Bloom, or A Prayer in My HandInk on Vintage Book Page (Alice in Wonderland)
9/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 6/18/10
I think I've found something in these Wonderland drawings. Like yesterday, I realize that this is a type of prayer. The detail of the drawings, the attention paid to the inking... I like that you can see the pen strokes. I don't want it to feel like a computer did this. I want a viewer to be able to see the work that has gone into this, the touch of the hand.
This is not the first time that I have done these hand outlines. More than once in the past couple of decades, I have turned to the hand outlines when I did not know what to create. Something about putting the image on the paper means I am free to explore whatever I can do with it. So much more comforting than the blank page. A place to start. A boundary within which to create.
More than that, these hands represent to me personal agency. This is MY hand. My hand was laid on the page. I traced the very outline. There was direct skin to paper contact. This is MY hand. I make this. It is within my control, my power to create these drawings. And more than that, it is within my power to create the kind of life I want to live.
Whenever I start to feel up in the air and a little bit lost with where I am going and who I am, doing a few of these hand drawings/paintings grounds me. Allows me to remember that my life is within my control.
This one here? This one is about abundance. I think I will be doing a whole series about abundance, actually. I am beginning to imagine them fastened casually to the wall in a type of installation. I am a bit worried that they might get a little worn like that, but, just like the hand pressed to the page, I like the immediacy of just tacking them to the wall. I don't want a barrier of a frame and mat and glass. I want them present as an object, not divided by the objectification of a formal frame.
Perhaps I have been watching too much Work of Art. I think I am going to art school or something.
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2 comments:
I did hands and more hands and more hands during Creative Every Day Month last November. I loved it... and I didn't give it much thought. Your post now gives me much thought. Love it. Love the words, the energy and your hand on the vintage page is spectacular.
THANK YOU! so much...
My CED 2010 Post for this week.
This is beautiful, Rowena. And I love all the thought behind it. I'd love to see an installation like that, of dozens of hand-drawn hands on book pages, all tacked to a wall. And art as a prayer... well that's just about the most lovely thing I've heard in a long time. Sometimes I wonder why I do what I do and what it means to me, and that seems like a perfect way to tie it all together. My art is my prayer. LOVE.
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