I've known since I first started creating a SoulCollage® deck that I wanted to have a card for my artist self. It's eluded me. In the time I've spent doing SoulCollage®, I've learned for me at least, that those parts of myself that I most consciously identify with are the hardest cards to make. It's like the imagery in ones mind's eye can get stuck in what we are thinking and what we think we already know about ourselves. Sometimes the best cards are created by just allowing the images to speak.
Committee card: Artist Working
One of the workshops at the writer's spa was a non-art collage process. It was intended to be a way to allow our writing project or our writer self to speak with us through visual images. I was glad I attended the class because the collage I made has spoken to me and continues to speak with me. Each day I gaze upon it and it offers me some inspiration or direction. I'm not quite ready to share it here because I want to stay in an intimate retreat like conversation with it longer before I open up the discussion. It is a way I can remember and pull myself back into that space where retreat and magic happens.
What I can say about the process of making my non-art writer's collage is that it was so rapid and quick that I had to just let the images do all the talking. We didn't have a lengthy amount of time to fuss with it. My mind and words and analysis did not have the chance to get in there and get me stuck. It was more like deciding to let an image sit next to another one.........and to say I resonate with this image and it can go here on the page. I wasn't concerned about anything other than pick an image, find a spot, then glue.
When I sat down at home to dawdle in SoulCollage®, I found myself loose and able to let my artist self speak through the imagery. So I did a similar thing in creating my artist card. I let the images speak as my artist self. Instead of thinking about it I worked in a narrow time frame and let the images find their places.
I also created a council card for The Artist archetype. It seemed like images would find their spot. They picked which card to go on and all I did was cut and glue. Some images I collected did not find their spot on either card, but when I was in this process it was easier to determine - no that image is darling and it belongs on another card or collage. In fact, as I worked I realized there are cards to be made for my play in clay self and my photogragher self too.
Council Card: The Artist
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I have not taken the time yet to write out fully the SoulCollage® exercise called "I am the one who........" I often hear things as I work on cards and it takes me a long while to get words down on paper because I get distracted. Something I hope to get better at is completing a card all the way through to writing about it.
If I was to write anything here initially about these two cards I would say this-
My artist working committee card says:
I am the one who holds her mouth right as she creates. I am the one who focuses her attention on creating. Who grabs hold of her tools and makes a mess. I am the one who explores color and her craft- allows her gaze to flow through her to the paper or the sculpture. I am the one involved in creative dawdling. I am the one who is occupied working on her art projects.
The council card The Artist says:
I am the one who flows inspiration through the makers hands. I am the one behind the urge to create.
I am feeling a sense of accomplishment and completion to have some artist cards join in my SoulCollage® deck. I am grateful when I can enter this temenos (a sacred play space) where the rational mind takes a break.
Is there anything you do that helps you enter the temenos and give your vigilant mind a rest?
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Please note: SoulCollage® cards are not to be sold, traded,or bartered; they are to be reproduced only for the personal use of the maker of the card. SoulCollage® cards may be shared as examples to illustrate the SoulCollage® process, but it is a principle of SoulCollage® that SoulCollage® cards are not for sale, trade, or barter.
Please go to www.soulcollage.com for more information about the process and Seena B. Frost's book SoulCollage.
Last, but certainly not least: Thank you to all the wonderful photographers and artists whose images inspired us to recreate and discover our inner and outer worlds.
Where to begin? Perhaps with the beauty of the cards--I stare at them and they resonate. Yes, this is Kara. I see Kara here. The images are lovely and perfect--placed just right.
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling happiness for you--happiness that you're settling in and finding your way. That you're holding the retreat sacred--taking your time to share. The pace is good...and right.
Where do I find my own temenos? In much the same place you do. I find it when I create the structure (I am sitting down here, to write this, for this many minutes), and then release it. Pick up the pen. Write whatever flows to and through me. Not stopping to agonize over word choice, not stopping to wonder how my characters are going to move forward--simply moving the pen and trusting that the story will reveal itself.
And it always does.