IT TOOK ME YEARS ....

  

This was one of those pages where something I didn't know was swirling around my subconscious suddenly popped out and made its presence felt!

You can see below how I set out to collage over a painted page - just done with ordinary craft acrylics, and then adding bits and pieces from my collection to make a border.  I hope it gives you an idea of what sort of things to look for and save when trawling through magazines for collage materials.  I'm looking for colours and patterns or words that appeal to me, and I don't want them to be identifiable so I only rarely use actual pictures, or if I do I alter them in some way.   I can't explain it but I don't like shiny images, so always look out for the kind printed on heavy matte paper - they're often free furnishing catalogues and the like.  I love it when my art materials are free!

Then below you can see that I added a little bit more and turned the lower striped section into a person - there's always got to be something human in my pages.  I guess to represent myself somehow?

Then because I try to alter faces and make them unique this stamped face got some doodly decoration - I'm not sure if its an improvement but at least she's mine rather than some generic image.  I was looking at her and thinking that she looks a bit of an oddball, and that sparked the thought I began to write down ...

I wasted so much of my early life desperately trying to fit in and wondering why I couldn't, and when the revelation came to me that I was MEANT to stand out it was like light shining in the darkness.  I became someone who could stand up in public and speak my truth, someone who was happy to lead if called on to do so, and best of all (finally) someone at ease in their own skin.  Maybe I just grew up.

If there was one thing I tried to teach my own daughters you can bet your life this was it.  Don't struggle to fit in if you can't seem to, rejoice in being your glorious unique self - its who you are meant to be.  Perhaps you can't do that so easily while you're still a young person?  It might be one of those things that comes to most of us only as we mature?  Either way, I'm just grateful for the insight which transformed my life.