Searching for joy and delight

Music Credit: Supine by Peter Sandberg via Epidemic Sound.

In this video I take you inside my mixed media sketchbook and share a speedy art demonstration experimenting with ink…

I often write notes to myself about my art, things I want to explore, things to remember, ideas to expand upon, fragments and whispers I want to capture.

Sometimes I list the things I want to do more of or the things I want do less of…

I’ve always found writing to be a useful way to think…by pouring words onto a page, I organise and clarify my thoughts and bring light to what I believe.

Joyful abandon

Recently a phrase has repeated itself in my notes and thoughts in terms of how I want my art to feel. “Joyful abandon.” has appeared twice in my notes… I only noticed it when I read back through them. And then I noticed I’d written it not once, but twice, on different days…in the same week. A subconscious thought made visible.

And what did I mean? I think I meant I want joy and delight to be the things I seek in my art making, my north star…

In this season of my life I want to lean-in to what I find and feel to be joyful…and perhaps abandon the things that don’t support this. There is something unapologetic, exuberant and enthusiastic about the concept of ‘joyful abandon’ that resonates with me. A lack of inhibition and constraint that feels expansive.

When there is so much darkness and difficulty in the world, it may perhaps sound naive of me to be seeking joy. The last few years have been a little challenging for me, I have struggled with some ongoing health issues and various other challenges, and it is exactly this difficulty that has made me more attuned to joy, more keen to seek it out, to celebrate it and appreciate it….

Seek what you value in your art

Creating art isn’t always easy, there will often be problems to solve, fallow seasons, perhaps times when it feels more challenging than others, sometimes art making will feel vulnerable and exposing, we will often get in our own way, but making a decision to seek out what you value the most and do less of the things that don’t serve this seems like a good ambition to me…