Week 6-7
I've been getting back on track these past couple of weeks! I think this has been the most exciting time for me during this project so far, now that things are coming together a bit more. In my indecisiveness, I was having a hard time figuring out mediums, narration, etc. Everything I have been doing so far in my project I decided to throw into a pot (more like a tin bucket), and stir my ideas around into a more coherent story.
I also came full circle; in the beginning I wanted to do paintings and sculpture, but scrapped the sculpture idea, yet I felt that it tied in well with the theme of mentally abusive relationships, and how people (such as myself) are sometimes easily manipulated, much like how clay is easy to manipulate to form sculpture.
I also had a burst of inspiration one night after work - that was to use recycled linen bath blankets from my work. These blankets, recycled to turn into rags, seemed like a good material to work on, not only does it tie into my story in a few ways, by how I wanted to go about turning them from "security blankets" to "insecurity blankets", in which mental illness tends to take away the feelings of warmth and safety. By cutting, tearing, and burning these blankets too do I want to continue with that feeling of brokenness and anxiety.
Current work in process of "Cutting it Down", mixed media on linen, roughly 3 x 5 ft. In this I have used pastel, charcoal, acrylic paint, ink, markers, and pen (possible other stuff). I had done a sketch many weeks ago and really wanted to use it; changing how I incorporated text in it (in which I really wanted to keep somehow). Its not too legible in these photos but I write how depression and trauma effects the brain, what areas, and how that plays on a person. I wanted to render the brain somehow, albeit, abstractly in this case, to make the illness more visible, rather than it always being an "invisible disease". I also felt that using a more automatic painting technique helps to narrate the uncertainties that mental illness presents.
I am currently working on another prototype, and plan to do at least two more. All together, I would like to have at least 4 large paintings on linen and 4 sculpture, if not more of each. At this point, we are halfway through the semester and time goes quick. But now that I have more of a straightforward plan, I hope to hammer out much more work that I can now be happy with.
I had initially drawn this sketch on the left with not much of an idea in mind at first, yet I felt that it should live in the sculptural world. This rough prototype helped envision that - I will add that I will not stick with these chosen colors, I was merely using what sculpey clay I had that was soft enough for my hands at the time. I am still deciding where to go with this one.
The idea behind this is a representation of how mental illness makes a person spread thin and stretched as a person, and how it tears through the psyche. "Spread Thin" also has a more personal side that ties into my story and dealings of coping.
