Sunday 28 October 2012

SCARED

This began as one of my inky pages with water dropped onto it.  I drew the "tear" or crack across it, with me peeping out at the world, and wrote in big letters "I'm scared".  As you know, a lot of my pages begin with a single word or phrase like this ...

To appreciate where I'm coming from with this, the thing you need to know about me is that I tend to do this "good old Rosie" act, pin a big smile on my face, get everyone organised and be the one who cheers everyone else up.  My sister once told me (ages ago before I got ill) that I could be very scary in my extreme competence, and I gaped at her in amazement and said "but its all an act, I'm always frightened inside".  That's still true, although I'd rather hoped that when I got to be a grown-up (when does that start exactly?) I'd grow more confident with maturity.  Well I have in a way ... but my inner child is still in there and she's frightened of all sorts of things!  I suppose what I have learned is that most of our worst fears aren't realised anyway, and yet we waste so much precious time and energy worrying ourselves sick with our imaginings.  It seems to me that I'm more able to say "well I'll deal with that when, and if, it happens".

As you can see, most of my fears are just the normal stuff that haunts all of us - loneliness, bad things happening to people we love, and so on, but all of us have our really SECRET fears that we can't (or daren't) tell anyone about.  I'm certainly not writing mine down here!  These are the ones that come out in anxiety dreams, and tend to be at heart about being exposed for the fraud you really are .... yeah you know the ones.
I was trying to record these feelings in the hope that, by naming them, they'd lose some of their power?  It does work like that at one level.  So I also wrote about being brave, and what that means to me - I'm a member of the brave girls club, and I work very hard at being courageous.  Its that "feel the fear and do it anyway" thing I suppose.  I am a bit of a fighter for a cause too, but perhaps less so in my own defence, although I'll bravely stand up for other people, particularly against injustice.
I guess what I'm really trying to ask is ... how come a 58 year old grandmother like me can still feel such a lost child sometimes?  Still trying to conquer my fears, putting a "brave" face on, still doing my well-known impersonation of a confident woman who knows what she is doing.  Will I ever really become the Brave Girl I long to be, or is bravery really and finally about still being scared but not letting it hold you back? 

10 comments:

Henny said...

This is great art!

alexa said...

Wonderful page - I love the crack with your eyes peeping out. So very, well, graphic! Perhaps noticing the feelings of fear/anxiety but resolutely not dwelling on it or giving it house room helps us continue to pack up our current tent and set off again ... Oh, and the doodling is, as ever, lovely!

Clare Wassermann said...

There's a really good book called "don't sweat the small stuff". I found it really helpful; maybe it could be worth picking one up! I do think it's good to write things down anyway and to draw them!

Carol Q said...

great way to show your fears through the crack in the page Rosie. I guess there are different fears to deal with depending on your age..... Very thought provoking.

Kim Lee said...

Me too! That is all, me too. I am right there with you and I am 55. You are a Brave Girl, as you put you out there. Love this blog today. Thank you for sharing.

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Linda Vincent said...

Love your drawing!
When I can't look at the full picture I always squint through the space between 2 of my fingers - for some reason it helps! :-)
Great page as always...
XX

Anonymous said...

I love your art--it is so inspiring. Thanks so much sharing the process. You might have answered this before, but I am new to your blog, so going through all the comments will take a while. What kind of paper you use? I am especially curious about the paper you use with Caran D'ache Neocolor II.

Rosie said...

To answer the question about paper - believe me it is nothing special! So much so that I glue two pages of my journals together to give me a stronger base to work on. The journals I use are spiral bound A5 artist sketchbooks by Royal Langnickel - although Daler Rowney make one almost identical - and what I particularly like about them is that they have a gesso cover which allows you to paint/decorate each one as the fancy takes you. I've got a shelf-full now, all different!

Sheree-Moondove said...

I was looking for some 70s art and I saw this awesome poster! What a great idea! Just proves once again that if one will give the time and dig a little deeper...they can inspire so many!

Love it,
Moondove