project

All creatives have times when they just cannot be arsed to create. These times are extremely uncomfortable to say the least, or I find it so. All those words, in my case, or all those lonely tubes of paint and mediums, brushes upright and dry as my father’s wit, or that piece of craft work, so compelling, so exciting and for so long, now barely touched or looked at. It is as if something inside has died, and sometimes, that is exactly what has occurred. Something has, indeed, died, or someone, and that someone took all the colours and the buzz with them when they did. It could be bad news, or a health scare or even the builders in making noise and causing a long disruption and a load of mess. It could also be nothing much more than boredom, the realisation that life has turned grey and heavy and dull, and the result will be a new birthing, I know this, new ideas, new hope, new horizons.

I know, of course, that everything changes, this too shall pass, and all other platitudinal infuriations, but that doesn’t help in the discomfort of apathy and disconnection and sludge. Even a body feels too big for its boots, heavy and ungainly, and a mind slows to snail pace. It can be a dangerous time of self-examination, of criticism, doubts and other unhelpful bollix, but even striving to not-think requires just too much effort. Just rest, they say, take time out, be kind to yourself. My eyes roll. I don’t want to do any of those things. I want to wake exuberant and planning mischief, longing to set-to with whatever project I was working merrily on, not a few weeks ago. However, having gone through this fallow slump a gazillion times before in my long life, I know it will, eventually, pass. I also know that, although my conscious mind is cold porridge, my unconscious mind is still ticking away, garnering ideas, planning a resurgence, focussed and functional. I am just tired is all, bored is all, fed up and fed down. This period of drag has a purpose and, oh yes, I will understand just what that purpose is once the lights come on again, when all will be illuminated, revealed and understood. Or so I tell myself.

So what to do in the meantime, whilst I wait, miserably, to relocate my natural energy? In order to rest I need to feel good about myself, this self who is currently a pain in the backside. I wash the bathroom floor. Oh well done, what an achievement, not. I make soup that tastes like pond sludge, wash some clothes, even hand wash a jersey for goodness sake. Is there no end to my resilience and fortitude and determination? What a star I am! But, in fallow times, I don’t actually feel those words, no matter how much I speak them out, hear them spoken by another, and if I don’t ‘feel’ them they mean nothing. I am still failing. It thinks me.

We all have fallow times, all of us and it is important to recognise, acknowledge and allow such times, because to enter the swamp of inner judgement is always destructive. Besides, those judgements roll off the tongues of past critics, often from childhood or early youth. I can hear them now. J has too vivid an imagination, is moody, unpredictable, irresponsible, wears too much eye-liner, is a terrible show-off and so on. Although these judgements don’t affect me now, the negative theme stands strong, its accusing forefinger wagging right under my nose. If you hadn’t done that, or chosen this, or gone there, or allowed that to happen, you wouldn’t feel like this. It is your punishment for past sins, in fact not so very far in the past. I silence those voices as soon as they speak. They are not helpful. This is just a fallow time is all, not a punishment, not forever, not here to bring me down and keep me there. In fact, it is a dear thing, a helpmeet, because my body and mind are both damn tired and bored and fed up and grey. Next time, when I feel it coming, this shutdown beyond my control, I will take a long holiday in the sunshine.

Africa sounds like a plan.

Today the photography volunteers have been given the name of their project. Minimalism. I watch them wander around the reserve, deep in thought, eyes looking down, eyes looking up, looking out, thinking in. What does minimalism mean to me? Is it this leaf in a dustbowl, or that emerald green gecko shinning up a fat brown tree? What do I hear while I seek my subject? What do I feel, how do I feel? Someone hunkers down to take a picture of an attention bell, one of those ping things that sit at reception when reception has popped out for a pee. She places it carefully on the wide stone floor and crouches down to get it right. I see the bell, tiny in such a lot of negative space. From above it certainly is minimalism. A child’s boat in a great stone ocean. From down there, where she is, the bell becomes huge and the stone ocean goes on for ever, or, at least, until it meets the wall.

At art school we were required to work on negative space. I hadn’t a scooby what that was, thinking it was something dodgy, the opposite of positive space, if, indeed that’s not an oxymoron. I found it extremely difficult at first, looking at what wasn’t there, the space in between the things that were. We had to look, see, draw the spaces, not the jugs or benches or trees or parked cars. All I could see was physical presence until, eversoslowly, just as my eyeballs threatened early closing, I got it, saw it and it was huge.

My understanding of opposites can often be This or That. I forget there are many miles in between the two, many colours, hues, options. Inhabiting that space is something I need to re-train my mind to work with. A physical life requires certain choices between This and That and decisions are based on what I see, what is available, what is acceptable in any given moment. We like routine, most of us, known quantities of things fixable and in good working order, things we use in our daily lives. There is, after all, a time and place for everything, is there not? I want a positive space to live in, one that protects me, mostly, from myself, one that nurtures, one I can see clearly and understand.

At home, I would call those times of deep internal unrest, negative space. Instead of really looking into that space, seeing it for what it is and allowing it just to be, I feel that I need to colour it in with my own pack of crayons. I need to get busy, sweep the floor, cook something, change a bed, anything that gives me good grasp of the positive, the physical. What I can touch reassures me. At least, over these things, I have control. That awful empty space back there, the one I just ran away from, the one full of unhappy thoughts and doubts and fears, well I sincerely hope that, by the time I descend the stairs, it has flown out the window. Go pray on someone else you horrid negative space. I’m fine now, with my pinny on and not long till lunch and the aftermath of dishes and cups to wash and dry. When I focus on the tasks ahead of me, I can feel the calm. There is always something to be done, after all, something that demands straightening, or mending, or wiping down, and once collected in an orderly fashion inside my mind, I am happy again. I am safe. this life is just fine.

However, this is a life out of balance. It must be, because the negative space is still there and it still bugs me. I don’t ask for it but it has something of import to show me. Drawing the space in between two jugs, I began to notice the distance. It wasn’t empty at all. Behind the jugs I could see someone’s hand as they drew their own negative space, a corner of a cupboard, a snatch of white-scuffed blackboard, and even further back, the branch of a tree through the murky window. It made me realize that I could look for ever into negative space and find positives, but distant positives, not too close, not mine to fix or mend or rearrange. They were simply there. I could fill in the gaps, complete the cupboard, the hand or the tree in my mind, but, somehow, I didn’t need to.

In order to control my mind, my thoughts, thoughts that fuel my choices of action and thoughts that will always have consequences, I need discipline, but discipline and I have never enjoyed each other’s company. I didn’t ever complete the drawing (no discipline!) because I was so pulled into the space. I may have been given poor marks, but what I learned about negative space back then has become a life-long fascination. The trick is to be able to inhabit it, just as it is. Those times of discomfort and self-doubt will still come to me. I can fill them with stuff and noise and self pity; I can beat myself up, tear myself to shreds with my hyena teeth, or I can simply let them wash over me and move on. I doubt that I will ever learn my way around them, never ‘complete’ my drawing, but if I just sit and let them come to me, surround me, without fear……. if I can find the courage to do that, I believe I will, at last, be able to say this is Me.

No apology.