An Invitation to Imagination
The drawings in this blog were made using a quill-pen, made in 3 minutes from a garden bamboo cane, plus a little ink wash
I’m aware that my art work is so often filtered through a censoring machine. Censored and checked, again and again, to see whether it’s either ‘appropriate’ or ‘sensible’.
What would happen if I just allowed my art to have its own uncensored voice? What would be revealed if it had free reign, like my thoughts? Free to dive off in any direction, experience being inappropriate and off the leash. Free to run amuck, free to express and explore in any direction. Free to run uninhabited without restraint or questioning.
What would occur then? And what would be seen in the light of such freedom?
The desire to choose to frolic into freedom is, however, only the starting place. As one might gaze over a fence at a prime patch of meadow and daydream about buying it and building the eco-house of your hearts desire, so it is with art.
The gap between such a wild and delicious thought and making that reality come true would need a plethora of plans, diggers, mess and patience; a mountain of it.
Anyway, today I just want to acknowledge that I want to walk into a future where i have awakened imagination within me, to the point where it is at liberty to take the lead and speak more freely.
The power-house of imagination within me has been slumbering for so long and probably has never been incubated into independent life, if I’m honest.
So, lets start here in my sketchbook. Come and play here imagination, where you know you’ll be safe. Come and play here every day, experiment and grow strong. Let your creative muscles grow bold and find confidence and joy, until a new reality is learned and believed in. Then, lets see where it will lead.
But let’s not worry too much about what’s down the track, just stay focussed here…sketch with a stick, or paint with fingers, draw in the dark or with a blindfold. Read about how artists took courageous steps and follow suit, just don’t stay on the sofa and do nothing.
Imagination is like a muscle – use it or lose it! A bright, lean, switched-on imagination is like a Kenyan runner – at home with heat and hardship. A reluctant imagination will need waking up and coaxing into its running kit, with loving-kindness, patience and non-judgement.
As I catch a glimpse of the mountain range ahead of us all, a range that keeps getting obscured by the changes that COVID-19 is breathing down upon us, I know that imagination and a nimble, problem solving mindset, will be crucial. So here is a good place to start – awakening imagination in our art practices day after day. Taking risks, exploring ideas and allowing our awesome creative instincts to kick in and do what evolution has equipped us to do, to be extraordinary imaginative creatures and go on thriving, even under challenging and harsh conditions.
The quill-pen can be re-sharpened with a Stanley knife when it becomes blunt
