unnamed
It’s easy for us to think we know who we are when who we think we are revolves around our relationality. So much of what we take on as an identity happens in association. In a kind of correspondence to those that are outside ourselves. We are partners. Friends. Parents. Children. Employers. Employees. Each title carries a weight. A weight of expectation and performativity. It’s not to say that each label is a farce or a form of dishonesty. Only that they are fractional. They are narrow and limiting. We are more than any collection of names can carry. We are an excess that overflows any attempt at designation.
Something shifts when we step into the solitude of creative practice and creative space. A kind of undressing. We shed the layers of all our names and labels. We shed the audience. We shed the other. We even shed ourselves. “The body is inhabited in a different way,” David Whyte says. We become “a question rather than a statement.”
Every sure and certain part of ourselves becomes suspended in the quiet isolation of making things. With no one to perform for and no one to attend to, we become no one and anyone simultaneously, attending only to the mystery at the heart of our being.
We are an unknown depth of dark ocean. An unexplored territory that defies all listings and categories. And somewhere in the culmination of words, sounds, images — fragments coming together to form something — we discover parts of ourselves we’ve never seen or known. We meet ourselves in ways for which there is no naming. And each new piece is a new opportunity for a whole new discovery.
May you find the courage to shed every name that was too constricting.
May the solitary act of making show you a self you’ve never met before.
May you never stop discovering the depths of all that you contain.
In case no one’s told you today, I love you with all my everything.
p.s. - earlier this week I wrote a guest piece for my collage bestie Jill McDougall. I also was fortunate enough to use a few of her photos to make digital collages. You can find the post below.
p.p.s - I recently hit 10k followers on my Instagram account. I try not to spend much time dwelling on numbers and metrics, but this still felt like a nice win. So, I’m offering 10% off everything in my shop. Use promo code 10KHOORAY at check out!
p.p.p.s. - This digital collage was an experiment that I ended up being really happy with. it’s now available as a print in my shop.
Yes yes and yes!!!🙌
And in the words of one of my all time favs, Jasper Johns;
When i enter the studio, i leave myself at the door
Amen to that
Your guest post and our collab photo/collages are such a gift to me, thank you. And this piece is beautiful. I've felt a shedding of identities as I travel and have had to surrender control over so much! I've been pondering similar concepts these past few days on the move, especially with the forced minimalism of the lost luggage. Something quite liberating about all of it. Many valuable reminders in it all...and important perspective shifts I'm hoping to bring back with me to daily life.