I am continually blown away by the creative process! There have been so many works that just pop out of me of which I was not expecting or planning to do. These just seem to unfold out of thin air and for this I am truly grateful. Yellow Box is one of these works.
For the past year I have been exploring and creating abstract comics. In have also been playing with forms of packaging for quite a number of years and I was particularly thinking about abstract packaging as of late.
After just finishing a few packaging related pieces and on an unexpected day off from a Saturday work day I decided to redraw in Adobe Illustrator a little wonky looking drawing of an opened and flattened box, not really knowing what I was going to do with it.
Right away it seemed to me that it was animated, moving and telling me something. This box is pretty much how you see it in the second panel of the comic. I quickly copied it and rotated it and put it beside(3rd panel). It
was moving.
The idea of a discarded box blowing, flying in the air was there, then at one point it looked like a kite, which then brought in the rest of the pieces such as the string, tape and the little ribbon thingys you see on classic kite images. My ribbons are more like feathers though.
Now, it's interesting, that the first panel was the last one conceived. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th panels were all done in sequence as you see here except that in the 4th panel, at the forward end of the string where the 'bird' is, I had originally had the X from the second panel repeated. This was all fine until I completed the comic by creating the 1st panel and then looked at the whole thing again.
I saw that the image/idea of the X was fine in the 3rd panel but in the 4th panel I felt that I was bothered that the box was still being pulled/guided by this X. Then in a stroke of inspiration this X turned into a bird and by doing so magically transformed this otherwise plain sequential strip into something meaningful. For me it was as if a switch was turned on and there was a whole layer of meaning that I had not seen while creating it. Yeah it's kinda corny, but I'm an emotional guy and I was literally swept up in this Holy flood of tears. It was just so beautiful, transformative and I guess that personal.
I find it interesting that I fumble along and I create this. Where did it come from? From outside of me or from the inside of me? Perhaps a fusion of both with my hands in the middle. I do believe that I am a channellor of sorts as I have witnessed this in other works of mine. This comic is also unlike most of my work.
I may not find out the answer to this, but I do know that this comic really lifted my spirits and also made me thankful that I did not have to go to work that Saturday. I also know that if I had re-drawn that box sketch on any other day, I would have had either nothing more than a sketched out flattened box or quite possibly some other Fantastic piece of art. The feelings and connections on any other day would have been completely different.
*******
On another cosmic note.
Not that I was trying to do so, but it has been exactly 1 year since my previous post. Exactly.!?
Cycles.
What have I been doing?
Well, simply, about 200 new works, depending on the importance that I want to put on them and depending upon what constitutes a new work. I just can't put everything up, nor do I have the time for it all.
So, in the following posts, you will see new work or you will see some not-so-new work. In my world, it really does not matter.
