Radio PPF

I had a strange week.  I was feeling out of sorts and disconnected.  I was mired in old anxieties and making lists of my inadequacies .  In the words of the great writer Anne Lamott, I was listening to the radio station KFKD (K-fucked).  It wasn't pretty.

Prompts and challenges floated around me, creating more anxiety than inspiration.  Mythical creature theme at the Butterfly Effect this week?  I'm SO not a unicorn/pegasus kind of gal.  Paint Party Friday was rapidly approaching and I laid down a few half-hearted layers on canvas hoping to be inspired, but I wasn't feeling it.  Maybe I'd be sitting this one out.  Even my beloved index cards were coming up short.  (Television?  Manila Folders?  I don't know....)

The only good part about my week was starting Jane Davenport's "Supplies Me" class.  I was almost 2 weeks late to the party and I'm still scrambling to catch up, but so far I'm loving it.  After the first series of videos I was drawing faces.  Faces!  I don't draw faces.  But here I am, drawing faces and not hating them.  

In spite of this, the funk continued.  Was I in a bad mood because my art wasn't working?  Or was my art not working because I was in a bad mood?  I kept plugging away, trying to have faith that my good mood and inspiration would be back at any moment.

 The shift away from the dark side started with this textured background in my journal: masking tape, dryer sheets, tissue paper circles, gesso, water color crayons, stencils and spray ink.

I decide to try coloring that face and adding it as a focal image because I think it might count as "homework" for my class:

Suddenly it dawns on me:  SHE is my mythical creature.  The ridiculous standard I hold myself to. The one that makes me feel like a failure when I can't live up to her expectations.  She's the master DJ on KFKD and I need to give her a name so I can tell her to shut up once in a while.  

And with this flood of inspiration, (and 90 minutes of long-distance BFF therapy) I was out of the funk and back in the groove.

So here you go, my mythical creature journal spread, just in time for paint party Friday, with some manila folders thrown in for good measure.

The text reads "Perfect Woman:  Helps Everyone.  Needs no one.  Never gets angry.  Never makes mistakes."

Now turn off that radio and go enjoy all the great art going on at this week's party!

(and take a look at the upper left corner of the blog - I've linked the people who played with my brown/turquoise background challenge.  Make sure you leave me a comment if you played along so I can put your link up there too!)