I’ve been hiding away with my inky words this winter and falling in love with it all over again. The power of this scribbling habit to get out what’s really going on is quite extraordinary! And you know what? The less I’m able to read it, the better it gets.
Working by hand is the way I start every job in a sketchbook, and along with my belief in the power of writing out our own ‘words to live by’, I picked up my nibs and bottles of ink again as a way to help me through all the weirdness of pandemic times. And I’ve been going for it with fury! Just letting it all hang out on little postcards of black, white and gold – it’s been the best therapy.
Looking back on the scruffy beginnings of all this, it’s really interesting to see it evolving. At the same time my hand is becoming more accomplished, the expression is becoming intentionally indecipherable. I love the dirty, gleaming gold, and the ferocious, scratchy black, and their collisions. I love pulling out clean, white letterforms from a dark, confused background, and I like being able to obscure parts of all of it.
The only way I've been able to adequately represent some of what I'm feeling in these times is to make my inky words completely dense and illegible, but right there in that visual knot of words is exactly the right emotion, and perhaps the record I need to remember what was going on. It’s layers, it’s fifty feelings a minute, its contradictions, redemptions, resolutions, and a determination keep on bringing the love!
Some of it is what I wish I could say out loud without sounding like an idiot. Some of it is a little epiphany that’s landed in the middle of the quiet times, and some is just plain talking in black ink. Sometimes it’s secret little golden prayers to whoever’s listening, and sometimes, it’s not quite clear yet, like a seed in the ground.
I don't always need to read what it says, but I know what it's saying.
I think this practice is bringing me closer to the truth about being human in 2021, even though it may appear inconveniently illegible. Sorry about that, but I'm quite relieved you can't read some of what I've written.
One day, I dream of making it move. For now, it just is the way it is.
And that's why today's inky word is impossible to decipher.
{Today’s Soundtrack: TEED – Garden (Calibre Remix)}