Forms in Flux
- Mar 1, 2023
- 2 min read
As I write this, I'm wading through the thoughts that come flooding every time I'm close to taking a step forward: I'm an imposter, unqualified, uninteresting, and so on. It's an all too common narrative, especially when it comes to sharing art.
This space is my attempt to share what I do in spite of the narrative. I want to lean towards oversharing in order to feel more comfortable with the idea of sharing at all. I want to shed the 'i don't care what others think' attitude and acknowledge, I desperately care what others think- I want to belong and be accepted (like everyone else)- and I want to learn how to create and share authentically in spite of this.
This is a series of scribble drawings I did over the last month while transitioning back into my life in Tijuana. It's been a way to decompress and create without pressure. In looking at them all together I notice the feminine themes, which has been in a lot of my drawings lately. Boobs and eyes.
I dialogued with this one: the image of a person eating ice cream with chopsticks. (By dialoguing, I mean that I wrote out a conversation between me and the image- as if the image was speaking for it/herself.) She embodied the 'fuck it' attitude I want to have, wearing what she called her 'lemonade colored glasses'. She uses them to turn the shit people say about her into something sweet, knowing it is coming from a place of love, past hurt/trauma, or somewhere else we may not yet understand. Finally, she reminded me I need to go easier on myself. "Go sweet...," she said.
This process- drawing and dialoguing through writing- is something I've been doing since my master's program in Expressive Arts Therapy (EXA). It helps me to clarify my thoughts and often points to reminders or perspectives I may not have considered before. It feels very personal, which is why I've never shared this part of my practice. It also generally feels different from the aesthetic I want to be identified with in the world (whatever that is...).
This blog will be a way to step out of the box I've put myself in (aesthetically/artistically) and to share the other parts of my practice that help shape who I am as an artist and Expressive Arts facilitator.
In the next entries, I'll go into more detail about my process and provide additional resources. For now, here is an article I read recently on an adapted EXA process using dialoguing:
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