from blobs to forms
reflecting on a devoted year to visual art
technically my start was a stint in the spring of 2023. one of my friends qiaira, had given me her old watercolor and gauche at some point during my pregnancy. the last two weeks before my little one’s birth, i cracked the tubes open and began making microbial map studies. i noticed the way the paint moved in the water across the paper, just getting a feel. i was pleased with this form because it mirrored my experience of my super pregnant body. when the paint mixed with the water, the colors moved with a knowing of their own. i could only nudge it in different directions with my brush. so too, my body lead me through those days with little input from my mind.
i gave birth.
i painted more, quickly filling a tall binder with more watercolor map studies. each painting felt like informed connection— the paint finding the water, i’m finding the paint, the water finding me like an infinity mirror of discovery. reflection, touching reflection, touching reflection. using my black micron pen was curation on what reflections to lean into. while i was painting i felt like i was in pool, the weight of postpartum felt lighter and newness felt fun.
when i returned to work my farm job after six weeks of a joke leave, i immediately stopped creating.
figures
after several months something happened that made me stop working my farm job (i’m not gonna go into it). it was late winter 2024. that’s when i began sketching everyday. in the brutal transition i bought pastels and dug out an old canson sketchpad. actually, i was called to oil or acrylics but i hadn’t the space, time or money. pastels were accessible and had that textural touch i was feeling for. i made quick portrait studies. i worked in blue. not sure why that hue, but that’s when my piece for Female Gaze was made.
that was my only self-portrait. other than that, i worked off photos from archives on the internet.
to my brush
then i got curious about watercolor again. i kept to blue. i made lines. this is when i got obsessive. blue streak after blue streak of marks. i’d paint quickly in breaths of my day. a short compulsive two weeks of water lines until that old pad was filled. thinking back, i was exploring how water held onto the brush and could be directed on paper (but also it was just satisfying and meditative).
i got a new sketchpad, tiny with heavier paper. i began figurative work, but still with an occasional abstract watercolor line. i filled that up in a month experimenting with style. i got two bigger watercolor notebooks and filled those as well. i made portraits in blue a while longer and then switched to red. the blue and red was a period of intuitive research— how did i want to represent people? what kind of stories did i want my brush to tell? were the subjects i was interested in as a musician the same ones that called to me visually? i opened myself up. by late summer and through autumn, i’d be playing with color to sometimes compelling affect, other times just a nonsensical mess. there were definitely themes that emerged though, mainly: black femmes at home, black dance, black writers, and parent-child love.
the last couple months have been a hodge-podge of different combinations, playing with watercolor, pastel, pencil and charcoal. i’m a bit lost. at this point, i’ve officially hit a creative wall. it feels like my season for technique has arrived. i’m knocking myself down several steps to spend dedicated time learning the fundamentals and in february began going to a figure drawing class.
but not without acknowledging the whimsy and devotion of the last year with an art show that got accepted at davinci art alliance in south philly. I Love Myself When I’m Laughing… And Then Again When I’m Looking Mean and Impressive will be opening april 3rd. happy anniversary to me and my brush.
