Experientials Vol. 30

I can't believe that we only have a few weeks left. There are so many papers due between now and then... It seems very daunting now, but I am sure that they will all get done—one by one.

Today in Multicultural class we looked through an African symbol book and picked out symbols that we were drawn to and created a piece with them and then we looked at the meanings to see what we were intrinsically drawn to. My symbols (starting at the top left and going clockwise) mean: wisdom, pride & greatness, and warning against evil. (The last symbol is also a stylized Foofoo seed.) It was interesting to do the process this way and see what symbols we were drawn to and what this might mean to use. I was drawn to the repetitive circle symbols, probably because circles and circular figures are already symbols in my artwork.

One of the presentations today was on the Hispanic culture and as part of that presentation, we made worry dolls. Here is what mine looked like. It was commented that we have the same hair ;)

During group class, we worked in a Gestalt group. We created a piece to music based on how we were feeling as we came to the class. I had come in today not feeling well, having woken up with an asthma attack and now feeling the residual ickiness and starting to get a headache. As we processed these pieces we were supposed to ask the pieces what it had to say to us and then claim this with an "I" statement. Mine said "I am undefined in the midst of chaos." As I was painting the blob form began to emerge and I felt like it was indicative of how I felt. I felt foggy, and not myself, and I also felt the stressors of the outside world (school etc...) pressing in on me. However in the inside of "me" is still the real me, and although I may not feel like myself, I am still me and will regain composure soon. It was a refereshing piece, and I feel like it said what it needed to to me.

These are the pieces that I did while processing the slideshow of client work that was given. They are very small (one quarter of and 8.5x11) and were all just quick to process the feeling that the slides were bringing up. The first was in response to group pieces that were done by women who had been sexually assualted and who now could not express what being held felt like. This is my representation of what it feels like to be held when you feel safe. I feel it is all encompassing and that it almost feels as if you are one figure, though you are actually two. The second is a piece in response to women who were uncomfortable expressing anger and I wanted to see if I could access my anger and represent it visually.

This first one was about the overpowering sorrow that some of the women felt and how that must feel. I felt like it would only be a drop in the bucket... and that each tear is meeting an ocean of others. The next one was in response to the fingerpainting slides she showed. At first I was just drawing and then I realized it was similar to my fingerpainting. I remembered being struck by the ghost image and that affecting me, and this had also affected the women in this group. I guess in ways I identified with them and was taken back to my image.

These two were completed during the remainder of the slides, but I am unsure of their meaning at the moment, although I think that they may have just been a way for me to connect with the slides being shown, since I was having a hard time connecting (because I was feeling so bad).