I've just returned from 5 days of risks, white knuckle, exhausting, exhilarating, child-like naivety and constantly risking the free-fall of ridicule to a safety net of trust, acceptance and respect.
I was in at the deep end of a challenging Contemporary Painting course, focused on colour and resonaces, contextual relevance for the artist's phenomenology and experiences, rather than the figuratively twee recognisable 'picture'.
It was astounding how parallel this was to the journey into Psychotherapy. The exposure of emerging and barely conscious feelings, suggested by a few ambivalent smudges on a canvas, where the narrative coalesces from the abstratct, open to interpretation, never prescribed by anyone. The very last thing is to ascribe exactly what it is, so much more powerful to let it tell its own story. Then, to offer that to group and expert critique, is such an audacious bridge of mutual trust.
We were lucky to have a tutor, Ashley Hanson, that was so totally congruent, empathic, able to find our creativity that was naively hinting as a quiet voice of intuition. Then, trust it and own it ... make it LOUD, with bold sweeps of colour, emphatic! He himself seemed an energetic angular art form, always his hands and arms reached for and probed the air between us, seeing what could be omitted or accentuated, open to infinite possibility. Passion and energy shone out, like his own large canvas pieces.
What also emerged, almost unnoticed, was that we had all found our own signarures in our pallette, distinctive personalities. Mine is firmly in lightend tones of Veridian green, that like to range with a spot of Cadmium yellow to a salty turquoise. flashed with a red dash or hiss of surfing white.
Those 5 days have altered my life course i suspect, by a small angle. But, over time, this will mean a very different arrival point, discoveries. I am constantly now seeing relevances, like musical harmony, in the everyday, even when my eyes close i see MY colours in a mix, playing with tones.
I will be eternally grateful to my partner for bringing this about, seeing my potential and booking me in as a surprise present!
My favourite work here is of the swirling waters between the harbour walls at Port Isaac, feeling the warm sands within. Shame the colours have muted here, looks gorgeous in real life, deep and mysterious currents swelling!
