and Elidi, though she doesn't know it are the source behind my recycled envelope project now. Thank heavens for children who keep my thinking live. I will post some photos later.
I had taken some origami paper over to play with and we began by making rabbits. The first step of the folding was to fold diagonally across the square and then fold in the edges to the centre fold. This made a kind of ice-cream cone and Elidi called out "it's a lollipop" and wanted one in just that shape and so did Luca. I carried on making rabbits but I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Elidi's lollipop had taken on a life of it's own and become a shoe amongst other things. A simple piece of paper had triggered her imagination and she was rapt in a story of her own making.
Meanwhile Jessamy and I shifted to making shrimps and boxes.
When I got home I picked up a pile of bank statement envelopes and decided to cut them up into squares for origami. It always feels like there is too much un-used paper in envelopes to throw away but I am never sure what I want to do that paper.
As I cut up the paper I began folding the squares into rabbits. There is something about rabbits. They are such fertile creatures, it seemed poetic that the rabbits should represent ideas. One idea gives birth to another and another until I am falling over ideas and I haven't enough time to make them manifest.
And in fact the rabbits and Elidi, though she doesn't know it are the source behind my recycled envelope project now. Thank heavens for children who keep my thinking live. I will post some photos later.
During that time in great darkness my daughter had two children. I can say without a shadow of doubt that the smiles of those two little ones and my own children and the care and kindness of some very good friends gave me passage back to a life on earth. My garden, my art and my body (though dance, yoga and shiatsu) were part of my return too.
Recently my grandson inspired me with his circle drawings. One circle inside another in different colours which he was casually drawing after seeing some aeroplane markings, if I remember rightly. I made a half-hearted attempt to copy his drawings with some inktense pencils but the results didn't really shine. But then I tried screen printing overlapping circles and then scrumpling them and they look quite nice for first notes. As always this idea that I have cribbed from Luca is work in progress and these first notes are doodles and notions that I will let be to grow where they will for a while.
Recently my grandson inspired me with his circle drawings. One circle inside another in different colours which he was casually drawing after seeing some aeroplane markings, if I remember rightly. I made a half-hearted attempt to copy his drawings with some inktense pencils but the results didn't really shine. But then I tried screen printing overlapping circles and then scrumpling them and they look quite nice for first notes. As always this idea that I have cribbed from Luca is work in progress and these first notes are doodles and notions that I will let be to grow where they will for a while.
It's been a little while since I posted on my blog, I've been playing with paper, folding it and crumpling it and using it as cloth. As I have mentioned previously one idea leads to another and so my Lux Lucet In Tenebris project has moved on a little.
This project began as a response to a long and painful relationship with a recovering alcoholic. I had never come up against alcoholism before and in my naivety I thought that if he wasn't drinking he wasn't an alcoholic but he self-medicated with other things. Both my heart and spirit got broken. I was told I was nothing, a useless whore, worthless, that no-one cared so often that in the end I believed it. The final four or five years of my time with him were some of my darkest days. But. In that darkness is light. Being constantly told by your lover that your thoughts, your feelings, your needs are unimportant is emotionally abusive. But on another level it was a gift because being reduced to nothing allowed me to feel myself as part of a greater whole, connected in my nothingness to everything. My non-existence gave me a sense of belonging to something bigger than the small space my body occupies. That was the chink of light, the crack in the wall. It is that light that I found while plunged into horrible black space and that I am trying to put across in my sketches and notes for this project which I sporadically post on my blog.
As a post script I would also like to say that the way he behaved was not o.k and I have tagged him because one of the things abusers count upon is your silence. This project is something I am doing to help me soothe the parts of me that are still blighted by years of being rubbished. It is a labyrinth of pain if I am truly honest with myself. I have gained a little understanding but lost trust.
This project began as a response to a long and painful relationship with a recovering alcoholic. I had never come up against alcoholism before and in my naivety I thought that if he wasn't drinking he wasn't an alcoholic but he self-medicated with other things. Both my heart and spirit got broken. I was told I was nothing, a useless whore, worthless, that no-one cared so often that in the end I believed it. The final four or five years of my time with him were some of my darkest days. But. In that darkness is light. Being constantly told by your lover that your thoughts, your feelings, your needs are unimportant is emotionally abusive. But on another level it was a gift because being reduced to nothing allowed me to feel myself as part of a greater whole, connected in my nothingness to everything. My non-existence gave me a sense of belonging to something bigger than the small space my body occupies. That was the chink of light, the crack in the wall. It is that light that I found while plunged into horrible black space and that I am trying to put across in my sketches and notes for this project which I sporadically post on my blog.
As a post script I would also like to say that the way he behaved was not o.k and I have tagged him because one of the things abusers count upon is your silence. This project is something I am doing to help me soothe the parts of me that are still blighted by years of being rubbished. It is a labyrinth of pain if I am truly honest with myself. I have gained a little understanding but lost trust.
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