In my art, I explore the dialog between the inner and outer world. I believe that connecting with oneself is the key to peaceful coexistence. My sketchbook journey is a cycle in which I use concrete themes to illustrate the dialog between myself and the world and how I appropriate it. On the one hand, how I build bridges, and on the other, the invitation to the reader to meet oneself in creative expression.
Chapter 2, crossing the threshold: Beauty
The beginning is done, not everything is completely new anymore, but old topics are still buzzing back at me. The outside – the culture – I had almost finished a biography of Gustav Klimt and had taught portrait painting in art class. The subject of beauty invited me once again to find my own peace and meaning with it. At the same time, the beautiful colors of the sunrise and sunset of the Costa del Sol took my breath away. These colors became the quintessence of nature’s beauty. I began to study them, write them down and let them become a part of me and my color repertoire.
one’s own appearance
I found myself confronted with my appearance, with the southern Spanish image of women, the customs of how one presents oneself in everyday professional life. Fingernails, hair care, footwear seemed to be codes for a kind of care about how one moves in the world. It also seemed more common in the culture to use interventions to look more attractive and I learned from other women to develop an eye for this. I was temporarily inspired to get my nails done, invest in more shoes and get into hair care. Shortly before I had something permanently done to my eyebrows, negative long-term recessions prevented me from doing so and I told my boyfriend about it, he wisely commented that this was just a short-term solution for dealing with my own ageing process. That’s what it’s really about.
The relationship to one’s own face
In a 9th grade art class, the class representative asks me “on behalf of the girls in the class” not to hang the printed portrait photos on the board for them to use as a template. It’s bad enough that you have to look at your own face all the time. Please not in front of the class. Several times during the process, I asked them to see their face as a hilly landscape that they could explore in painting. The psychological barrier for adding plasticity through shading to the face, cheeks, forehead, mouth and under the eyes was high. I practiced this myself using one of the faces painted by Gustav Klimt.
The students taught me to stand by them with my care while they spent weeks working on their faces and the critical thoughts associated with them. To keep the focus on the painterly process and to assist them in their process of self-tolerance and sensitivity to their facial images. I could identify with the inner critical voice.
Beauty in the arts
In the Gustav Klimt biography, however, I not only learned that the beauty of youth as a muse was relevant for the painter and his own development. Detaching himself a little from the zeitgeist of his turn-of-the-century Vienna, he gave his models an ornamental design that often reminds me of Egyptian imagery in black, white and gold, and thus also of the otherworldly references, of the soul’s journey of the dead. The woman, whom I also quoted in my sketchbook, captured her beauty but, if I remember correctly, was ill, which is revealed in her paleness. I wonder if her own illness forced her to come to terms with her own transience. The biography invited me to give her a personality beyond her beautiful appearance, her own inner life.
This also remained my personal résumé, in the never-ending confrontation with my own appearance. It seemed more important to me to move away from being an object and become a subject. That something changes in my view of myself when I understand myself as an actor, as a human Being and meet myself in this way. Perhaps in meeting my own gaze I see the part that needs something. And to begin to go beyond the surface and meet the person behind it.
Instead of getting lost in the details, practise adopting a milder, intentionally supportive perspective.
Mirror work
The mirror work was a recommendation that I practiced with a friend. At first, we found it much easier to do the exercise with our eyes closed, and the mirror was almost silly. But after a while, it was incredibly powerful and changed the way I met my reflection.
I took the affirmations from a workbook and was advised by a coach friend to link the sentences with the awareness of memories of positive feelings. For example, to remind myself of my full joy of life while surfing and then to say the sentence “I am good enough” internally.
It consisted of looking at myself in a mirror for several minutes and saying affirmations. Phrases like “I am good enough”, “you are important”, or “I am lovable”. It was challenging not to turn into a critical examination of skin blemishes or the like. Always with the intention of showing appreciation, being serious, looking yourself in the eye.
Being alive in nature
The path from object to subject – to an experience, yes, from the inside, from a living feeling, and thus to make one’s own quality of body experience one’s own – which has nothing to do with appearance per se, but makes the body perceptible from the inside out – seemed to me to be easiest in nature.
Being in nature as a “spatial shell” that makes it possible to experience one’s own humanity. Nature has always been a source of comfort and inspiration for me, because of the natural cycle. I have already explored this phenomenon in four different series of works.
The wanderings on the Camino, surfing as a holistic experience as well as my experiences with painting outdoors, especially in the wilderness – characterise these works.
Suggestion for you:
Suggestion I
Draw, paint or collage: on the topic of beauty, what is your muse?
1. What inspiration do you get from the beauty around you? Who inspires the people around you? What material things are connected to this? What do you find beautiful in your surroundings? What inspires you?
Suggestion II
The mirror exercise is about reinterpreting inner beliefs and developing a different view of yourself by looking in the mirror: Which affirmation appeals to you the most? For example, for “I am not lovable” – look in the mirror and say to yourself, while looking yourself in the eye, “I am lovable”.
2. write down your findings on the page after the mirror exercise. Look at your design and let it have an effect on you.
Sketch, make notes, draw, paint, glue – create a sketchbook page or on a sheet of paper! Digital or analog!
I am happy to receive feedback, references, requests or forwarding on my social media channels or via email.