Impossibility

Sometimes, halfway through the battle (in the pursuit of dreams) we lose our heart to fight - it's impossible to pursue without it. You need heart. May you never lose yours.

It's not like anyone'll believe you

Too often the real effect abuse has is not dealt with in stories, but just used as a catalyst in the hero's tale.

Puzzled_work in progress

This weekend I created my own retreat - just me and the inks. Sometimes we all need a step back. This is just one panel of the comic.

Work/

It’s been a while since I last wrote. The quest for a new job kept me rather busy - updating the portfolio, tossing out and adding new work, sending out my CV to all wind directions and hoping for that call back. Then of course, after the elation of the call back, follows the INTERVIEW... waiting in the reception area in yet another corporate building, staring at reproduced works of art and wondering if this is really the venture for you - the adventure you were hoping for. Sometimes I catch myself falling too much in the trap of trying to impress rather than looking and listening if this is really right for me.

I gave up trying to pretend I know what’s good for me a long time ago - that’s all the Captain’s glory, He is steering this ship through unknown seas. Knowing when He says what and doing it requires a lot of trust.

The treasure is still alluding me, but the experience thus far has been very positive. Sifting through some of my old work I realised I wasn’t THAT terrible. When no praise comes your way I’m surprised how easily one can believe the omission of praise must then prove the opposite - that you are terrible at what you do, or even worse - mediocre. I’m surprised how differently I see since varsity days. How great is that! One can truly be freed from stifled belief systems (some of them my own). I understand why many say that academic art training is suicide to your own artistic voice - it teaches one to question more than try. I suspect art requires more of the latter with a dash of fun/pleasure and only a hint of the first.

The key might be to try more (it’s easier to live with defeat than with regret) and less to worry whether it might be acceptable or even art!

I’ve included the sketch I made whilst waiting in (one of) the reception area(s).

I believe

Just this week I read someone's view on art and thought it quite apt:
"Synesthesia is a fascinating condition in which inputs to one sensory pathway — such as music or shapes — produce sensations in a different sensory modality. Synesthetes most commonly associate letters and numbers with certain colors, but they may also “see” music, “taste” words, or “see” flavors.(Here the paintings and theory of Kadinsky came to mind). Art can give us “normals” a small window into the synesthete’s world. Even if we don’t experience numbers as colors or sounds, we can gaze While these imaginative experiences and sensory metaphors are not true synesthesia, they are what makes art powerful, allowing it to seize our attention and wrest every sense into engagement. Artists strive to blur the borders between the senses, generating fruitful, messy, unanticipated connections between parts of the mind that usually don’t communicate. In that sense, art mimics synesthesia.

A lot of thought around creativity and belief/faith has been simmering in my thinking pot lately. I've come to realise that even though you might have the desire or dream for something, you might not believe that it can become real (either because of fear, or because of a lack of belief in yourself or it just might be that you are not convinced that you deserve it or think it frivolous and in excess). You might earn for it incessantly, but it is echoed by an undercurrent of disbelief that it could ever be within reach of your eager grasp.

The creative process truly begins in the untangible - that which you do not see, but believe with your drumming heart.

I worked on another comic style poster idea. I like her expression and positive defiance.

You've got to ask yourself

I think this attempt went quite well.

Untitled_006

I've wanted to create monoprints for some time. I just love the feel of the ink, and the expectation when you lift the paper from the print - that unpredictable element.

Breezy

This is an ink drawing I made a while ago. I thought it appropriate to the theme. It forms part of a holiday book/journal I created - it's still looking for a publisher.

Treasure the hope

"As jy 'n groen tak in jou hart bewaar, sal die nagtegaal kom kuier." In English it roughly translates as ...if you keep a branch in your heart, a nightingale will come to perch upon it. My grandmother sent me this sentence in a sms and I thought this would be such a wonderful way to visually express the concept of hope.

A(h)men!

Ah, men! If only they weren't so beautiful.