So lately there have been two main things I've been focusing on.
On the crafty, creative side I've been learning about various methods of transferring an image onto another surface. One method I've tried is simply to print your image onto regular tranparency sheet (like you use for overhead projectors) with an inkjet printer and let the ink dry. Then lay the image onto another surface, and like a rub on decal, use a spoon or popsicle stick to rub the ink onto the surface.
Another idea is to take a photocopy and then use some sort of solvent to transfer that image to something else, but again using elbow grease to rub the image on. Eh, but I don't like most solvents...unhealthy chemicals. So I found out that some people have sometimes successfully used Goo Gone...maybe it's unhealthy to some degree too, but not nearly as bad as xylene. So I tried that with some decent results. But then I read from some Australian site that eucalyptus oil could be used. So I got confused and was thinking that eucalyptus oil and tea tree oil were the same thing...so I tried tea tree oil and found it worked too! (And later read that others have used it as well.) The tea tree oil seemed to work somewhat better than the Goo Gone. And although I haven't tried it, apparently you can use wintergreen oil too for photocopy transfers. Of course, the ink that is used on the photocopy makes a big difference too in how well this will work.
I did this image transfer with a "collage" I made on the computer using a picture of a Victorian woman in a corset and holding a mirror and adding some wings to her. I added the phrase "True Beauty...Is Found Within." The transfer didn't work so well. I was trying the photocopy and Goo Gone method. There were a lot of "swirls" that can't be seen. The face wasn't transferring at all so I put some tea tree oil on the face and so that part is pretty clear now. The rest of the paper was too messed up from rubbing it with a spoon to "save it" by using tea tree oil on the rest of it. Plus, my arms, wrists, and hands were getting tired from holding the paper and rubbing vigorously with a spoon. My left arm and wrist still hurt somewhat even as I type this. But still, I am pretty satisfied with how it turned out. I like it on the rose fabric too.
The other thing I've been focusing on lately is dealing with negative thoughts about my junior high and high school years. This has recently become a necessity because lately just about everyone I know on Facebook and other social websites I belong to is reminiscing about the "good ol' days." And it is not really exaggerating when I say that when they do I have frequently come close to bawling with sorrow or screaming with resentment and rage. It has become hard to remain in denial any longer about how I really felt about those days. I made it through that time perioud by emotionally numbing myself and drowing myself in books.
I know other people had it worse than me back then, but still my own hurt and anger won't be denied anymore. Which is no doubt a good thing. It's time to heal. It may hurt to face it, but it hurts more and slowly poisons me to let it linger...slowly suffocating me as it has over the years. In the past it has always been a dull ache. Bringing it to the surface is sharp and fierce, but facing it is the only way to take it out completely and finally be free of all pain once and for all.
As I transfer images from paper or plastic onto fabric and other surfaces, I think about the images in my mind...the images from high school and junior high school.
I told Asher once that the only way to change the past is to change how you view it. Slowly but surely I am changing how I view my past. So the images transform from something once painful and instead into something that can inspire me and give me strength and courage. Instead of seeing my school years as a time where I was in heartbreaking desolate aloneness, I can instead see myself as safely cocooned until I was ready to start emerging. For honestly, I don't think I was very ready to be engaged socially and otherwise with my peers. And it really probably was kinder for me to not be going to all the parties and dances and proms and other such things when I was so inadequately unprepared for that kind of thing, even though I wished for it and wish for it still.
As I continue to work through the negative thoughts I'm sure I will continue to see the wisdom and find peace in learning and knowing that the way things were then were exactly how they were meant to be in order me to have grown into the very person I am now. My books and imagination fed me and nurtured me during those years. My "numbness" was my "sleep" during that time of "cocooning." And that is a more loving way to view things.
A favorite quote of mine has long been this one by Anais Nin, "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." But sometimes I forget that there was a time that I had to remain tight in a bud, or there never could have been a time to blossom. To everything there is a season.
So I am grateful that something has conspired to have everyone seemingly start reminiscing about that time period all at once. Because it has been a great opportunity to look back at the memories that reside within myself in a new more loving way.
True beauty is found when you search within.
