FRIENDSHIP ...

A friendship which is important to me has been in slightly choppy waters lately, but for me it is vital to weather this because it would be a shame for us to fall out over something relatively trivial.  So I'm counting to 10, and letting something that has hurt me go.  Because its right and the only thing to do.

But of course, what I always do when something is troubling me, is get it down in my journal.  I started with my Neocolour II crayons, which haven't seen the light for a while.  Do you find that your enthusiasm for some materials waxes and wanes, because these used to be my no.1 go-to and yet they've gathered some dust recently?

Anyway, made lots of swooshy shapes in bright shades of pink and purple - such fun doing this.

Then I took up my trusty Posca pen and outlined some of the shapes, and added some black and white stamps.  I did think at this stage that I'd ruined it with the black lines ... and was tempted to gesso over it, but didn't.

Anyway, once I got the words off my heart and down on the page it kind of all began to make sense.  Somewhere in here, perhaps at a subconscious level, the petal-like overlapping layers represent the complex layers of a shared history.  Almost exactly a year ago one of my closest friends died.  It was a shattering loss which made me promise myself that I would treasure the people I loved even more.

So I then just had fun doing all manner of dots and doodling, and if that makes the page look busy, a bit mad and kind of complex then that's OK, because our friendship is like that too.

And to be absolutely fair, I am no doubt whatsoever that I can be equally annoying or accidentally hurtful from time to time.  Its not worth storing such things up, so I am letting them go because friendships based on human frailty will always have their ups and downs.  Anyway, I love her, even when she's driving me batty.