Grieving for what's lost

This year I've been given the space and time to explore the way I work creatively and reflect upon the experiences that have helped to carve their way into my anxious brain. As part of this I've been doing workshops online and in person, and leaving behind the A4 landscape sketchbooks that have been the constant of my artistic life for the last 9 years. They have been my friends and constant companions, as has my way of working. This year has been a step into the unknown. I've had to step out of the comfort zone of my watercolours and fountain pens, and take up more room, both on paper and in real life. There's so much energy in the marks I make in my sketchbook pages, but for years, they've been contained within the boundary of an A4 page. This year has been about moving beyond those constraints, finding a louder voice, and taking up my space in the world.

While this has been exciting, I'm now in that liminal space where my sketchbooks are fulfilling anymore, my horizons and thought patterns have expanded, but not yet fully found a new place to land. And, unexpectedly, there's a grieving process going on. Informed by my life, as well as my art. My son is enjoying his last summer as a child before he moves up to secondary school, and I have to accept my new place in his life, and take more of a back seat as he finds his own space in the world and his own voice. This comes with its own sadness, as does this time of year. Summer's end and autumn's beginning. New growth starting to fade and work its way along the cycle. I hadn't expected this year to be about mourning and sadness for an way of working and living, saying goodbye, shedding leaves for the growth to come.

#dycp #anxietyandart #anxietyrecovery