On the other hand, Sunday night, I dreamed a group of butterflies (which I just looked up the term for — a kaleidoscope of butterflies) came flying towards me. They were all transparent, I could only see their outlines, except for the one in front a black butterfly with fragments of color on its wings. I led an artwork shop for kids yesterday, and used prang watercolors to paint the butterfly on my mind. The black in the set is actually a very dark green and very nice, though overall the colors were weak and hard to layer. When I came home, I used my current favorite background color, Daniel Smith’s Shadow Violet to finish it. I may make a formal painting of this later as I think of ways to present the transparency of the kaleidoscope and the brightness of the leader of the group.
I’m drawing daily to help manage depression, long-term disability, and life in general. If you’d like to see the beginning of this project, you can see it here. You can also follow me through WordPress or on Facebook.
I went to a meeting yesterday morning, so I had time to doodle, but I didn’t have time to do a “formal” drawing.
Better living through bad drawing
It was a community meeting for Bridge Meadows, so I got to draw my 11 year old friend Noah’s hand. I met him when he was six and now he’s got bigger hands and feet than I do, though I’m still taller.
I had a little set-back in my recovery. I thought I was getting better at this self care, good boundaries thing. But Friday, I let someone walk all over me. I put on my cooperative facade and did as was asked rather than say I didn’t want to. This person has done me favors in the past, and I feel squeamish about saying no to him. And he knows it. He takes advantage of it. I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks. I’d talked to my counselor about him and came up with a strategy for protecting my boundaries. When confronted, though, I decided it was easier to cooperate than to get into a conflict. I was tired and felt like it would be an easy favor, but it got more and more complicated. Still, I went docilely along.
He didn’t really harm me in any way, but I don’t like interacting with him. I felt like such a wimp afterwards. I’m 56 years old. How am I ever going to be a strong independent woman if I keep letting people bully me.
I had a lovely dinner with a girlfriend and that helped keep me from despair, though I didn’t talk to her about it.
It nagged at me all yesterday and I realized I was feeling bad about feeling bad
At yesterday’s meeting, we talked about empowering children. After living in this community for 5 years, I’ve learned that dis-empowerment is a problem that spans the generations. It’s not just me.
I attempted a drawing about girls and power.
As I worked on it, I got frustrated with my inability to make a smooth wash, a good skin tone, or good contrasts. I was frustrated by wonky lines and lack of proportion.
Part of me though was answering the criticism — get better paper, it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Last week, when I was frustrated by a drawing I threw it away. This week, I decided to finish and post it for what it is. I realized I’m feeling a lot of empathy for my dis-empowered neighbors, but not for myself. The girl is like us all, growth is all around us, but we don’t gives ourselves credit for the growth we experience. We don’t forgive ourselves easily. Depression loves it when that happens.
Everyone will be weak from time to time. Maybe next time I’ll have my guard up better when I’m around this person. Maybe I won’t answer the door when he knocks.
Maybe I’ll get a better watercolor journal, too. And try not to think that really good paper is too precious for me to make mistakes on.
That’s what paper is for anyway — creativity is all about working with your mistakes. In the mistakes of one work are the seeds of another. Next time, I’ll do better.
I’m drawing daily to help manage depression, long-term disability, and life in general. If you’d like to see the beginning of this project, you can see it here. You can also follow me through WordPress or on Facebook.
I’m drawing daily to help manage depression, long-term disability, and life in general. If you’d like to see the beginning of this project, you can see it here. You can also follow me through WordPress or on Facebook.
I tend to make goals and put things in boxes. I think I’m going to write and illustrate stories about using public transportation, I’m going to write a series on misheard lyrics, I’m going to write poems from words suggested by my texting program, I’m going to do illustrations about recovering from depression. It’s good to set goals, but what happens to me is, when the next shiny idea comes along, I either think I can’t do it because I’m working on another project. Or, I feel I’m betraying the old project when I work on my new one. It’s a great way for me to undermine myself and give the itty-bitty-shitty-committee more power over me. And I wind up with zillions of unfinished projects.
My counselor and I talked about this recently. Actually, it’s a subject that comes up often, since my creativity and anxiety are very closely related. She recommends that I braid all the threads of my creative impulses together. I’ve been sharing my visual journals with her for about a year now, and she suggested I start posting the ones on depression. Now I worry that too many of my posts aren’t about depression, but about all these other ideas that pop in my head.
I had to come up with a category that encompassed all I’m doing before I could give myself permission to continue. Even though I’m not drawing or writing specifically about depression every day, I’m using this process to recover and reshape the way I think about depression and my life. I came up with a title for my new journal: Vignettes and Variations. That’ll encompass everything!
Visual Journal Title Page
And today’s drawing has nothing to do with anything I just spoke of, but of being bullied by a crow:
I’m drawing daily to help manage depression, long-term disability, and life in general. If you’d like to see the beginning of this project, you can see it here. You can also follow me through WordPress or on Facebook.
joy murray art~stories~life 