Extremes

Before anything else, I have to apologize for the poor quality of the photography.  I have been trying every possible approach I can think of...direct sunlight, shaded sunlight, indoors no flash, indoors with flash...all to no avail.  My guess is that there are too many mid-tone reds for the camera to differentiate, so the whole thing is coming out very flat and some of the colors are a little off.  Most importantly, my hand-dyed domino that I made looks like a whole lot of nothing.  In reality it is marbled with wonderful shades of red and makes a very interesting focal point...if only you could see it in real life.  : {

So, about this month's BJP.  My therapist suggested I do a piece on my hidden anger.  I have a tendency to hide my negative emotions, which causes me more problems in the long run.  But I don't express it for fear of permanently alienating the person it's about.  So I hold it in.  Makes for some interesting therapy sessions!  I decided to go ahead and do what she suggested, and I chose all shades of red to depict it.  I used everything from ruby red to brown red, shiny to translucent, cubes, faceted roundels, shell, bugles, glass chips, seed beads and sequins.  And every size I could get my hands on...15's, 11's, 10's, 8's, 6's.  My thinking is that anger comes in many degrees, sometimes it lingers and sometimes it passes in a flash. 

But while I was making this, I couldn't help think about passion also.  Red is a very intense, passionate color too.  And all these extreme emotions were swirling around the center, or the "heart" of the piece.  I had intended on making this a monochromatic piece, but I just couldn't help but add the black.  I was not thinking about the black all that much until it hit me like a brick.  With all these intense emotions going on, my subconscious just had to add "the abyss". 

The abyss is part of my battle with bipolar disorder.  It's what I call the deep depressions that I fall into.  The abyss is like a huge, black, empty mass of nothing that swallows me up and I can't get out.  It's as if I get stuck in it like a tar pit, and I claw and grasp onto anything...nothing...trying to get myself out, and it's just sucking the life out of me.  In trying to describe to people what I was going through to try to make them  understand the helplessness of the depression, I came up with "the abyss".   I sometimes tell my husband that I feel as if I'm slipping and I can see the abyss.  It's a terrible feeling, to say the least.

Then added to that is a little bit of silver...the rays of hope for more normal levels of emotions.  Even the bits of hope, though, are shrouded with red...anger and passion.  A little bit of calmness trying to find it's way through this intensity.

And as I was getting close to finishing I realized what I was creating.  My therapist suggested anger, but what came out was something completely bipolar, which I am.  I went 15 years undiagnosed with this terrible illness, and after having my life fall apart and losing my husband and kids for 2.5 years I am now medicated and relatively stable.  My family is back together and I regularly see my therapist and my psychiatrist, and I take my medications religiously.  But always in my subconscious, as shown in this month's project, is the turmoil that lurks beneath the surface, like a wild animal waiting to be uncaged; the abyss waiting to again swallow me up; the passion waiting to become out of control in a fit of mania.  And right now as I am looking at it more, I see the heart completely encased around the sides in protection against all that is swirling around it.  Maybe I can know that all this is there, it is all within me, but it does not define me and it cannot take my heart with it.

Again, I apologize for the poor quality of the photo.  But, if you want, you can click on it to get a larger view.  I know what I was thinking when I created it, but I am always interested to hear what you see.  Is it different than me?

Extremes
(5"x7")

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.  Oh, btw, if you are on Facebook, click on the link on the right sidebar and look me up!  Would love to have more fellow BJP'ers on my list of friends to keep in contact with!