Changing the narrative

 Those who have been following or reading my blog, or those who know me, know I'm on a Uni journey. I'm in the last half of my three-year bachelor degree in arts psychotherapy and it has been a ride, let me tell you. The first year was like a year-long therapy session. The second-year was so heady and stressful I thought my brain might just explode. Third-year so far has been a much easier ride. It helps that I loved the research subject and the top I did my literature review on and the uni has restructured the placement component so it's nowhere near as full-on as my first placement was. They have removed so many assessments and requirements that I feel like I can breathe with this placement!

Part of placement is we have the opportunity to do PD every Friday morning for 3 hours, to add to the 240-hour commitment. The very first PD session was on metaphors. I love metaphors. Metaphors are my jam... lol and maybe one day they'll be my bread and butter too! In the PD we were invited to think about our overall life metaphor and immediately I had a bird locked in a cage, able to see out, able to see all the other birds flying around and living their best lives and trusting the wings they were given to do what they were meant to do. It's a pretty powerful metaphor for me and it's not the first time I've had it show up in my life. 

Being that I am an art therapist though, I decided I might actually do some art around it and thus began my next art journal spread. I made my own art journal, creating signatures and sewing them into canvas to create my very own personal art journal. I also have this thing where I like to add subtle differences along the way and this page I created actually had a half-page sewn into it. The little spread I have inside the half page is actually quite relevant to the story I began to tell on this double-page spread, though I won't be sharing that here today.

I began with a simple background on both sides of the page and on the half-page that flicks between the two. On one side I found a photo in a magazine that looked like a person with droopy wings and I pasted that inside a cage.

You can see the half-page in this shot. The half page became quite central to the story because after we explored our overall life metaphor, we were then invited to stay with the metaphor and change it in some way. So what exactly can I do to change the locked in a cage metaphor? Open the cage door of course!

So on this side of the page, I found another magazine photo from one of my body art magazines and pasted that into the birdcage.

I decided to put a swing into the birdcage with me and then I enclosed myself into the cage. I glazed the wings with some Golden Liquid paint and drew in some veins into the wings with a simple artline pen. The back part of the cage was just some neocolor II payne's grey, the bars on the front of the cage was done with my Lumiere's pearl purple.

I did the same on the full page on the left-hand side but I kept the door open for this one. I also gave this one wings but this time, I unfurled them and wouldn't you know it, turns out they were butterfly wings and a transformation had taken place while being locked in that cage growing up. Now the door was open though, I was still reluctant to leave the safety and containment of the cage. The world didn't look so inviting out there.

On the half-page, I decided to do a barren tree in the Lumiere paint and I outlined the cage first in black posca pen but in the end, I actually used the irRESISTible teal ink because I love the texture of it.

Of course, I had to outline the cage on this side of the half-page too. So I thought about what make it more inviting to entice me to get out of the cage and to try and trust my wings to allow me to fly, allowing me to do what I was put on this planet to do. So I began to paint a lush forest path on the other page.

I just used some cheap acrylics to depict the forest. To finish it off, I decided I needed to have me, the transformed butterfly actually walking away from the cage and the barren tree and into the lush forest of possibility.

Little bit of gesso, little bit of posca pen and Golden Liquid paint and a few dots and there I am walking away from my cage in search of a new tomorrow. Emerged from my metal cocoon and moving toward a more luscious future than I could ever imagine. 

I mean, when you open my journal and you flick through it page after page, it probably won't make sense, because this page comes before the locked birdcage and also before the birdcage with the open door, plus there is the little spread in the middle of the half-page. That's ok though. I know the story, I know the journey, and now you do too. The transformation of the butterfly, free to fly it's own path now.

I'm going to add these to the following pages for their monthly challenges as it fits in with the requirements:

There's definitely the added bonus of some purple in this one for the crew over at More Mixed Media Challenge.

It meets the criteria for the crew over at Creative Artiste Mixed Media but doesn't hold a candle to the gorgeous creations being made over there. Definitely go check out the art being made.

Last, though it's not entirely a butterfly, I AM the butterfly so it still meets the awesome theme Mia from Craft Artista came up with for this month.

I hope you enjoyed this journey.  Maybe you can relate to it in a way. For now, I'm going to use these newly released butterfly wings of mine to fly into a future of being an art therapist so I can help all the other trapped butterflies find their freedom through artistic expression too!

In Joy!