The Art of Creating - 'A private dance of the soul.'

A print, an A5 art book with various felt tip pens, a reference book
and a book for poetry, haiku and creative writing.

'Creation a private dance of the soul'

The art of creating

My art practices and processes is an intertwined creation a dance of the soul; reflection, concepts and self-discovery. A process of stripping back layers and showing vulnerability and honesty with mediums that feel raw to the touch. Combining creative writing, poems, haiku that are set to a particular drawing, giving the art more depth and a small insight.

 

Within my process is a collection mindset. themes and concepts that I ponder on such as Anatomy, Garden Delights, Life's a Balancing Act reflect an important time within life and experiences, with learning and self-discovery. A captured moment in time of my brains mindscapes, emotions and feeling.

 

Previously I have not been the subject of my art as I felt great shame in sharing my experiences, it was anxiety inducing and i felt that it was selfish to share my experiences. That has changed dramatically because i now see the importance of advocacy via lived experience.

 

A collection title will spark a fire from underneath me and a quick visual flash of multiple drawings enter my mind. I do not try to think up themes they come naturally and often at night as I enter my sleep phase. In the morning, I wake up and the journey begins to take shape.

 

I use an A5 art book and felt tip pens and line out three drawings at a time, this is so don't I lose the flash from the night before. I work on these first three, lining them up and putting the basics down with pencil sketching loosely forgiving of my hand tremor. Due to my limitations the book is closed and laid to rest, at first an annoyance however throughout the years I now see it as an important process.

 

A day later I move to lining with a new ink rich filled pen, I slowly move as my eyes lag behind and my hand shakes, pressure is needed within this time and I find this act to be the hardest.  A time of rest occurs again due to my fatigue levels and baseline, a slow journey that takes many weeks.

 

After my bases are down, I cover with a black background a time of self-reflection and questions flood out within my mind as the ink rich filled pen fills the black. I work slowly and in sections within this part of the journey I take great delight in moving slowly.

 

Another break or another day; a revisit occurs this constant stop and start, stop and start. Within this process my brain is still churning over the concept reflecting back to experience and over lapping themes. Within my works is a practise loosely based off of stippling, my hand will not do precise dots so I let my tremor take full reign to create this static like effect. I use old pens for this to build up the base and shadows; these pens ink is almost gone and when it stops working, I stop.

 

And revisit the next day as the dry pen fills back up with little morsels of ink.

 

Other pens that haven't reached that effect yet are used for thinner line work, the felt tip pens are all the same brand and in four years I have only thrown out six that have been laid to complete rest, a reflection of my thoughts of wastage. I use black and silver tape to sort out these pens, black means it can do thinner lines, and the silver means they are for the static effect. All have various qualities some jagged some smooth, some tips have been grinded down to almost nothing and some are angular.

 

This practise is symbolic of the notion that we need high quality products in order to be a great artist, I have stripped it back to cheap basics aligning with this rawness and as an ode to all the young artists that think they cannot get better or go further with cheap supplies.

 

My process within drawing is when the magic happens my mind dances with concepts and relates them back onto the page, a dance of study and the minds perceptions. I answer deep questions, our relationship towards death, my own relationship towards disability from birth and later in life, grief, healing, escapism, our relationship with pain, human nature and behaviour. This relates back to the skill I developed as a child; in order to understand something I had to draw so my mind could process my life experiences.

 

After the collections are done I spend time digitising them and a time of rest and digestion occurs, after many weeks my creative writing energy ignites and I reflect back what i have learnt via poetry, quotes and quotes; this is done in a separate book that looks scattered and all over the place however it makes sense to me and it's a part of the process, many other random papers are stuffed inside this book.

 

Another period of rest and digestion and then a deeper delve of writing will occur, within this time a deeper reflection ignites, and I can then look back and write via different perceptions and angles.

 

My current practice since the year 2022 creating in a chronological order of my journey living with onset of Functional Neurological Disorder and Dysautonomia, with other disability such as a limb difference from birth and Scoliosis and also mental health Cptsd. I had started with a goal of creating Fifty Prints and hope to exhibit a solo show and also hope to create a book for purchase. That goal of Fifty Prints is completed so I am working on the goal of One Hundred.

 

I also create art for the Sick AF Collective, most of the art can be fit into my collections e.g. Denmark Arts exhibit I used drawings from Creatures Big and Small. I am always mindful of how new works fit within collection explorations and to be shown within other exhibits.

 

To date the current collections are,

 

Awareness Art 2022 - Trying to understand my new conditions.

 

Anatomy Art 2023- Asking myself the question why.

 

Garden Delights 2023- Learning to Breathe and meditate.

 

Creatures Big and Small 2023- A time of play and exploring how we aren't so different from animals.

 

Faeries, Fables and Far Away Tales 2023- Deep escapism as I realised remission wasn't reachable.

 

Life's a Balancing Act 2023- Exploring our relationship with death.

 

Hidden in Plain Sight 2024- A reminder of all that I had learnt after life threw some more curve balls.

 

Symptoms in The Wild 2025- A funny concept of looking at symptoms and what animal could symbolise certain symptoms.

 

Home Is Where The Heart Is 2025- A study of the multiple homes that reside within us.

 

Heavy 2025- A collection that touches on Cptsd.

 

What Ails Ya 2025- Exploring the human relationship towards pain.

 

Show me Your Fears and I'll Show You Mine 2025- Exploring inner fears as I delve deep into the subconscious with my psychologist.