I’m searching for joy in creating. Sometimes I feel that I have lost my capacity for joy. It happens when I tune into the world’s confusion and noise which can quickly overwhelm any feelings of goodwill and enjoyment. Yet the search for joy is real and even more so when you are creating.
How to access that feeling in your art practice? It’s not something you can manufacture through thinking. My hands tell me when they are happy. It may take awhile to let them discover their rhythm; messing about, experimenting, trying new compositions. Once that hand+heart+mind kick in, it is your hands that lead the way to engage with your heart and thinking.
Today I needed to create the start of my seven days of collages for April. I had to postpone this event by a week as I was travelling. I had already started a couple of collages in preparation before I left, but wasn’t very happy with them. My heart (and joy) was not in them.
I went out to the garden to pick the last of the summer flowers before I start autumn pruning, putting the garden to rest for winter. The little zinnias looked sweet in a small vase which I carried into my studio and placed near my workspace.
I put aside the two collages I made before travelling and decided to start from scratch again. This time I disengaged my mind to let my hands set the tone and pace. It was a fresh beginning and my palette was lighter and freer, inviting me to continue on with the process. After the first one was made I brought out the other two collages to ‘renovate’, covering them almost completely like a fresh coat of paint.
These two ended up being much better. Here was the joy I had been looking for. I realised it wasn’t lost, it was inactive. Fortunately my collage practice of more than ten years gave me a structure and technique to fall back on, one that could be activated when I allowed my hands to lead the way.
These little collages will, in turn, propel me into starting a new body of work now that I have finished the artworks for the Pieces of Paper group exhibition in Burrinja Cultural Centre in Upwey, Victoria. It opens on May 10th so I will be travelling again and meeting up with fellow paper artists at the opening. It’s a good way to find joy by rekindling what I love doing, mucking about with pieces of paper.
The original version ~ too much black ink
The new version of Orange Posy