Intricate Me 2008

In 2008 I did this self-portrait of who I am. I am intricate, complex and layered.

I often look back on this ink pen drawing in my visual diary and fall in love with the detail of the lines all over again.

Today, I had a full on day at work.  It was emotional and painful for me on a deep deep level; a depth that I find very difficult to express in words and to be honest I do not want to use language to go into the internal image of what happened inside me today.

Yet, today’s experience in ‘Selina’s World’ gave me pause for truly deep personal reflection on the complexities of who I am and how I relate and interact with other people in the world.

This drawing, this expression of who I am on the inside came into my mind’s eye and I decided to share it with you as a new way of connecting from one human being to another.

Without art to express myself, to externalise what is happening for me and inside me… I just do not know how I would cope some days.

Art is my healer, my lover, my guidance in life.  She is my muse and my tormentor.  That which I have trouble articulating to the world is represented on the page, the canvas and allowed to come to life to share with others in the hope that a deep personal interconnection and understanding can pass between myself and the viewer…

I believe that we are all complex beings and that people we interact with on a daily basis only see the smallest sliver of who we are.  At any one time, in my observation, we human beings intersect for brief interactions and think, to some degree, that we know the other person.  But how can we know another person when we hardly know the depths of ourselves?

I think this image sums up how I feel today… intricate and so much more than the eye can see.