Scrap Artist

A Life in Three Halves Between Motherhood, Midwifery and Art. 

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"The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don't see."

-James Baldwin

discarded art by J.J.

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I assert and maintain that things should have been different. What did help me get through were daily, minute gestures of tenderness in the midst of loathsome feelings toward just about everything. Of what I might now call agapic love, which involved finding opportunities to situate myself in those terrible moments and responding to what was there with whatever amount of care I could muster.

-Jessica Dore

painting by J.J.

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Grief is also a spectrum

painting by J.J.

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There are probably a lot of good rebuttals to this idea that the human psyche is akin to a tupperware container or deep freezer inside of which memories are stored where they retain their essence until we have the capacity to retrieve them, presumably with the help of an expert. But when I was in the thick of acute grief you couldn't tell me a thing about post-structuralism or critical theory or any theory of reality aside from what felt real enough to hold onto. Those mixed up disoriented days call for poetry, not accuracy.

- Jessica Dore

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What if - instead of beating ourselves up for the things we do over and over again that we wish we didn't - we saw it as the creation of ritual to mark & return to emotional experiences that are sacred to us. This way, maybe we could see more clearly why we do what we do before we start in with the judgments. We could call ourselves lovers of beauty, of deep emotional resonance, simply trying to recall some sacred feeling. And then maybe we could start to explore other ways to recall that, new rituals.

- Jessica Dore

painting detail by J.J.

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They wouldn't be artists if they didn't decide for themselves what was right for them and what wasn't. Full responsibility ahead! If things go wrong, it was no one else's fault

paint sketches by J.J.

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We make art to connect.

To others. To memory. To ceremony.

To the earth. To water. To the deep fire within. To our own energy, in the wings, waiting

We make art to connect to life

- Victoria Erickson

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Reverence

from J.J.‘s sketchbook

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Look at your art and ask yourself: If I took all judgement away, what would still be true about it?

Journal entry 21/3/24

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Journal 19/3/24

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Journal entry 18/3/24

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Art journal by J.J.

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Learning never exhausts the mind

-Leodardo da Vinci

book doodle by J.J.

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Happiness is achieved only when the beloved becomes a permanently inherent element of one’s own being

- Hannah Arend (Love and Saint Augustine)

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Force of Life

Defining the intention of our heart's desire we discover the Force of Life

- Natasa Pantovic Nuit (Art of 4 Elements)

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Masons, when they start upon a building, are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points, secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job's done

Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall confident that we have built our wall

- Seamus Heaney (Scaffolding)

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note to self: block out the noise, stay focused and keep getting better

from J.J.’s sketchbook