Hello June, this is a creativity update.
On the outside, this is my favorite time of year. I am delighted with routines of daily life. Inside, things are heavy. I am challenged beyond my ability to remedy it. While I have no interest in explaining the details of my current personal life, my inner life is already adapting: a creative change is in order.
Documenting and publicly sharing life as an introvert is an ever fluctuating, finicky balance point. In equilibrium, I love the whole process. When tilted too far, I loathe the whole process.
What I love to share (the value & joy of being alone with oneself) is inherently paradoxical. My interest in social connection sits on a foundation of fulfillment through social solitude. The internet makes this type of connection possible, but it’s still unfamiliar & misunderstood in our culture. Sometimes I hear culture’s lagging narrative about the world louder than my own contentment within it. Is this of any value at all?
Solitude somehow continues to grow in its depth of value to me. Encompassed by the stillness and quiet it delivers, I always emerge back into the world more whole, steady, at ease. How can I not share this? Write about it? Make art about it? Make vlogs about it? It gives me so much. Why not for others too?
Maybe it isn’t the concept I doubt, but my own perspective of it. My own way of sharing things, the unique way in which I transform it all. Maybe my angle of viewing is flawed. I still struggle with trusting myself.
After a history of starting projects and ending them as my creative life changes, wiping them clean from the internet in fear of how these pivots will make others feel - I now know that I just have to keep going anyway. The inspiration is always the same, the value & joy of inner solitude within this world motivates everything I make regardless of its shape.
So, the creative change:
Hopefully - quieter, simpler, slower. More directly engaged with the essence of things, rather than extraverted filters to get my point across. I hope to make stuff that directly feels like the experience I so deeply wish to share. I don’t really know how to do this, as it is such an elusive thing to turn what is subjectively seen/known into something objectively tangible in the physical world. So much gets lost in translation, especially in a culture where material interest is often as deep as it goes.
But through sensory moments & communication of ideas - in visual art, little lifestyle vlogs, and written posts like these … I think I can get closer. That’s my creative priority.
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Studio Log
I started this painting of a cozy liminal space. I’m on a mission to create visual art that feels like that inner solitude I love and find so valuable. Kinda like turning the inner landscape of emotion into a material scene that reflects it. It is so difficult to do!! I am questioning every move I make!!
It isn’t something that physically exists, but I want it to feel as if it does… as if you could be sitting there, existing as that little critter in the center, experiencing the encompassing sensory peace & stillness of such a place. That place is inside us of course, but what if I could make it tangible as some sort of connecter point? That would be so cool. That’s my motivation!!
I’m using my own experiences as the guide, with my favorite childhood color palette, personal memories of nostalgia, recent dreamscapes, and little reminders of modernity so it doesn’t drift off entirely from the world we live in.
I hope to capture moments of the painting process in my upcoming vlogs… but so far I’ve been chipping away quietly behind the scenes. I don’t want to put on a performance. I just want to capture the simplicity of these moments, while pursuing the life I value most. So when I feel capable of communicating that in a way that fits the wish, I will do so.
Okay. That’s it. I’m wishing you well ♡
this is a log of art, creative exploration, & ordinary life
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find my art here: www.jasminecherry.com/art
What a powerful expression it is, for oneself to materialise their dreamscapes. I know, I know, reinventing the wheel here when describing art making... Not all expressions touch us the same, though. And so would an artist seek to express their dreams and feelings and thoughts purely for themselves? What happens then if their work is universal, either in the general perception / appreciation of the art, or even at a deeper level, one of understanding the expression at a deeper level, closer to the initial inspiration? A paradox, of sorts? So you seem to say yourself... I guess it is the blue and pink reflections riding the ripples, that made me wonder and wander; a kind reminder to be water and to hold on to our chonky hearts. Thank you. Wishing you well!
Solitude! I remember when I started painting, I envisioned a nice cozy cabin in the woods, warm coffee all day, a chill breeze rustling through the aspen and pine. All by myself. My little world where I was safe and I could create what I wanted.
I think this is based on my past growing up, where I was NOT safe to create what I wanted (I wasn't safe either lol). I always wanted to be able to create and share and that wasn't going to happen.
So now in my adult life, I still crave that safety, regardless if I have a very spacious studio to create. I really enjoy watching your videos, your sharing, because I can sort of live through you. Waking up, doing some laundry, taking a walk and spend some time watching the waves, going back and painting the rest of the day. Heaven.
I'm rambling.
Thank you for sharing and weirdly enough, I also am using this new bright pink undertone in my oil painting. Just experimenting, seeing how it looks and if I like it.