Someone recently asked me how I combined my art with spirituality. It was a good question and I pondered it awhile before I replied. The following is my response:
As to how I combine my spiritual practices with my art… often it is totally unconscious. I’ll begin working with color & fabric and something simply evolves from my mood, the moment, the materials, and me. At other times, I deliberately USE my art notebooks as venting places for emotional over-load. Those notebooks are considerably different from the ones I use to develop the structure, balance, harmony, etc. of a piece I am planning.
I could call them my Emotional Art Notebooks, I suppose. During times of intense grief or major healing, I often find myself unable to sleep. Then I come to the studio, pull out the notebook & my CraPa oil pastels, sit on the floor in the candlelight, close my eyes & simply begin. I don’t want to consciously choose the colors, I want my spirit to have full sway. I use my non-dominant hand to select the crayon & to make the drawings – with my eyes closed. I want to stay totally in my body with my feelings & allow them to speak through my mind, heart, down my arm, and out my hand without interference from my thinking, judging self.
Once a drawing is complete, I will look at it to see what I recognize. Are there 3 black spots in one corner? Where in my life do I have those 3 black spots? What are they? Why are they? Where are they within me? And that big slash down the center – what is on each side of the slash? What am I seeing &/or feeling as polarized & opposite & irreconcilable in my life at this time? The color of the slash will tell me even more how separate I believe the two entities are within me. Is it one of the colors of the rainbow? If so, what color is it and how is it associated with the 7 major chakras (personal power centers) in my body? If not, what colors of the rainbow are used to create the color used? If it is black, do I think of the slash as ‘deadly’ or as something on one or the other side of it as ‘deadly?’
I guess you can get my drift from that! Once I have done a drawing, sometimes I feel that it is incomplete. This is especially true if one or more of the lines or colors goes off the page. Then I select the color of the crayon that was leaving the page, turn the page & begin where it left off on the page before. Again, I will close my eyes after I’ve begun, allowing my intuitive self to express the feelings within and give me clues for my personal healing.
I have several dark & gloomy art-quilts from times when I was still able to quilt while in the state of depression. (Most of the time I do not or cannot do any kind of art when I am suffering from depression.) Some of these quilts are black, grays, white and red – and quite lively, actually. Others are muted, confusing or muddled, dim in color, shape or form. My 9/11 quilt is actually very light, with the central panel made up of my hand-dyed muted purples with blues, surrounded by a large, totally white border in which the words of a poem I wrote are machine stitched.
And, of course, I have many quilts that are full of color, life, enthusiasm and fun! Much of my creating time is spent processing as I work on some thought, concept, ideal, situation, etc. By the time the quilt is finished, I have moved through the issue and learned what I needed while doing so.
There also are several incomplete, unfinished quilt projects...some I hope to go back to when the time/idea is right. Others may be cut up and used in something new. Others may never see the light of day again! And it's all OK with me.
And, finally, I have some purely funky, fun mini-quilts that arise out of spontaneous moment of play. They are often my favorites, for obvious reasons!
It is very interesting to me to see how other artists work through their creative processes. Thenks for sharing yours. Ginger
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