I am not a scientist, or a psychologist

So I have no answers, only thoughts and questions. 

 

Dec 2012

I am intrigued to see on TV news, at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre,  

a lady called Jan Scheuermann, paralysed from the neck down, feed herself chocolate using a robotic arm controlled by her thoughts. 

 

2013, 2014

This mind-blowing news leads me to reflect on thoughts. 

How powerful our thoughts, our minds must be! And I suppose electrical in nature if they can mobilise a machine? 

But where do thoughts really come from?  

And what about thoughts in our conscious and subconscious mental states? Do they differ?

I find myself wanting to represent my thoughts on paper, using Sumie (Japanese ink painting) techniques. 

 

I have been working with aluminium leaf and decide to use it to represent our conscious state of mind. 

I choose to use copper leaf to represent our subconscious. 

I apply them as 'blobs' on kinwashi, highly textured Japanese linen paper, and use Sumie ink lines to represent thought. 

 

Thoughts go through my mind, they take shape in works I name Veiled, Yin, Yang, Yang Yang, Empty

 

Are we often unaware of what effects our subconscious has on us? Is it often Veiled? 

With conscious thought, in Yin, Yang, Yang Yang, do we achieve control of our conscious and subconscious? Control of our minds?  

Is it possible to achieve Empty where thought does not exist? Is this a desirable state to be in? 

 

I collectively call my works Lose Your Mind. I wonder how to continue. 

Many months pass, I come across people with problems, problems we face in everyday life. Some feel angry, some feel anxious, some feel depressed.  

Some seem to cope better than others, why is this?

What I sense they have in common, is fear.

 

I write in ink what I feel. 

lose your mind, lose your thoughts, free your mind, relax, just lose it and you find peace? What’s your fear, what’s your fear, lose your mind, lose it, 

lose the fear, find the peace, find the love

layers of my mind, you are my peace, you are my solace, my refuge, you are the layers of my mind

 

I meet up with singer songwriter Sarah Hacking-Brian. She responds to my work with Hollow Winter.

 

I paint Wise Woman referred to in Sarah's song. 

I paint a huge copper leaf work and call it Lose Your Fear 

 

Lose Your Mind will become an installation to create a space for reflection and contemplation, a place where thoughts exist. 

I see a wall of faces.........