A friend and I have been working toward a joint creative pursuit. This is a sneak-peak at some artwork that will be used in part of this project.
I started this last Friday. Some days, a song will come on Spotify and just hit some personal or creative sweetspot. It can be of any genre.
That day, it was Janis Joplin’s Me and Bobby McGee.
I ended up putting it on loop for several days, and even tonight finished up final touches on this and joined some various painting videos with that song in the background together to show the progression, creation and evolution of my original idea. (I think I left the opening title and still image too long, about one minute, you can fast forward a bit to get to the music and painting part!)
As I worked on this here and there over this past week, the piece begun to take on new forms and ideas as they came to me. I don’t think I would have conceived of the end result had I not started with the basic idea which was simply a short, squat version of braided-hair young Eileen Slifer, wearing the signature July 4th outfit I actually had (around age 10 or 12 as I recall)…and am using consistently in every illustration that will go with my autobiographical storytelling.
Basically, this is childhood me with a friend at an amusement park. I’m looking into a distorted circus-type mirror, wondering what is wrong with me.
My friend is gazing at this odd, grotesque, alien-like image I am taking in…and raising her hand, utters, “Geez Louise!!!”
I had some other ideas as the response, such as, “Nothing that a good ride on the Zipper won’t cure!”
Who knows why some days the rhythm, feel and maybe just one line of a song will hit some sweet note in one’s soul?! I can’t say that any of the general lyrics in this song express anything I identify with…other than the idea of Freedom of Expression.
I’ve suffered quite a lot of losses in my lifetime (and these losses are still currently unfolding…) and have also made quite a number of recoveries.
I’m thinking, it’s time I freely tell my story…
Cheers! Here’s to one more segment of this creative work.
Thank You For Reading
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