Little Things That Cause Snarl Face To Appear!
Me at Halloween Photograph by James Slevin
I like to try and keep a relaxed happy expression on my face but some things provoke the snarl face! I thought it would be fun to write some of them down and share my own pet dislikes and foibles.
Some of them are:
Things that are actually designed to brake after you have them a while, so you probably will buy a replacement, stupidly I usually do!
When you transfer money from one account to another in the same bank it actually vanishes for a couple of days, while the bank charges you a fee because the money did not reach the other account on time!
The time trick of there being actually no hours between midnight and 7am, or is that just a Doolin phenomenon?
Mud, I try to appreciate the earth but not fully there yet!
Wind, especially when it blows the car door open with such a force that it nearly knocks us all over, naughty Husband says that it is the only time the car gets cleaned out! Hair over eyes and in mouth so snarl face is hidden.
Rain, this I really need to work on over coming as there is just so much of it living in a cloud most of the time!
Spell check and its lack of understanding me!
Our rubbish bin as it is shaped like a tube everything just gets stuck in it!
Cables, hundreds of cables every where!
Last but certainly not less “stuff” everywhere, growing by the day, toys and loads of stuff I just cant throw away!
Once while I was having a snarl face episode I stopped and realized how lucky I am and suddenly became really grateful instead and I was no longer irritated just very happy! I must remember that the next time!
Tomorrow I will write about little things that make me feel very happy just to keep a balance!
Drawn Together
“Maroon marker finds little maroon marker lid” Marianne Slevin 2010
It is funny the things one notices when tidying up the house. Something that I notice quite often is that similar things seem to be draw together. Just after I started writing this a recovery man came to fix or tow away our car, our car is a Lada Niva from Russia, the man is from Moscow and owns lots of Lada Nivas! He even offered to buy it he loves Ladas! I am intrigued by these more obvious snippets of organisation that are happening secretly around us all the time. It is quite entertaining the way the universe works sometimes. Maroon marker finds little maroon marker lid.
A while ago, I noticed some delicate art that had been given to me by a friend, assembled itself onto of the envelope addressed to the same friend. How did it end up there. I would like to have filmed all of the staged and what happened on its journey to get there. Why does to same not apply to sock, I ask myself?! Does the universe have a slightly wicked sense of humor?!
Practicing Honesty While you Art!
Just imagine that every time that we felt blocked or uninspired it was simply that we weren’t being ourselves. We think all kinds of stuff that isn’t true, such as what we think is expected of us and what other people think, I do anyway. My Husband and Muse, James says that when I am not flowing it is probably because I am not being honest: I am trying to hold certain things back and working so hard at blocking what I don’t want to think or talk about that I cant flow. This would make sense for art too. Censoring so much that the creative muscle just gives up through exhaustion.
Many of us have a stupid notion that we are not good enough so we may think that what we do in an very honest way can’t be very good so we try to be “better” then that. Everyone is good enough it is just realizing that. We often dont really know what we are doing but if we try to see inside of ourselves and look at who we really are then it is bound to lead somewhere. It is often the pieces of art or scraps of creativity that we cringe at and don’t want to show anybody that can be the most interesting, not the bland mediocre ones that we like to show the world instead. It reminds me of photographs of ourselves; the ones that don’t really look like us we like but the ones that have captured us, we shy away from. Truth can be a little uncomfortable sometimes. The good thing about it however is that there is an endless source.
Some questions to ask ourselves that might help;
What do I really feel this minute?
Who am I this minute?
What do I think is missing in the world right now?
What could I do being me the way I am this minute, feeling how I feel, do to help fill what is missing in the world/my world?
Thinking outside of the box is really good for freeing up possibilities. For example many days I could absorb myself in painting but today I could feel different and need to do something that I have never done before. It could take a little while to know the answer, but for me I know when I start to feel teary that that is the one, one of them anyway. Today, I miss beauty, I think in our society we have forgotten about how beautiful things make people feel better. Maybe I like to paint and draw what I think is beautiful, such as horses and trees. What everyone sees as beautiful is different. What do you see as beautiful?
Releasing the Grip
There are many things that we believe about ourselves that keep us in a nice neatly wrapped up package of what we call ourselves; such as I am a vegetarian, I am good with horses, I am good at cleaning, I am never angry! The truth can be a little different sometimes! Often for the sake of easiness we will put ourselves into a box. I am a painter sometimes and a person who does different sorts of creative things, and if I try to make too much sense out of what I do it starts to vanish.
The pressure that comes from trying to be a professional artist aged 30 something can lead to feeling that by now I should know what I am doing. I should be clear and concise and be producing large bodies of work all finished and ready for hanging neatly in a gallery. That the work should have an undeniable style and theme. Now the truth is more messy then that and hopefully less boring too. The truth for me is that certain themes come and go over the years, that there are several different styles and every piece of art I make is different, this could be to do with the fact that I nearly always start a painting with pretending that it is the first painting I ever did, and seeing what emerges. I think that when you see an artist’s work that all looks very similar it probably has come from a more conscious place in the artist, and that is a valid way to make art too. I think that often galleries and the audience are more comfortable with it. This is probably why so many artists feel that they should make matching work, it looks much more together on an application.
I often intend to make a series of drawings or paintings, but after about two pieces I have lost the desire to continue, it just feels fake. Though this may happen naturally over time if it is not forced. A few times with certain types of art work I have made a series of them, such as painted text scrolls, but when I try to make a piece similar to other work it just feels like a clone and not the real thing! How ever this could all change and this time next year I could be working on “Wind blow tree No.105″!
Don’t Think, Merge Instead!
Riding “Iago” at Dunmoe Riding School 2009
Often it is necessary to think a great deal before you do something and after, but during it is often better to merge with what you are doing: your surroundings, the computer, the horse, the materials that you are making art with. Giving away the control can seem a little scary, but the times when something goes really well for me I am usually not doing very much! As my riding instructor used to say “like nothing” when I and the horse would jump or do some flat work well. This makes me think about when I am doing art, that I probably think too much a lot of the time. Thinking can limit the possibilities and sometimes stifle creativity. If we allow the parts of us that are usually without a voice to express themselves then we may come across something of a delicate and/or profound nature.
“Maybe Human” one of the paintings in “Merging 3″ exhibition by Marianne Slevin
In August, I was in a three person show called “Merging 3″. I was the person who wanted to call it Merging. At the time I was not really sure why, but the other night while reading the book called Spiritual Alchemy the author, Dr.Christine Page wrote about how when people merge with what they are doing there are greater results. In an experiment people guessed heads or tails on a computer game, most people got around 60% correct but the difference between the people who got around 80% was that they talked about merging with the computer.
Painting and drawing are exercises in merging for me, merging the different parts of me and the materials that I use and often the environment. I also attempt to merge with something greater then myself and if I am thinking too much then that will hinder any voyages into the unknown.
