A Cyanotype Saturday

 

 

I'm one of those sad people who can't move on from the past and can't share the present. I hoard the present moment to myself like it's a finite resource that I can't afford to give away. Of course, for a time this outlook helped me to keep living, safe and protected from any sort of meaningful connection or criticism that might shatter me, leaving me with even more pieces to try and fit back together.

But in the now, it's a lonely worldview, and it's holding me back from growing as a person. Tonight, I thought about a new favorite song, Stop the Rain by Tablo and RM. The song is about healing, and although the subject matter is dark, I actually feel the most like listening to it on a sunny day when things are going okay, a reminder to myself that it's okay to keep going, to leave the past where it belongs. 

Today was a sunny day and I got off work early, so I took some time to make some cyanotypes that didn't turn out how I'd envisioned them. One I underexposed, another overexposed, and the third just wasn't composed as nicely as I'd wanted, less dramatic.

This left me in a position I find extremely uncomfortable: being happy that I made an imperfect work. A few years ago--maybe even earlier this year--this would have had me crashing out, the perfectionist in me absolutely disgusted that I could produce something so awful to look at. 

But today, the need to punish myself for not making good art mostly wasn't there. I was a little disappointed, sure, but I was still satisfied that I came home, street weeds in hand with a pocket full of trash I'd collected (with my bare hands--yuck), and made the art that my heart urged me to make. 

On my walk home, I admired a neighbor's hibiscus tree, beautiful purple blooms brightening a tall wooden fence, adding some pretty life to a sad sort of life. But I became more interested in what was under the tree: dozens of fallen blooms, unopened and limp from the heat. 

Of course, I took one for my cyanotype, and opened it up so that it resembled, in my view, a small butterfly. The stigma, dreamy with pollen, looked like a fuzzy little abdomen, and the petals opened up to two useless wings. 

Even that tree, who put out beautiful things by its very nature, dropped dozens of blooms before it nurtured the flowers that had stopped me on my walk. That makes me think that maybe it's okay if all of my art isn't beautiful. And I like to believe that I helped one of those fallen flowers look pretty even after it was fated to be a failure. One day, maybe I could get help like that.  

I got the urge to give the earth something back for the wildflowers I'd taken, and it felt strange to take bits of trash and leave others. So when I was done, I collected about a garbage bag's worth of trash from the block by my house. I hope that through my art, I can become a better person in some small ways. It's no big deal to collect trash, but on a scalding hot day with the sun out, I felt like I took a small step toward that. 

Throughout,  I used the Canon Snappy that my cousin sent me to document my artistic process in a slower way. I have so many rolls of film to develop, but I hope that this adds a little depth to my life, a record of a time of healing that I forget about so quickly, memories wilting like a flower in the hot sun almost as soon as they form. 

About twenty minutes after I finished my prints, the clouds darkened definitively (having moved between overcast and bright sun) and a summer shower fell. It seemed fitting that as I was feeling such a mix of emotions, the rain came back. It always does. And as if it were an omen, I didn't do anything else with my day but lie in bed.