Topic #34 - Begin

Begin=End=Begin

When I checked this week's challenge at Artwords I couldn't believe how well it fits with the art I am currently making. I have started off my month of daily paintings/collage/2D work quite well - it's the fourth of January and I am working on my third work. I have slightly altered the goal to allow for "mishaps" and am aiming for 5 works per week - I think this should be achievable and create enough focus without stressing me out.

The works have been focusing on the theme of transcience and impermanence which is the topic of my MFA. I've been collecting imagery for months now and am working with the cyclical nature of life. I have chosen two ways of depicting this: using butterflies and life-cycles and the lunar cycle.

This work incorporates a modification of Jonathon Talbot's transfer method using gloss gel medium, acrylic, wax pastel, Pitt's artists pens, sgraffito and collage. I must confess to a little digital jiggery-pokery...I wasn't happy with the composition of the original so I scanned it into Photoshop and "reorganised" the layout.

I learnt two valuable things from this work. First Talbot's method is really excellent for my purposes and secondly, I need to look at the sizing of my components. I am tending to make them medium sized - when they either need to be bigger, and fill the canvas more, or smaller. The re-working in PS basically consisted of adjusting the sizes of the different images.

I have titled my entry for Artwords "Begin=End=Begin" in recognition of the fact that beginnings are always associated with endings. To wipe the slate clean and start afresh, you have to let some things go if you going to have room for anything new. Sometimes these endings may be small and easy, and sometimes they can be massive and trigger a grief reaction. But to invert the proposition, any ending is also a beginning. We may grieve for the end of something we treasured, but at the same time we are being offered a new beginning. And a beginning should always be seen as an opportunity - so seize the day! Carpe Diem!

Topic #31 - Sparkles

"Sparkles" is an interesting challenge at this time of year. Of course it conjours up thoughts of Christmas but for so many people it seems that Christmas is either a difficult or sad time or at least a double edged sword, filled with so many hopes and yet so much tension.

Families are the basic unit of our society and as such they seem to me to be the thing that brings us our most meaningful experiences. Families can provide so much love and joy, and they can also hurt us and disappoint so deeply.

I find it hard myself to negotiate the expectations that Christmas will be a wonderful, joyous occasion. Here in Australia it is often stinking hot and eating a lot of rich food and alcohol is really not wise, yet we all still do it if we can - often going so far as to feast on the traditional northern hemisphere fare of roast turkey, baked ham followed by plum pudd. (for those of us with a British heritage, anyway).

This Christmas I will be remembering my father of course. The grief is not quite as raw this time around as last year when he had only been dead seven weeks, but it still packs a punch.

I am hopeful that this Christmas, while small and low-key will be more relaxed and enjoyable than recent ones. My brother and sister and their families are going away, so on Christmas Day I will be having my mother and my mother-in-law for lunch. We have air-conditioning and we will be having non-traditional food: smoked salmon, and berries for dessert. It will be a quiet affair, but I do think the mother's will enjoy it - they love to see each other.

On Boxing Day we will gather at my mother-in-law's for the full Christmas celebration with my brother-in-law's family which includes our four year old nephews - there will be nothing quiet about that day!

My entry in Artwords this week really captures my mood as I contemplate Christmas and the year past. I value the time taken to reflect - it helps to focus on the sunshine and allow the less attractive aspects of life to drift away to the horizon.

How to grieve....

Does anyone else think there is something wrong with a society that hides away from one of the most basic truths of life.... that we will all die.


Seventeen months ago I experienced something completely natural - my father became ill and three months later he died. I had a wonderful, loving father. Oh, he wasn't perfect - no one is, but I loved him with all my heart and I knew he loved me. He fought against his natural instincts which made him long to protect me all my life, and did his best to set me free to be the person I am. Sometimes this was extremely challenging for him I know, but because he loved me, he worked at this, and usually succeeded.

Even though my father was 82 and I had realized many years before that he was nearing the end of his life, I was still totally unprepared for his death. I'm not sure what you can do to prepare for a loss like this but I can't help feeling there must be something.

In particular one thing that disturbed me was that I had no idea my father had enterred his final 24 hours when this happened. I visited him in palliative care and helped him to drink and to go to the bathroom. He communicated with me through notes because he had lost control of his speaking muscles but not his thought processes. And because I had no idea how close he was to death, AND NOBODY TOOK ME ASIDE AND TOLD ME, I went home. I planned to come back the next day. But because I have cfs and I had no idea how long this might go on, it seemed important to ration my energy so that I could keep visiting each day for as long as it took - I envisioned about two weeks.

Instead I was wakened at 6am by a phone call to tell me that he had died. Now I don't know how easy or how difficult it is to tell how close a person is to death. I only know that I couldn't tell. And when I think about it, it seems ridiculous that we are so unfamiliar with one of the most basic occurrences of life that we don't know. And the reason we don't know is because we have medicalised the process and hidden our elderly and dieing people away to avoid the pain and the grief. Imagine if we didn't know how to tell when a baby was about to be born. It's laughable, isn't it? And yet not all babies are born at the same rate - some come quickly, others take days, but at least we know that it is happening. And alright, I know the birth of a baby is a happy occasion, but it's no more or less a part of life than dieing.

For the past month or so my energy levels have been so low that I've spent most days lieing on my bed. Last week I went to see my doctor and we realized the connection - I started to deteriorate on the anniversary of my father's death. I hadn't even realized that I wasn't dealing with the grief. Earlier in the year I tried to help myself through the process by having some sessions of art therapy. The artwork I have included with this post is one of those I made at that time. I plan to return to making artworks about my father and my feelings of loss around his death and I will post some of those here. I have found in the past that making art about deeply emotional issues has allowed me to work my way through them, and this has released a lot of energy that seems to get caught up containing the feelings.