Post #3306: Making a mess

The above photo is a project I’m working on for my field study group on Gabriola – something I conceived of two days ago and now need to get finished before we meet at the end of the month. I don’t want to say yet what it is, but as you can see, it involves making a bit of a mess in the studio as I paint backgrounds and layer collage on with acrylic gel medium. These pages will get a lot more layers before they are “finished” and then cut up into smaller pieces for the end-product I am working towards.

Around two and half years ago I started seeing someone for mental health help – someone I still see even though I’m much better than I was when I started down this road. As part of that exploration, I also took an 8-week class focused on managing anxiety through creating through the arts council here. It was very inexpensive (perhaps even free, but I made a donation), and met once weekly in the arts centre with a counsellor (a different one from mine) and an artist. In that class, we did a bunch of abstract mark-making exercises (collage, paint, crayons) while paying attention to bodily sensations and breathing. What was really great about it for me was that it was not focused on “making art” but on using the tools of art making to tune into the body. I don’t think I kept a single end result of those classes – but I was turned on to a bunch of techniques that I felt I could “do” without a lot of pressure on myself.

Though I have been a maker of things for a long time, until recently I always focused on functional making like home textiles and clothing. While I do not deny there is some “art” in intricate weaving and sewing, my love of those activities was rooted in the fact that they result in beautiful, usable things that I could otherwise not afford to purchase (who can afford handmade/tailored clothing after all?)

After taking the arts council class though, I had an increasing interest in working with other materials, and without a particular end game in mind. Over the last couple of years that has taken me in different exploratory directions – both into functional paper craft (bookmaking) as well as watercolour painting and mixed media. While I do not think of what I’m doing as art in any way (throwing things on the wall and seeing what sticks is more like it), I have found a real love for making a mess in my studio using all the different bits and pieces that come my way. It’s super tactile, uses mostly recycled/found materials, and allows me to be expressive without worrying about accuracy or representation. What I particularly love is the wabi-sabi of it all, the fact that beauty emerges from some fairly random, layered processes with only minimal overthinking/overcriticizing on my part.

I’m excited to see how this particular project comes together, which will involve photocopying this work when it’s done and using the copies to create something for my field school group. Right now it’s in the mess stage, but with a few more layers and processing, I think it’ll turn out to be something more coherent at the end. I’ll share here when that happens!