DIFFERENT?

 

Another page from my latest journal - my new square (the pages are approx 10 x 10") journal.  Still finding this a joy to work in, especially because of the quality of the paper, but hoping to move on from this eventually into hand-made journals.  I like the idea of a journal which is literally my own work - from sheets of paper to finished, bound result.

Anyway, I was messing about with backgrounds and trying to incorporate shapes and colours which I could work with and around, not to mention making sure that I used a variety of colours and not just shades of the same one!  This one was produced with my trusty Neocolour II crayons.

I hadn't any idea when I began work what the page would be about, so below you can see my tentative steps into creating a "frame" for the page using pattern and doodling, and a bit of collage. For those who are new to my work, the wormhole doodling is done with a Pitt artist pen which is waterproof and writes well over paint and other substrates.  The doodles involve Posca paint pens, my second favourite art material after the crayons!

There was a hiatus of a few days before I worked on this page again, adding the collage figure, a bird and a section cut from a coloured copy of a much earlier journal page.  I learned that tip from Teesha Moore and its a really valuable one.

It was contemplating the weirdness of the figure I'd produced that led eventually to what I wrote here - I almost never use quotes, but only journal my own words and feelings.

Where I live we have a large population of migrants from the Indian sub-continent and women wearing Islamic dress, up to and including the full burkha are a common sight on our streets.  I struggle to see a fully veiled figure because all my instincts tell me that what I'm seeing is a repressed, subjugated woman, and as a lifelong feminist that really troubles me. I'd found myself giving glowering looks at such figures and realised that I had an attitude problem I needed to address. I'm still working on that.

But what I wanted to express was the way we, the way I was treating people who looked "different" and making judgements about them.  I was guilty of assuming that the women I saw were downtrodden victims; now some of them may indeed be, but by no means all, or even most.  This perception of difference does not give me the right to glower disapprovingly, any more than any other difference of dress, race or whatever.  Just because my intentions were good doesn't make it any less discriminatory.

I do feel passionately that we are all just human beings, often with enormous cultural differences, but we mustn't let these things divide us but try to find ways to bridge the chasms of misunderstanding and ignorance that separate us.  As always journalling about the things which trouble me help me find a way to understanding and acceptance - and I've now embarked upon a mission to smile warmly at every burkha clad woman I meet.  You never know, it might just make a little bit of difference .....