It’s been at least a month since my last shoot. The practical and emotional aspects of life have gotten in the way (my Mum going back to Scotland and did I mention the trauma of my dentist’s visit?), but so have my excuses. Perhaps I’m experiencing a bit of a plateau, creatively speaking. The longer I go without creating, the more daunting it feels to get back into it. You know that feeling, right? (I’m looking at you, exercise routine!)
To get back into the creative space I’ve been revisiting pieces I had done previously. I stumbled on this one I did last year and decided to re-edit it.
Traversing Existence – Before re-edit
I was happy with it at the time. But looking at it now, a year later, it looks quite plain. I now see so much more potential for it, things which I had not seen or recognised at first. This made me realise how very much our lives are like a spiral.
“The path isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral. You continually come back to things you thought
you understood and see deeper truths.” – Barry H. Gillespie
We always return to things in our lives to uncover deeper learnings. At least that is the invitation given to us – to progress, to evolve outwards and return inward to our authentic selves. What does this spiral look like? It may be as simple as revisiting a piece of art. Or it may look like experiencing the same drama. Or making the same choices we know are not good for us or don’t feel right. This is the spiral, a circling back, an invitation to arrive at these same situations with the awareness of choice to progress.
“The journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward.” – William
Butler Yeats
When we look at our lives through a creative lens, there is opportunity to reinvent, to do something different, to mould it into something else. If we do not choose differently in those moments, we find ourselves stuck in a loop of creating the same outcome. I find this not only in my life (Should I have that other drink? Should I scroll or should I read a book?) but also in my art practice. Each time I create it’s a choice between staying with what I know or creating outside of my comfort zones.
The Dance of Grace Amidst The Chaos
Having re-edited this image, I feel it’s reached its potential in terms of what I wanted to create and I’m really looking forward to creating and working on new concepts!