COMING HOME- AN ART SERIES: “The Thread Life is A Tangle”
The Thread: Life is A Tangle
Background:
I had the vision for this piece in my mind for a few weeks before I started to work on it. Initially, I wanted to create an environment of soft and cozy and layered. I had no real direction other than I knew I wanted to use the twine I had laying around to create with and I wanted this to feel comfortable like your favorite sweater.
I began working on this on Aug. 20th and finished on Oct. 2nd, 2020. In an effort to see what I was thinking about at this time, I looked back in my journal.
The theme that came up was, “Am I maintaining or sustaining right now?”
Was my current routines and lifestyle in alignment with what actually sustains my energy or was I just coasting by, maintaining? I have many things I want to do and many things that need to be done in this chapter of my life. In order to sustain the limited energy I have, I needed a reality check .
“It is disrespectful to myself to not honor my hard work over the years and to not stand proudly in my power, taking up space. It’s okay to be unsure of how I want to approach things and that’s why I need to allow myself time to understand this [new version of me] to understand what she need as the old comforts just won’t do anymore. I need to adjust accordingly. ”
It started to make sense to me what this piece would be like on a subconscious level, but I still didn’t clearly see the final product until I was in the process of making it.
The Process
As I described before, I wanted this to be soft and cozy. What came through as I prepared my canvas was the pink gradient background which mimics a sky. I was feeling it and began to add the twine. In my mind, I saw that I wanted to lay the twine close together and at first, I thought maybe this would look like a throw blanket. At some point, it morphed into a mountain! I let it sit for a few days before continuing to add the curves and begin the right side, unsure of how it’d continue to grow/form.
What’s interesting about the imagery at this point is it started to remind me of my journey thus far. Mountains have been climbed and sure, there are plenty more to climb.
I placed the twine in the middle of the canvas, playing with it to see what “felt” right for my next application of the twine. I enjoyed the way the twine looped, almost like a winding path or road. This “road” was now morphing into a wheel of sorts, but then I thought, “would this twine allow me to go inward and then bring it back out?” I was hoping to use the twine continuously like contour drawings, not cutting the end of the twine. That didn’t end up working, but I was able to create a transition.
Truly, this piece has continued to shape-shift over the two months I left it against the wall where I observed it and waited patiently for it to call for me to add more. I didn’t rush through it. I played around with the twine moving it in different directions, seeing where we would venture to next. What was the next trip we were taking? How will we be going? Fast or slow? Just a small step today and a couple more tomorrow?
The imagery that started to show were:
a mountain
a winding path
a wheel
a tangled ballon
a heart
a pulley
a word written in the sky
All of these images in this piece reminded me of life. It reminded me of a card I have pulled many times for myself from The Wild Unknown Archetype deck by Kim Krans, my favorite deck for journaling and meditation to strengthen my connection to my intuition.
The card in particular that this piece reminded me of was “The Thread” which is where this piece gets it’s title.
“The Thread” Archetype
“The Wild Unknown Archetype” by Kim Krans
This card is described as a “tool” one would use to return to the self in the midst of chaos. Instead of looking outwards for the meaning of your life, it asks that you look inward. To pay close attention to that deeply embedded desire you have in your body and to follow its path. Those things that you love to do, those things that make you excited and maybe even a little anxious, follow that.
My piece translates this.
It translates the mountain we yearn to climb and when we reach it’s summit, we realize the journey has just begun. We see what awaits us. The wheel, the ballon, and path, they all represent the movement forward. Floating and circulating and the twists and turns we do in life. The pulley which is probably manual, allows us to ascend to new heights if we still have the grit in us to keep going after getting through the tangles. We can fly across the sky writing our love letter and it will fade but we left our mark.
We give our gratitude and love, a piece of our heart, and we descend back down that mountain, back home to self with stories to tell and wisdom to share.
