Amelia Draws

Whereby I choose a word to guide me and be my talisman for the year ahead. 

A word that can pull my thoughts and body back into focus. Be embedded into my every move and task of living.

Words from previous years have included stability, ease and flexibility – all encompassing ideas that now influence how I experience daily life – words that guide my choices.

This year my word is Space. 

I want to bring space to every facet of my life.

From my breath, to my stillness. 

From my furrowed brow, to my relationships.

From my ears to my shoulders, and pertinent to this blog – to my art.

For the last few years my brain has been cramped and scrunched by trauma and therefore, so has my art. Dense with markings and to a degree, darkness. Occasionally I found space on the page but as my eldest said ‘I was allergic to negative space’. 

Don’t get me wrong I love these pieces -their layers and dense textures. I love where their process took me. But i didn’t have the trust, care and confidence to stop in a moment that feels itchy to me. Stop when the work called to be left alone

I have some ideas about how to create space in my process – using my desk to shift how i interact with my tools for instance. Taking advantage of things that slow me down and not begrudging them for doing that. The aim is to lean into that slow down and lean into calculated rather the intuitive mark making. Learn that dance between sparse and congested. To think with more clarity about the next mark, if any is to be made.