I would never have thought that this MA Fine Art journey would take me on such a personal journey. It is as exciting as it is scary to see this theme unfold. After all, it is hard to separate art from the artist.
In the same sense I find it hard to separate my art practice from my personal VJ. I use to keep a journal between the ages of 17 and 30 but in my 30’s I have let go of the habit because of the busyness of life and I am suffering the loss of it’s benefits in my life. I have started to make a visual/written jourmal a habit again! It is where I reflect on my life and on art, where my ideas get untangled and where I sift and write and re-write until that which is most important come to the surface. ‘Homeness’ according to Wiktionary is: the condition of being a home. I like to think there is a homeness to my visual VJ. That is can be a home with an interior, an exterior and content. Where my soul and spirit which lives in my body, can find expression.
The benefits of keeping a visual and written journal is endless. The 2009 publication of The Red Book (Carl Gustav Jung’s visual images and accompanying text) is considered by many to be the quintessential example of visual journaling (Malchiodi, C.2013). In a article titled: Visual Journaling, Self-regulation and stress reduction, Cathy Malchiodi talks about how a visual/art journaling is one of the top 10 art therapy interventions for both adults and children. She mentions that a combination of image and writing in a journal works to reduce stress because of how it helps with detachment from intrusive thoughts and putting sensory memories into a chronology. Rather than remaining a disturbing mixture of free-floating emotions, experiences are places in an objective historical context. It enhances a visual vocabulary and self-awareness (Malchiodi, C.2013).
With this in mind I have been working in my VJ and although it took a lot of self discipline at first, I am experiencing the benefits both emotionally as well as how it is influencing my art practice in general.
This post gives a look into one of the first pages I did in my personal VJ.
What is it about the word home that keeps me hostage, that keeps me searching?
We sold our house in the middle on last year and had the privilege of buying an on run-down and neglected house that had been empty for 2 years and a rental property for 15 years prior to that. Needless to say, it was falling apart and in the process of becoming a ruin. Nature in it’s gentle yet powerful way was starting to take it over. Besides the overgrown garden and trees and plants growing into the house and in the middle of the driveway, the rats and infestations of insects were apparent.
It was however the location of this house that drew us in. Set against the backdrop of mountains at the foot of the beautiful Jonkershoek valley, overlooking Stellenbosch mountain and the twin peaks and Botmaskop. Because of it’s location we were also able to see the entire historical town of Stellenbosch with it’s sky-line that includes the historical Dutch Reformed Church with it’s high tower. We felt so privileged to be able to take on this project and with my background in Architectural interior design, I was confident that we could take it on without the help of an architect or project manager.
Forward five months onto the project and I find myself in a very drained and depleted mental and emotional space. The packing up, de-cluttering and moving into an unfinished house had taken it’s toll. I also had this MA to focus on and in the midst of disorder, I felt like a lack of control, comfort and safety as builders and noise and problem solving filled up my days. I was gaining a new house but I was emotionally and spiritually homeless. The clutter and disorder of the last few months had somehow invaded my mind and I had to find my way back home. I decided to turn the situation around by using the space I was in – uncertainty, depleted and fractured as inspiration that could feed into the research I was doing.
I find comfort in nature and in my surrounding landscape, the sun, the colour green and in my visual journal. So as I embark on the MA and my research around the definition of home, I find safety and a refuge in my visual journal. In it, I am finding my way home and through written and visual expression, along with my research and reading, I hope to make some discoveries. I like to think of storytelling through my VJ as emotional place-making.
I see my VJ as an integral part of my art practice. Although it will at times appear random and ‘bricolage’ in format, I believe this form of reflexive study will serve my art practice and bring clarity to what it is that I am drawn to. An art practice that uses reflexivity in order to consolidate my ideas is an attractive prospect.
I have always loved language. Language as an art material is a fascinating idea which was introduced to me after I read an essay by Donald Brierly called: Reflexivity imagined as art practice. It was in this same essay that I was introduced to a book called: The origins of the conscious mind, by Julian Jaynes, 1976. I aim to read this book. I am interested in his findings surrounding the self aware conscious (as we have come to know it) has evolved alongside the development of language. My grandmother was a writer and I am fascinated by poems, so idea of using the language/short narratives/poems as an art medium is very attractive to me.
Here is a quick pieces of writing with a charcoal sketch that I did in my VJ on reflection of a emotional homeless state. The charcoal sketch is of a homeless man that I drove past recently. He seemed to be sleeping on the river bank. I have become fascinated with homeless people and the parallels one can see between physical and emotional homelessness. I find it necessary to look at home from this point of view in order to understand the definition of home more fully.
I call the drawing ‘belonging’ as I didn’t look out of place to me. Physically homeless, yet completely at home within and welcomed by nature.
References:
Brierly, Donald. Reflexivity imagined as art practice, 2015, Sydney College of the arts.
Jaynes, Julian. The origin of Consciousness in the breakdown of the Bicameral mind. Boston: Houston Mifflin, 1976.
Malchiodi, Cathy. Online article. 2013, https://www.psychologytoday.com/za/blog/arts-and-health/201310/visual-journaling-self-regulation-and-stress-reduction-0.
To be continued…