Thanks for the welcome. Its a bit of a story my journey so I'll just tackle it quickly and then field questions.
I've battled depression over the years, brought on by a number of factors, social and physical / medical but the real issue that troubled me was a sense that I was pregnant with creativity but couldn't birth it. I'd sit in front of a blank piece of paper and struggle to make more than a few marks and then get frustrated with the rubbishness of it all. My creativity was becoming stifled and it was more like a tumour than a pregnancy.
Thankfully a counsellor referred me to an Art Therapist who helped me to get to the bottom of things. Essentially I was editing everything before it was expressed and dismissing it as not worthy. I could never be good enough, or compete with so and so, a failure. Bit by bit we explored the real process of making art and looking at it from the process and not the end product. I began to see things differently. I still struggled though to find an art form I could do.
One day I was reflecting on a black line I had drawn on a piece of paper and in my mind it began to become an opening. I played with this shape and I realised it was a fissure in the side of a mountain, I then began to explore the idea of larva spilling out though it. This symbolised my creativity being realised. The more I followed this I realised that I was actually scared of releasing it too much and that I was afraid that the creativity would actually be madness.
Further reflection on this brought an amazing insight, out of the larva appeared an enormous pair of red shoes, followed by a big red nose. In a nutshell a clown, which represented both sides of the creativity and madness but in a safe form. The clown was born.
Further work made me realise that instead of doing something on paper or in clay that I was the canvas on which to explore my art.
I'll sign off there and next time share the journey from that point to where I am now.
Cheers
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