One of my very first notebooks from my Swirly days.

I am not sure what has started this growing swarm and swirl of energy in my heart, body, mind, self – everything – but its mission is singular and intensely focused, which is to be free.  I have been crying more easily, getting pissed more easily, laughing louder and wanting to create more fiercely than ever.  It is as if all of the work I have been doing over the past few years – creative, personal and otherwise – is all coming together to create the perfect storm, and this tempest is going to make its way into the world one way or another.  The most appropriate, inspiring and interesting means of expression is through my work, of course, but during those times when I have to pay attention to tasks outside of my studio this energy is still clamoring to get out of me.  Yesterday morning my husband decided to back out of the garage before the door was all the way up, knocking it off of its track and, I later discovered, out of the wall.  Dealing with this became that one extra item on my house-related to do list that I simply could not cope with, and I proceeded to stomp around the house cursing like a sailor after my husband left for work, pushing the buttons on the phone as hard as I could and basically pouting for the first couple of hours of my morning.  I later bombard my therapist with a million different ideas and issues, talking a mile a minute, then went to Apple Pan for a cheeseburger, fries and a coke (plus a piece of apple pie to go, just for good measure.)  I even said to my husband on our evening walk, "Could you please walk a little faster?"

This energy does not really seem to care what kind of channel I provide for its release – anger, tears, painting, exercise, eating or laughing – it just wants out.

Its intensity has been exciting and energizing, and is putting me in a somewhat destructively creative mood.  The desire to abandon any and all notions of preciousness is growing wild within me.  I want to paint over every unfinished canvas in my studio, tear apart my journals and destroy old books, using all of these elements as layers for new creations.  I want to create something I truly love, paint over it, glue over it, whatever, so that only I know what is beneath whatever I create on top of it.  I pulled out all of my old Swirly notebooks, one page of which is shown above, for the express purpose of destorying them.  They will be deeply embedded in my next series of work, things one won’t even see when looking at my work, things that will never be seen again.

I want to destory, burn, rip, shred, spill and scrape, to cover things over then sand them down and let one image I love have the opportunity to evolve into something even more interesting and mysterious.  Is this my art I am talking about or my very self?  Are these two different things?