When your home is cluttered – whether it is due to a full household, because of a lack of prioritising de-cluttering or whether it is due to a house move, it has an effect on us mentally and emotionally. On some people this effect is more intense than on other. In my case, we were moving house as well as renovating an old house that was in a state of deterioration.
In my visual journal, I used a page to depict a few snapshots of our house renovation. I prepared the pages with watercolour ground, sanded it and then covered it with some watercolour washes. After is was dry, I did some much needed writing. The clutter and chaos of my external world seemed to find it’s way through the ‘cracks’ and into my mind. I needed to get untangled from it. At the same time, I was curious about how my personal situation could feed into my research on the topic of home. It was interesting as I reflected on my mental state and emotions, what an incredible impact the external chaos of my house situation was having on my internal home. Scroll further down for images from my sketchbook as well as an experimental animation.
I think of all the historical artist who have kept sketch and written journals who have inspired me over the years. Artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh, Frida Khalo and Vincent van Gogh. Below are some examples the pages of their sketchbooks. I believe that for them too it was not only a place to plan and experiment for larger works, but also a place for thinking about life and making sense of the impact of the exterior landscape on their interior landscape. I find these examples of their work very inspiring:
In an article by Cathy Malchiodi PhD, psychologist and expressive arts therapist, she writes about the benefits of a visual journal. She says that perhaps visual journaling and written narratives work in two complementary ways:
- Creating an image, even a simple one with colors, lines, and shapes, expresses the sensory parts of the traumatizing event. It is a way to tangibly convey what words cannot adequately communicate or explain in a logical, linear way.
- Writing about the image and the event, as Pennebaker recommends, not only translates experiences into language but also performs another important healing function. Creating a written narrative may actually begin the process of detaching from intrusive thoughts and putting upsetting feelings (sensory memories) into a chronology. Rather than remaining a disturbing mixture of free-floating emotions, experiences are placed in an objective, historical context.
In brief, visual journaling adds an extra component to written narratives in terms of self-expression. Exactly what that synergistic combination entails and how it helps to reduce stress, serves as a form of self-care, and restores emotional equilibrium post-trauma is still unknown. (Malchiodi, C. Pshychology today)
In the 2009 publication of The Red Book, Carl Gustav Jung’s visual images with accompanying text is believed to be the quintessential example of visual journaling (Malchiodi, C. Pshychology today). Here are some images from this book that I find inspiring:
And a youtube video that gives a bit more detail about this personal journal):
With the influence of so many inspiring thinkers and artists who have used visual journals as a lifeline and mirror for self-improvement and belonging I enjoy working in my visual journal even more! As I look back at the following pages from my visual journal, I am reminded of what impact physical and mental clutter has on out psyche. Add to that the clutter that technology and social media adds to our mental space and it starts to make sense why so many of us struggle with anxiety and depression. Doing these pages – the written narrative together with images has definitely given me to detach from intrusive thoughts. I’ve tried to capture these intrusive thoughts in a charcoal line drawing and made a very quick experimental animation using the Stop Motion Studio app. The latter was inspired by William Kentridge’s drawings and animations.
Below is a double spread from my visual journal. The process I used to prepared the background of these pages can be found in an earlier journal entry. The following was done with pencil and watercolour:
With my love for the messy immediacy and flexibility of charcoal, I decided to try to do a very short animation working on Vellum tracing paper. I placed the paper on top of my original sketchbook drawing. I decided to let the charcoal drawing depict my inner thoughts and feelings (my inner landscape) as the drawing itself depicted my reality (my outer landscape). Although I feel that I should have put more time into the charcoal drawings for the animation, however, I am happy with the experiment and excited about what I can do with this form of communication in collaboration with my drawings and painting in the future!!
The short animation above was done in about 40 minutes. I placed some vellum paper over my sketchbook. With my drawing vaguely visible through the vellum, it gave me the opportunity to play with the idea of my inner thoughts (the charcoal drawing/animation) using my sketchbook drawing as a stage for it’s performance. I didn’t want to spend too much time on it as I wasn’t sure that I could make it work or if this was a direction I wanted to do into. I was however pleasantly surprised and VERY intrigued with the idea of my drawing in motion and to possibility of an effective way to visually communicate the interplay between inner and outer realities.
I would like to experiment further by projecting this animation or similar on top op an artwork. Using a projector or something that could function as a projector. In other words, the animation with then be projected onto my sketch/artwork in stead of the velum placed over the drawing as seen above. I feel that this will give me a way to effectively combine my theory and my practice to communicate the interwoven relationship between our external, physical homes (my drawing) and our psychological internal homes (the animation drawing on vellum) and their effect on each other. I am excited to take this further in the near future.
References:
(Malchiodi, C. https://www.psychologytoday.com/za/blog/arts-and-health/201310/visual-journaling-self-regulation-and-stress-reduction-0)
Carl Gustav Jung, The Red Book, 2009, Philemon Foundation and W.W. Norton & Co, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGWsHgn8J_8
Kentridge, W, Youtube video of 5 extracts from charcaol animations by WIlliam Kentridge. https://youtu.be/cMbRuWeTslg