First published in the Autumn 2009 edition of Faezine

The Gathering, The Unfolding….

By Toni Cogdell

 

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination…”   Mary Oliver

 

I hold my breath. There’s a distant drumming echoing around the edge of my consciousness, unable to decipher whether it’s my own heart or the beat of another place and time entirely I let it flow on regardless. Days, weeks, months of silent conversations, listening to the wind shake stories out of oak trees, peering at creeping shadows behind moss encrusted rocks and watching the clouds dance their way home across the sky have brought me here to the canvas now.  

In art, as with life, there must be a time for the gathering and a time for the unfolding, the ongoing cycle of creativity.

 

An artist is like a packhorse laden high with source material ready to be utilised in the making of their art. Like creatures of the earth they dig and furrow, then squirrel-like gather together the scattered treasures they find on their walk through daily life. They raise their minds bird-like to the sky, storing up the scents and secrets on the breeze, calling back the lost songs that fly across the land and hills. The artist moves through time carrying this precious, glittering anthology of ideas, images, words and feelings that make up every experience and reaction they’ve had with the world, and for every minute lived another item is added to the collection, reshuffling the contents to test if any of the pieces fit. This gathering process is continual, an undercurrent of everyday life, unconsciously consuming every molecule of experience through every available sense.  An artist’s apothecary, armed and prepared for the alchemy about to happen.

 

Which is why stood in front of the canvas now I feel as if I’m being watched, the anticipating eager eyes of these gathered elements keen to see what forms and colours will emerge. They have taken on a presence of their own, so ingrained in me as they are, these facets and glimmers of collected ideas, memories and feelings, my ongoing dialogue with the natural world around me, always evolving, the remnants of my experience past, present and future. They are all here, an audience with the artist. I want to examine them, turn them over in my hands, stare directly into their eyes to see what they’re made of, searching for some reflection that may tell me what I too am made of. I want to wipe the mud from their faces and untangle the leaves from their hair, I want to tame them, make them feel loved and at home, to make them fit in. But their beauty and worth is in their innate origin, their pure essence, and in the mystery of their source, they don’t ask to be understood or even loved, they just want to be expressed, to flow freely without question.

 

So as the artist I have to take a step back, hesitantly, promising to not look directly their way. I have to allow them to unfold on their own over the hours, days and weeks I spend on my work. If I should even momentarily stand in their way or ask them why they are bringing these thoughts and ideas to the easel they will turn on me, gnashing and gnarling at my head, pulling my hair and making it impossible for me to complete my task. My job as a creative is to listen. To hear the call of the muse. To witness and nurture the gradual unfolding of my inspiration collective, summoning the visions back while putting in the dedication and time required to ease them into form.

 

It’s a matter of trust. Honouring the agreement that if I put in the hours, show willing and allow myself to let go enough to connect then they will stream an endless source of inspiration my way. If I release the notion that everything I make has to be perfect, release the constant doubt, questioning and the idea that I am solely responsible for my creative output, if I can just take my own ego out of the equation then real progress can be made, a true connection can be forged so that along with my ardent Dreamseed Army the creative journey can begin to unfurl.

 

I didn’t say this was an easy task, after all an artist is intrinsically tied in to the human experience, their flesh and bone existence deals them a plethora of daily challenges which fiercely compete against artistic practice. All too easily the artist can be swept away by the tide of  everyday life, the rapid current of society’s pace and pressures forming whirlpools that insist on dragging them away from their work while the restless sea of demand washes over them. The struggle to keep a balance between living life and expressing it. There are times when a creative mind can be left standing motionless on the shore, a solitary silhouette losing footing on the sand, staring vacantly with an empty gaze out across the ocean. The page, canvas and poem all remain blank, the creative well has dried up, art is a lost language that descends to the ground then drifts away on a zephyr along with Autumn’s discarded leaves.  The Dreamseed Army scurries away muttering expletives under their breath, leaving a trail of ripped and balled paper  behind them.

 

How easy it is then for the artist to believe their creativity has been taken away, that maybe they were never really good enough in the first place.  How understandable it is when the artist’s empty shell is placed in the museum’s fossil collection and they walk away, defeated and damaged. But the distant drumming still persists. Unknown to them nothing has altered except for the building of a temporary surrounding wall, unknown to them the gathering process still goes on for creativity is their inherent legacy, its blueprint is the marrow of their bones, the structuring of the soul. Art never leaves, it just gathers its treasures from further afield and you forgot to leave a light on for its return.

 

So I’m at the easel once more, the familiar sense of watchful eyes upon me, when I hear them whisper in my ear “it’s about believing” they say, “it’s about Knowing. We are you, and you are us, all is one. Connect, just connect!”  And with that the wind sifts through the trees sending leaves scurrying into the studio, the cawing of the crows that blanket the sky echoes the images on my canvas and then all the pieces start to fall into place ready to unfold in unforeseen ways.  

 

All we can do is live and create scene by scene, day by day, inching our way through the unknown. It’s about living life constantly re-seeing the world, retelling its stories through your own, knowing that when the world offers itself to your imagination, you just have to let it in.