From the corners of my mind....

Art  .... the creative elements of painting, drawing, mixed media, hand built pottery and yes, writing are as necessary to me as breathing.

To be true to myself, to be authentic however, is something I have struggled with all my life .

The deeply held belief that somehow I just wasn't 'good enough' as I was; meant that I was always trying to be 'perfect'.

Admittedly I am simplifying it because this wasn't a conscious decision on my part.
All I knew was that 'I didn't quite fit in'.
The 'square peg in a round whole' scenario !!

And so I stuffed down core elements of my self and tried to be the best I could be in the 'roles' assigned and accepted by me in this reality!

However sooner or later, all that one has stuffed down seems determined to emerge and force one to re-examine one's life.

2009 was a year when it all came to a head. All the health and life 'issues' that I had tucked under the carpet, became a 'crisis'. Externally I epitomised the successful mature career woman, mother and grandmother; however the 'façade' began to crumble early in that year.

Major health issues forced me to admit and recognise I was at breaking point and could no longer live a life that was so far from my 'authentic, true self' ....

The problem was in the hustle and bustle of everyday reality, working 7 days a week, often with no more than 3 or 4 hours sleep a night, trying to 'do and be' for everyone and everything else; I had lost who I was and what I needed.

 courtesy of Konrad Mostert

So last year was spent licking my wounds, healing both physically, mentally and emotionally.
It was and is, a long process and the journey still continues.
Every single facet of my life needed to be examined as, despite outward appearances, my lack of belief and confidence in my self (to simply be 'good enough'), was so negative and soul destroying. I had to 'uncover' before I could 'recover'.

After an absence of art and creativity in my life for a number of years, late last year I felt compelled to pick up graphite, paints, canvas and paper again.

And once I started, it was like the opening of a floodgate.
Once again, time and place ceased to exist and the 'act of creating' was all that mattered.

Obsessively the act of mark making became both a healing and a driving force.
The beginnings of a visual dialogue again ....
aarh the sweetness, the delight, the concepts and theories that began to resurface, the long held beliefs and the internal once more visible ....
the aspect of self so long denied.

Denied and repressed in order for me to function in our so called (material) reality.
The exquisite joy of referencing the link between the mind and emotions in an abstracted and oh so detailed biological and anatomical manner ....

And I started to feel the peace within that comes from doing what is necessary to mind, body and soul.

courtesy of Colin Broug

However it is a journey. One of baby steps. To break a life time of conditioning and negative beliefs can be one step forward, one step back until the balance is achieved.

The Journey towards Authenticity continues ....