The Accumulation Of Small Things

With my ability to write as I had been a few years ago at the lowest of low ebbs (and practically gone), it seems like another year has passed by without the achievement of much. I’ve posted much less often here than I would have liked. And yet, image-making has become possible, when it was a source of inaction and frustration for so many years. 

 Looking back at all of the artworks I have created this year, starting with Necklace of Mouths, I can see a progression of forms and ideas. Each painting has taught me something, and gradually I’ve been developing a methodical way of working, completing things bit by bit, day by day. 

That said, the reality is that most of the time I dwell within in-between periods of inactivity, some of them a time of well-earned rest and gestation of new ideas; but most times seemingly empty, and very difficult to endure. But what has constantly surprised me is that I keep trying again and again. I go into my studio and thumb through books, reading and absorbing imagery, and I scribble down ideas. Sometimes I just stare into space, or get distracted by birds in the garden. And sometimes I avoid my studio altogether and languish in bed. Yet somehow the work keeps coming, even when I think I have lost all faith, all ability. For that I am grateful. 

I sometimes worry that I am repeating myself—the same words, themes, images—over and over again. But perhaps that’s just the way I work, within ‘a feminine symbolic which privileges multiplicity, plurality and connection, “ebb and flow, multiple beginnings, and multiple paths…doubling back”, as Luce Irigaray described women’s subjectivity (1). 

I like this way of understanding the seasons of creative life. I’ve doubled back and started again so many times, exploring old ground, drawing more meaning out of what came before, refining and expanding, creating layers and layers of material that I will never finish excavating. There has been an accumulation of small things this year, built upon my Witchlines work from last year, as well as upon the art I made and the dreams I had half a lifetime ago! I guess that’s quite an achievement after all.

These are my favourite artworks from this year:

Mothertongue

Messenger of the Invisible

Rainmaker

The Broad One

Fluency

Despite my often wordless state, a few poems have found their way through:

Where My Being Waits

An Ode to Brain Fog

A Dark Place

Non-renewable

I had another story published in the Heroines anthology. Hurrah!

And I have even written some wise things, which I really should try to keep in mind:

With words I can defy my inner critic, and defy the powers that be that dictate how I should think and feel, and how I should even perceive and understand the world. I can defy my own sense of helplessness. This is a kind of healing magic. (From (Not) Being & (Not) Doing)

I have no idea what next year will bring, but I intend to keep gathering ideas, images and words, small though they may be, to build the soil from which I continue to grow. 

References:

1. Dr. Sarah Nicholson, The Evolutionary Journey of Woman: From the Goddess to Integral Feminism, Integral Publishers: Tucson, Arizona, 2013, p. 26