A DIFFICULT WOMAN ...?

 

In recent months a number of incidents have added together to stoke the fires of my lifelong feminism, and resulted in my making a deliberate choice to assert myself more.  When you have limited energy its easy to just go along with stuff because the cost of fighting back is too high.

Someone was incredibly rude to me, but because children were present and obviously aware of the atmosphere, I chose to simply walk away and not take on my critic.  Afterwards (like you do) I asked myself if I should have spoken up, and whether I was in fact a Difficult Woman who should mend her ways.  Eventually, after a lot of prayer and reflection I concluded that it had been right to spare the children embarrassment, but it also reminded me that I don't have to apologise to anyone for being a woman unafraid to state a strong opinion.  You don't have to agree and I'm not afraid to be challenged, even if I do have to choose which battles to fight and which to walk away from.

All this was in my mind as I worked on this page - a simple painted background with collage elements.

Frida Kahlo is a particular heroine of mine because she lived in lifelong pain but also very much on her own terms, so she seemed to belong on this page.  I've also added more collage, grey shadows and some doodly details to make the collage pieces more truly mine.

At which point all that was left was to speak my truth ... and leave it there.  I'm not going to stew over it, and I am going to forget and forgive the rudeness of the person who spoke to me.  However, I'm not sorry that it reminded me of some of the truths I have lived by for 50 years, and stirred up my fire again!

I hope you and yours have a lovely Christmas season, and thank you for being with me on the journey.
Rosie

WINGS ....

 

OK, so how to explain this one because I'm not sure I can??  Well it began as below with just random circles of pink and lilac shades scribbled on the page with my Neocolour II crayons - I took the picture before I'd hit all of them with my damp/wet paintbrush so you can see the before and after. To begin with it looks like a scribble a child might make, but under the influence of water it just blooms and the colour is "set free" ....

I had no particular sense of direction here so just began to play, adding random bits of collage - this moon face, some wings (from a stamp I have) and stripey legs.

Then stuff started to happen and before I knew it I'd gone and finished without taking any more pictures!  Ooops.  Anyway, I was cutting up a childrens' book from the charity shop and thinking how these grey shapes looked like rocks on the seashore and one thing led to another.  As you can see I've outlined them quite strongly and done all kinds of other pen work - most notably using dots as shading.  I even found some collage shapes that, with a bit of pen work, reminded me of mussels on the rocks.

The lady got drawn on arms, feet and hair, and it was only at this point that I sat down and wrote in the empty space .... and this is what came out!  I surprise myself sometimes I really do, but I love that part of the process of art journalling - just going with it and seeing what emerges.

Now please don't ask me why this poor woman is "on the rocks" so to speak, because I have absolutely no idea!  She actually looks happy enough to be there - wait, maybe she's broken through all the rocks that were in her way and thrown them out to the sides so that she can be free?  I guess you can make up your own mind about that!!

Hope the Spring is arriving where you are - here there are green shoots and buds everywhere, and that wonderful intense lime green of very new leaves.  Lovely :)