Category Archives: creativity heals

Journal Friday: Art in your Journal, or Why I had to lock Nigel in the Garden Shed this Morning.

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Diary Page mental energy groundedThe title for this post, “Using images in your journal”, has been in my editorial diary for weeks, swimming around, getting crossed out and rescheduled.  I knew I had to write about it, because Art Journaling is a huge movement, and one everyone can enjoy.

So why couldn’t I bring  myself to write about them?

In a word, Nigel.

Nigel, if you haven’t already come across him on this blog, is the name I have given to my inner critic.  At least its the one only one thats printable!  He is the psycho-demon-fuckwit-critic-from-Hell that sits inside my head, barking orders at me, making sure I keep being a Good Girl so that people will love me.

Yeah.  Right.

In the case of my art, I can identify exactly when my drawing became unacceptable.  Nigel began with the voice of my ‘A’ level art teacher, Bob Taylor.  I had always been a passionate artist, and while I always knew I wanted to be a writer, I felt that earning a living might enable me to use my art skills.  So I took Graphics at ‘A’ level, intending to apply to Art College.  When I told Bob Taylor this, he said the following:

You’re a good draughtsman but you don’t have originality.

Yeah, right.

Looking back on it as a much wiser adult, I can see what he was saying.  My art at that time was very constrained.  I was too busy producing what I thought other people wanted, and not following what I wanted to do, or breaking out and breaking rules.  My art was, frankly, pretty boring.  But being a Good Girl makes for boring.  Regardless of that, its a pretty cruel thing to say to a 17-year-old who has always dreamt of a sunny studio in St ives.  I suppose he was trying to save me many years of misery and disappointment. I just was not ready for Art School.  Or perhaps he had picked up on the vicious Nigel voice inside my head that kept me in check.  Whatever the reason, I quickly lost my passion, and ultimately abandoned my art.

Now I am pretty blocked.  Nigel says I shouldn’t draw unless I can make something perfect and professional, something of the kind I admire in other artists.  Only the best is good enough for me and you, he says.  And if you can’t make it perfect, why do it at all?

This morning, I locked Nigel in the garden shed with a ball gag in his mouth, and got out my diaries.  Because, you see I do draw.  Sometimes.  Where no one can see.  Where no one can judge.  And because a picture, as I learnt so long in Graphics class, can say so much more than words in describing a feeling.  I draw how I am feeling.  Sometimes.  If I am feeling daring, or desperate enough.  In my diary, it doesn’t have to be perfect.  It just has to be got out on paper.

Here are a few of my drawings.  Nigel is very unhappy about my publishing them here, and he wishes me to point out that they are not up to my usual artistic standard.  I would like to point out that you don’t have to be able to draw, let alone draw like Rembrandt, if no one but you will ever see the images!

sleep sketchThis one is about my illness and the days I spend unable to get out of bed, which are frequent.

grumpy bear 1 grumpy bear 2

This is a feeling I had one day that I wanted to personify, in the hope of recording how to get rid of it.

hound sketchThis was the product of a night of insomnia.  Once I had drawn this rabid dog, something I felt compelled to do in a literally physical way, the feelings I was struggling with literally dissolved, and I went back to bed and slept for seven hours straight.

The point I want to make is not whether I can draw or not, but that you can use images to express your feelings in your journal without fear of judgement from others.  If you can’t draw, or can’t bring yourself to draw, paste in images cut from magazines, or postcards.  Collage is a great art form you can try without fear of criticism.  There are lots of ways to express what is pent up inside that are nothing to do with words.

Don’t let Nigel limit you.

Journal Exercise:

I am going to talk more about this, as I feel like I have opened up a rich seam, now that I have got over my block about it.  But in the meantime, you get to do some more shopping!  Go and buy yourself some nice coloured pens or pencils.  Sharpie ones are good and bright, but I like Staedtler Triplus fineliners and Berol Colour Brushes.

Reread my previous post about colour, and play with your pens or pencils inside your journal. Makes some marks.  Doodle.  If you fancy drawing, do, but don’t be critical of what you produce.  This is not about getting a grade A.  Just have a play.

What colours and shapes express particular feelings for you?  How do you feel when you use a particular colour?  What do certain shapes mean?

During the week, keep your eyes peeled when browsing newspapers and magazines, or even junk mail.  Pick out images that speak to you.  Pull them or snip them out and stash them in a box for future use, or stick them into the pages of your journal and write about how they speak to you.

Happy Journalling,

EF

On Process: The Myth of the Suffering Artist

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Chatterton 1856 by Henry Wallis 1830-1916(Henry Wallis’s painting of  Thomas Chatterton (20 November 1752 – 24 August 1770), who was an English poet and forger of pseudo-medieval poetry. He died of arsenic poisoning, either from a suicide attempt or self-medication for a venereal disease.)

I was going to start this post with a list of all the Creatives who have damaged themselves for the sake of their art.  I lay in bed the other night, trying to compile a list of them.  There were a lot, and those were just the ones I could come up with at 3am!

And why bother?  We know who they were.  We know the names of Rothko, Hemingway, Woolf, Pollock, Kerouac, Kinski, Dylan Thomas, and so very many others.

We conveniently don’t notice the ones like Grayson Perry, and Tracey Emin, who credit their art with saving them. (I’ve made links to autobiographies here, and I encourage you to read them, as they are enormously inspiring.)

We certainly don’t remember the millions of artists who, over the course of the last two millennia, have lived happy, healthy and fulfilling lives as well as making art of all kinds.

You don’t have to suffer in a garrett to be an artist.  You don’t have to drink yourself to death, take drugs, cut yourself, starve yourself, tolerate life in abusive relationships, live in squallor or destroy your health.  That is not what an artist is.

An artist is someone who makes art.

(Whatever kind of art that is, from writing to painting to dance.)

Just that.  Nothing else.  Just that.

Creativity is the greatest healing force in the Universe.  I know this because I have seen it and felt it for myself.  When you begin to create, you end suffering.  You will feel better.  I promise.

And yes, it will be frustrating at times, and maybe you will cry your way through every chapter, every linocut, every sculpture, every pas de deux, as you work through all the difficult feelings that come up.  Because lets not kid ourselves, people who create great art of all kinds are often driven to do so because of their own difficult pasts.

So maybe writing 500 words a day is like getting blood out of a stone for you?  There are ways to deal with that, but remember that struggle often comes from deep hurts from long ago, from entrenched behaviours that stop you being your most luminous self.  And if you write those words, every day, you will get through those barriers, and you will feel wonderful.

I promise.

I know because it happened to me.  And continues to happen.  Every day.

If you think that you cannot communicate accurately to your readers the misery and suffering of your characters without having lived it yourself, I will tell you the secret of how you can do without nailing yourself to a cross.

Three little words:

Imagination, empathy and research.  And the most important of these is IMAGINATION.

Imagine yourself in their place.  How would you feel?  What would distress you the most about their position.  Read up.  Find out how other people felt who went through similar traumas.

DO NOT TRAUMATISE YOURSELF.

Eat well.  Get enough sleep.  Value yourself.  Work at having loving and fulfilling relationships with others. Exercise.  Meditate.   See the doctor and the dentist if you need to.  Use your art to heal whatever wounds you have.  Care for yourself, and your art will be the better for it.  As will you.

Happy Creating,

EF