THE INTRODUCTION
I’ve found creativity to be a wild force. It is something best exhumed from the depths of my imagination and carved, shaped, and developed over time. It is allowed to organically age, and to take a life of its own, to evolve at its own pace.
I’ve learned it is not a tap, with an on and off flow, but an ocean, with a changing tide, ruled by external forces, that always swirls and churns in its own rhythmic pattern. Just like nature, when too much control is applied, it will push back. Yet, when allowed, nourished, accepted, it always tends to bring you up along the shores where you need to go.
Nearly all projects I undertake, follow this motion: briefly cresting to the light of day, then plunging beneath the surface, as I search for new discoveries, see new depths, and, eventually, come to a position of a heightened or more nuanced level of understanding.
More than an effort of sheer generation, I create through collecting, fusing, merging, melding, refining, reflecting, failing, breaking, deleting, editing, and sometimes, starting over again. It is simply a process of returning, with greater curiosity and humility each time.
Which brings me to the point of what you are reading.
This publication, collection, whatever it is and becomes, does not set out to accomplish anything more than allowing this process, and part of my life, a place to breath. Like a cartographer charting the stars while on the open seas, here we’re mapping the journey while on it. The steps, the detours, the fragments, moments, inspirations, and senses of wonderment that come with turning over some stones, leaving others be, and venturing for the sake of exploration itself.
Along the way, some destinations will be met, some meaning may be discovered, but I go without really knowing. Without whole confirmation. Just with the hope that the slow, often solo, often silent tiptoes in some direction, can lay the path for great discoveries and lovely forms of creation.
Thank you for even entertaining the notion of being on this with me. As you read, expect this to evolve, to change, to ebb and flow, to be on course, then off course, reach somewhere, only to depart it.
The truth is, there is never a final destination. But, through it, I will try to explain, I will try to be your guide, and hopefully, it will just be some fun too.
All to be taken with your healthiest dose, and favorite grain of salt.
With my love,
Phoebe