julia cameron explains it best when she likens the creative process to the birthing process. i don’t know about you, but there really are startling similarities and if your labor was anything like mine were, you understand a little bit about how wonderful and painful it all is, embarassingly vulnerable and naked emotion all mushed up together.
i generally start with a seed of an idea, an impulse, a yearning. for me, this usually leads to a quick thumbnail sketch or two and then onto collage. i simply love vintage ephemera. bits of old inked script on ledger paper is one of my all time favorites, along with numbered receipts, remnants of adhesive tape and postmarked envelopes, typewritten pages on onion skin or yellowed, crackling pages and aging maps of all sorts (the more colorful, the better)--these are the things i am pulled towards. i can’t quite explain the fascination, but it has something to do with the fact that they have lived a full life before arriving into my hands. i can almost hear their stories, these old papers. the way these simple, fragile bits of paper have survived and have lived to see another day--this speaks to the deeps of me, somehow.
acrylic paint, ink, graphite, charcoal, conte crayon...these are my current media of choice. they get layered on, wiped off, layered back on, scraped off, pasted and collaged over and drawn on, until it somehow feels right. i can sometimes give a logical explanation of what i like about a piece or why, techinically speaking, it works, but more often than not, i just like it. i feels right in my gut. the texture, the balance, the proportions, the scale, the mood...mostly i find i’m attempting to capture a feeling, a hint of poetry. at least, i try.
there is a dance that happens, between my chaotic inner life--i am a jumble of unknowing, a knot of fear and despair oftentimes--and the outer work of my hands. always, whether i am creating or not, i carry around my creative ideas like a secret pregnancy, my mind and heart always full of dreams, possibilities, potential. before i even ever sit down to make a piece of art, i go through a torturous mental process. (this is the part when i need to be medicated!!!) for me, this is the most difficult part of the entire creative process. if i (and my seedling of an idea) can survive this first stage of the game, the rest is just execution--difficult too, at times, but less painful (usually!)
every single piece i’ve created goes through a similar process. there are usually feelings of joy and elation, mixed-up right alongside doubts and fears, worry that i’ve forgotten how to birth this thing, realizing there is no turning back now, and then a time when i enter a zone and what feels like pure worship, a connection with God when my entire being seems imbibed with His Spirit and i cease striving, cease thinking, and the work just flows out of me. and then the piece crashes at some point thereafter! too much paint, too heavy a hand with the ink, spilled gesso, impatience that costs me beautiful layers--times when it seems that the work is unsalvageable and my worth reduced to a puddle beside the mess i’ve made. feelings of despair and hopelessness sometimes follow.
and then, a small hope arises. “i can fix it”, i say to myself. “even if i have to start all the heck over again and re-paper the entire thing, it can be redeemed”, i reason. usually, this is where the piece begins to turn and at the right moment, i stop and look at the life that has been born from all that labor.
{ the beginner :: WIP :: © jan avellana, hazelnut cottage }
i have to be mindful not to jump straight to judgement and critical analysis. i am learning to take a step back, a couple of days to let it all sink in before i hurl any kind of criticisms at them...i am learning to love learning, realizing that each and every piece doesn’t have to be a masterpiece--they can exist simply as they are, and be enjoyed as a next step towards a deeper fulfillment of expression. i am learning so, so much from each attempt and letting myself be open and vulnerable to the process.
what is your creative process like? do tell!
