4.14.09 - 226/365

so
this is what i felt was really a picture of me today
this piece that i have been working on for the last 40+ days

yesterday i mentioned a gtd tool
(that's "getting things done")
that made me feel surprisingly content
and i attributed that to being able to create a visualization of the inside of my head.
todoist is structured exactly the way that i break things down for myself
so it is very satisfying for me to use
and this activity
of organizing thoughts
is very comforting to me
it's why i was so drawn into database design;
when i first started programming i would stay up every night until 3 or 4
and go to bed feeling as if i was sleeping inside the structure of what i had just made.

my on-line activity,
when it is going well
(and by that i suppose i mean
when it is serving my vision
as opposed to running my life)
gives me much the same feeling
my ideas become mapped out visually
and preserved in a way
that makes me feel free to continue exploring,
it feels as if i have created a trail
to a little virtual home that once again,
at the end of the day
i can curl up in and go to sleep.

and when my painting is going well
this same metaphor exists
hopefully,
in my studio,
it is my feelings,
not my thoughts,
that have been mapped out
and put into a (relatively) permanent & accessible form

this of course,
is always a struggle for me;
my being (in jungian terms) a thinking type,
i am very comfortable reasoning things through
but feeling them...
and then expressing those feelings...
this does not come naturally to me
and therefore,
it is what is most meaningful for me
to accomplish

so when i am connected
and making work that sort of bypasses my brain
i have that same sensation
at the end of the day:
when i ago to sleep
i crawl into the little nest that i have made
inside the container of my work

when this happens
i feel fulfilled.

so today,
i was thinking about this parallel
and how it can help guide me
and i had an insight that this is what it is actually all about
in this moment:
the JOURNEY,
the way back home

i have always felt a sense of mapping about my process
(i wanted to name one show: "mapping my way out of hell",
my gallery wasn't thrilled)
and for the past 2 years i have been obsessed with
wanting/needing to find my way back home

if i look at the work i am making right now
and
if i look at the structure that i have based my latest 2 watercolor projects on
it is about following these threads
making connections between my days
tracing pathways...

so i feel there might be an answer here
an answer that i have been working on
but just haven't been able to connect to it
we'll see if this is true
if this resonance persists

in as much as i try to work from that feeling place
ultimately
it is when i find a reason for things
that i am truly comforted
c'est la guerre