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| Exploring Symbolism: Pen drawings Top left: "Taken by Male", Top Middle: "Male Dominance", Top Right: "Silas", Middle left: "The Goddess", Middle Upper: "All things being equal", Middle lower: "Submissive in the shadow of Male Dominance", Middle Right: "Pulled", Bottom Left: "Ankhssst", Bottom Middle: "The Medusa Tree", Bottom Right: "Punched" Pen drawings by Andrea George |
As part of this process of looking at the inner depths of me through my art and photography, feelings surrounding old issues have begun to arise. It was time to explore some of these issues but at a level that was helpful and not a hindrance. The above pen drawings have been processed over several days. Initially I used abstract symbolism to explore these issues. The idea came to me, when trying to work out how I could explore these issues without them overwhelming me and recalling that with child abuse victims, dolls are used to help discuss and work through what took place.
I had not used abstract art before but believed that this was a great way to keep in touch with the depths of me and be gentle at the same time. I also had been aware how many cultures and civilizations had used symbolism as representations of male/female aspects and that was something I was keen to utilize. I took my time with this being exceptionally slow and allowing myself to withdraw if feelings overwhelmed me.
The top middle drawing; "Male Dominance" was my first attempt at this. I used the block shape to represent the male, as it was quite strong and domineering in it's presence and the more fluid shape for the female. I noted I was not giving either a head and the female was also lacking in arms.
I then created the middle lower drawing; "Submissive in the shadow of Male Dominance." The female symbol is cowering by a foreboding brick wall in the background and shadow of the Male symbol in the foreground. The tree offers some light relief in this scene.
My last before stopping was the Top left drawing; "Taken by Male." This is more direct than the other two in its representation and one of the more confronting drawings to emerge in this series of pen drawings. I stopped to take a break and nourish myself, whilst I allowed myself to remain connected to the drawings and consider positives.
I had managed to create an abstract narrative of female/male symbolic representations, whilst remaining safe with my issues. I accept that for some people these will also rise some issues for them, see that as a positive move and find a way to explore those feelings, whilst also feeling safe.
I continued early the next day with some less abstract representations; bottom right, "Punched", Middle Right, "Pulled" and Middle left, "The Goddess." Both "Punched" and "Pulled" became confronting for me on many levels and after drawing both, I needed to pull back and find a way to nurture me and work through a strong feminine representation. She came in the form of "The Goddess." She was peaceful, loving, nurturing, calming and gentle, very different to the other two drawings that were stark, cold and harsh.
One triumph here was when I uploaded "The Goddess" to facebook, facebook's face recognition software wanted me to tag her, as it believed it to be a photograph of an actual human, that made me smile. Also, I was becoming comfortable with my drawing skills again and my creative imagination was being stirred.
Way back when I was at school and doing Art for my exams, I lost my creative imagination due to one male teacher who remarked on one of my drawings; "that's all very nice but it won't help you pass your exams!" Up to this point, I loved Art, I loved every aspect of it. Suddenly I was confronted with a stark reality, that I was at school to achieve a specific goal of passing exams, to demonstrate that I could regurgitate knowledge that had been taught to me and apply it in an exam setting and Art wasn't exempt from that.
Up until that point Art had been my one outlet to be free with my imagination and create whatever, I wanted, it wasn't about meeting criteria or being moulded to a specific learning path. For me it was about using the skills and techniques I had learnt and applying them in a unique and creative way, there were no constraints, I was free to do what I wanted with it. Now I was being told that this was not the case and the end game was all about conforming to exam criteria - ugggh my heart sank.
I could have crumbled at this point but I didn't. Instead I turned to the teacher and asked, what did I need to do in order to pass the exam? He was a little taken aback by my reply, however, he did let me know and so from that point on I worked on honing my techniques for still life, perspective, tone, colour, texture, composition and around specific themes and realism, rather than the fantasy Art I had been producing.
I passed my exams, however, the heart and joy I had previously had with art had been lost along with my creative imagination. It would be another 10 years before I touched art again and started to create and reconnect. Since then, I have been working to improve my art. So to have facebook face recognition software think one of my drawings was a photograph of a human was quite awesome.
After another small break, I created the next three pieces; Middle upper drawing, "All things being equal", Bottom Left drawing, "Ankhssst" and Bottom Middle drawing, "The Medusa Tree." The first two were a return to the abstract symbolism, whilst "The Medusa Tree" was a return to my creative imagination.
I was feeling more confident with this process and whilst it appears that I was moving away from dealing with issues, in reality, it was healing issues, I hadn't even considered. Throughout this process of connecting to the depths of me, I surrendered to the process to let feelings, emotions, thoughts flow through me and this is how these drawings developed. I started with one area I wanted to examine and ended up somewhere completely different and very naturally. Lots of positives to be drawn from this.
During this time, what felt like a cataclysmic event took place and I got side swiped by my emotions, I became exceptionally raw and quite literally lost it, I plummeted to a new low as my world changed before my very eyes once more. I withdrew once more, trying to get to grips with what had happened, it was so severe that some friends of mine decided to take me to their place for the night. It was what I needed, space in friends company to help me get a better perspective and calmly think things through.
After a few days, things were back on a more even keel and that's when I started updating the blog and thinking about new creations, along with really pushing forward and concentrating on healing myself. So, it has been a few days since I created anything. I have been thinking about various compositions and I have two large canvases to paint and create on.
Whilst thinking about those and one specific composition, the pen drawing in the Top right came forth - meet "Silas." I have no idea who he is, except I feel very strongly connected to him. Perhaps a guide. Again Facebook face recognition software wanted me to tag him when I uploaded him to facebook. He's not exactly symmetrical and he's quite quirky but I like him and may even become part of the large canvas works, I will be doing.
That's my updates completed. Now I look forward to creating and sharing the continued exploration of this challenge and project. I will carry it on with the next one as if it is Day twelve, who knows what that will bring? For now, I will be happy with my accomplishments so far and the connections to self that I am making and working through.
Photographs of Pen drawings by Andrea George taken using a Nikon Coolpix P520
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