No. 19 HIM

Byron School of Art (BSA) graduates said that I would discover my voice in 2nd year and refine my voice in 3rd. I believe it now. I’ve just finished term one of year two and I think I’ve just begun to find my voice and the joy of creating, finally.

I love my line drawings.

I noticed that what was holding me back from enjoying art school, (I lamented all throughout year one), was a feeling of my art being worthless. I was constantly feeling “not there yet,” stuck in comparison mode and holding my skills up to the greats like Leonardo da Vinci, (in spite of me never wanting to be a realist painter previous to art school).

But I recently took a look at my work with fresh eyes and have realised that my art, to me, is incredible. It’s expressive and abstract, and minimal in some areas. I love its messiness, its grittiness and the honesty of my lines.

I am now my art’s biggest fan.

~

I drew my feelings in class the other week, and ended up drawing the moment I was kissed by my secret situationship at my front door last year.

As I recalled the way my hand felt on his cheek and in his hair, I blindly scratched out lines on the page, mapping out the moments I traced his face with my fingers and my lips.

As I drew, my eyes grew watery with grief and relief and yearning and appreciation. I could once again touch his lips with mine, and feel his cheek as I drew circles upon it with my nose. I could smell the Peter Jackson cigarettes and hint of bourbon on his tongue.

I melted into that moment last year and I remelted into it while drawing it out in art class.

Then I drew a scribble from the perspective of my body. My core. The tightening, tingling sensation of losing myself in the lust of wanting this mind-boggling human. A man so grounded in himself his mere presence put my brain into silent mode every time he came near.

This man, who is so much more sure of himself than I am, who is confident in spite of his multitude of insecurities, (not to mention immeasurable shortcomings), stands in stark contrast my uncertain heart and meandering spirit. And I lapped against him like a swash of water rippling her little fingers and lips around a familiar island.

The forms on the page began to speak to me.

One stoic and solid, just like him; The other dynamic and mouldable just like me.

It was my teacher Michael who suggested I sculpt the forms out of clay, and so I did. I carved a chunk of clay from its block and used my fingers once more to trace sensations right into its flesh. I made the first form, a defined, rounded organic shape with an ever so slight lean. Then I sculpted the second. A dynamic one that reaches around the first, but not quite all the way.

While the stoic and immovable force of form one softens into the embrace of dynamic and hungry form two, neither of them touch. It is as though they free-fall toward each other, form two searching outward in an attempt to contain and embody the essence of form one.

I used sensation and intuition to define my shapes, and the end result is two forms that couldn’t be more different, yet fit perfectly into each other for a brief moment in time.

~

When I returned home from school that day, I saw him again for the first time.

For the first time, nothing in me rattled. The earth within my body did not quake.

I left my yearning to dry on the shelf in Studio 2 at BSA.

And it’s my favourite creation to date.