WAX WAVE ~ Click on the wave for a slide show of more images.
This was made during an Introduction to Art therapy Adult Education class I took at Glasgow University 2008.
I have a friend who is visually impaired. She reminded me that images like this create havoc on her computer.
I will do my best to decribe the process of making it and the image itself, from the outside and from the inside.
Now . . . when I look at it freshly . . .and sense everything about it again and whatever meaning it still carries.
It is something about ' Bars ' like the bars on the window of a prison ~ yeah that's right ~ it is coming back now.
In the class we had heard a story about a young man in prison. That resonated strongly with me around all the
moments in life when I felt most imprisoned by a rigid perspective in my thinking and unable see the possibility
of change. I started with a sense of something about 'blindness' and made four thick vertical lines with a broken
piece of candle, evenly spaced across the paper. I liked that I could not see them aginst the empty white space.
There was an energy inside me ~ like I wanted to rebel or break out of this way of thinking ~ some healthy anger !
So . . . I took the candle again and let my hands swirl it quickly all over the paper without really trying to control it.
I vaguely remember closing my eyes for a few moments. It seemed to help the process flow and I breathed easier.
Then I paused for a minute as my energy settled and I sensed something very different inside, like a wave of calm.
I scooped up some water in my hand and felt the warmth of it ~ I had filled a wee jug from the hot tap by mistake !
It really helped. . .the warmth in the water seemed to express exactly the quality I wanted to carry, like an antidote.
I sploshed the water over the paper and dropped a few pices of soft pastel into the water ~ green, blue and black.
They immediately began to dissolve. I trook them out, held them long side on to the paper then waited a moment.
My hands knew what they wanted to do. Then ~ from left to right ~ working my way down from the top of the page,
I dragged the pastels across the paper in a soft, slow, even arc . . . like there was just one wee wave lapping onto
the shore ~ with hardly a breath of wind in my mind. Because the paper was already wet ~ the colour seeped into
the white background in ways I could not control and left an image that was smooth, flowing ~ yet broken up and
not uniform or perfect.
The wax lines I made first did not allow water or colour to really get to the paper and so now they become visible,
like a pattern on the ocean floor under the surface. Both the swirling and the strong, thick verticals are there now
though they are a llittle weak for my liking and so I take the Black and go over the prison ' Bars ' roughly to make
them stand out more ~ as if they were in the foreground of the picture now ~ even though they started life in deep
background. There is a definite ' stopping place ' now . . . and I know I am not supposed to fill in all the space on
the page. It is tempting as this was all pretty quick and I have finished kind of early ~ before the time we have in
the group is over. However ~ as I sit back to look at the image and just let it resonate inside me a little, I begin to
sense the emotional edge of the moment and connections to my own personal history this image seems to touch.
There are some tears here and so I take a wee time out from the busyness of the room and all the other people.
I go into the corridor and walk a little.
The walking helps and I am able to ' stay ' on the edge of the tears ~ without going into them ~ just close enough
to sense that there is also a smile in here, rising to fill my eyes from inside my chest.
That wee moment of connection is priceless and I am smiling now as it returns to mind ~ as I know how helpful it
is to be ' smiling on the edge of tears '.