Carol’s day – and Carol had shared with her picture: “I have attached a picture of me about to finish my first half marathon. As a woman and new to running, I feel proud and excited that Kathrine Switzer challenged the all-male marathon in 1967 and allowed for us women to be able to run in half marathons and full marathons today. What an achievement! I’m about to run my first marathon in 5 weeks’ time so I thought this picture was very apt and timely 😊. Running is my mental health therapy and without it I would be a very different person.”
I had a mini “accident” last night, grabbing into an open carpet cutter – no real big deal, just I had cut a bit into the top of my finger and about 5 mm into my finger nail. To prevent my nail to open up further, I found some super glue and put it on … and yesterday during searching for the glitter, I had found some goodwin, which is a kind of play dough drying quickly and you can produce stamps (and of course much more)..
Why I am telling this story is, that this morning I had these two things still on the table and somehow I decided to produce a big stamp and stamp Carol onto the paper a few times, to visualize the movement. So I did it – just in my enthusiasm, I did not think one moment, to stick the dough “up side down”/mirrored to a cardboard – so I ended up with a stamp facing the wrong direction. grrrr….
Trying to “turn” the stamp around, it teared apart and I ended up with two broken stamps … unfortunately, I just captured one (the wrong one for the rest of the story, sorry).
“Nice try, did not work, I better should get going with an empty paper and start over”, were my thoughts – and exactly this was the moment, I heard a voice in my head (btw, talking english) – “Just continue with what you have – yes, there might be obstacles now, but don’t run away, face them!” … so I took the cardboard of the “original” stamp to the atelier and started to work on it (unfortunately again I haven’t taken a photo, but I was quite excited).
And yes, there were obstacles and there were limits – but at some time, I understood, to ignore them or to keep them, if it did not matter.
When I came to paint Carol’s face, I wondered, why it was so hard today, first I thought, because I could not apply my “used” techniques or the remaining of the stamp or again the small brushes, but then I noticed – of course! – I had not sketched the face in before starting!!!
Long story, sharing it in this detail, as it was one of the bigger lessons for me in this project. Don’t give up too early, face it, push boarders and limits, get along with what cannot be changed, if it doesn’t really matter – but don’t forget the basics!!!
And here we are – after a long working day:
Thank you, Carol – thank you for all the lessons – and I wish you are well after your first marathon!
<3 Susanne
update on the next morning:
When I came to the atelier this morning, there was still the stamped version – and it just felt right to integrate into yesterday’s art work as a completion.
