Unfinished work, 2009
I just found this photo of a painting from 2009 that I never finished and most likely discarded. Apparently it’s an egg demon with roots that has pooped itself. It made me laugh when I rediscovered it.
Unfinished work from 2009
Category: ALL POSTS
The sensuality of painting
Portrait of me, made by a fan
My body is all tingly. To paint is to create new life. It excites me. Brushstrokes are like colored breaths. Dipping a dirty brush in the water – see how the paint dissolves like smoke just beneath the surface. Dancing with lines. Hiding in the space between them. Messy hands, covered in paint. White. Pink. Prussian blue. Skin. The scent of nuances without a name. Shadow-less time. The stillness of the studio. Rough strokes with the brush like scratching, wanting to tear into the life inside the canvas. I am soon there. Inside it – but bringing it out. Exposing it. My nature, in a thousand layers of paint.
… so is Mozart
The morning palette
Coffee is part of the palette when you are painting in the morning. Everybody knows that.
Real|unreal
My first self portrait, 1995 (at the age of 16)
Allt som flyter
Jag är fylld av längtan. En rå och svullen längtan som smeker min insida, tränger ut allt smärtsamt. Allt det torra, vissna.
De dolda verkligheterna innanför mitt sköra medvetande står för tillfället vidöppna. Där glider fantasierna in och ut ur varandra, tunna och glashala men varma som morgonljuset. De skiftar med skuggans hastighet, tickar nästan – letar sig igenom det dolda med obefintligt tuggmotstånd. Jag är upplöst. Men så beständig i min form. Fri.
Rörlig i allt som flyter runt.
Runt.
Innanför min synliga värld.
Den här känslan av längtan och kärlek. Att vara uppfylld.
Översättning saknas.
Tomma bildspel. Hemligt för alla utom mig själv. Verklighet efter verklighet utplånas av känslan, växer sig starkare, dör vid andetagets slut, återföds med nästa. Detta är bara ett fragment. En flisa. Av något ofattbart stort som bara växer.
Sunday night doodle
There is nothing but an ocean between us. Nothing more than waves of longing.
This:
Dido – Thank You [ Acoustic ]
Penguin Prison – Don’t Fuck With My Money
There’s some serious dancing to this song while painting right now…
Back to work!
The morning light
Spending the morning in bed with Ingmar Bergman and a thousand glowing butterflies inside.
The morning sun is a beautiful intruder in my bed, casting a warm light over my body. I love the morning hours. That’s when I feel the most connected to myself. Where I can listen to my inside like putting a seashell close to my ear to listen to the wind that doesn’t even exist but somehow is trapped inside its own silence. Every morning we are reborn into a world that looks the same but always is slightly different. When we go to bed it has changed us a little too. The day is both adding and tearing down layers of our own reality. Life is elastic and alive like a breathing entity. If I reach out my hand in this morning light, I break the stillness but at the same time it finds a way to get inside me and for a second we are one and the same. We are soon interrupted by he clouds and the seconds of constant changing shadows in my mind.
Lord Huron – Fool For Love
I love this song.
Turning shame into pride
This week has been really intense. I’m in this new place where everything is finally starting to come together. My life has been really fragmented for so long, but now it’s like all the pieces are finding their way back to create a more solid shape. There are still some cracks and gaps to fill, but it’s just a matter of time until I find whatever is missing.
I am really happy I made so much research about shame, vulnerability and fear of failure/success, because they were all tangled up together inside me – one thing fed the other in a very destructive way. I feel so liberated. Where I used to feel shame, I now feel a sense of pride. I had lost the joy of looking at my own art – it made me embarrassed and uncomfortable. But now I feel very connected to my artworks and I feel happy looking at them. During the years of blockages and artistic drought, the characters in my art turned into my enemies. They were never as perfect as I wanted them to be. Not expressive enough. Not as alive as I wished they could be. My art made me frustrated. It pissed me off. Made me depressed. I don’t see it like that anymore. I feel really proud of what my mind, eyes, hands and soul can create together. I try to not judge it and to let it be whatever it is without wanting it to be more than it is; more perfect, more expressive, cooler, more playful, creative or more intellectual. It is what it is and I created it, it is part of me. It is something to be proud about. It is the part of me that makes me really special. I will try to remember that more.
The new painting (still without a title) is sitting on the easel in my studio right now and I am in love with it. I can’t wait to work on it tomorrow again. I’ve missed this feeling of love and intoxication in the first stages of making a painting (before you feel done with it and start thinking about the next project).
Black on black
This whole day has been wrapped in a suffocating darkness. More terror attacks in Europe, this time in Brussels again. I’m working so hard to make my own little world feel safe and protected – but outside myself the world is slowly falling apart, at least the world as I once knew it. Hate is leaking out of it. Fear too. There’s an absence of love. Empathy. And humanity.
I spent the day studying art and learning about different painting techniques when it comes to do black on black. I want to make the black background of my painting come alive with textures and many nuances of black. I will go back to painting later tonight. But I can’t shake the feeling of terror off.
I am making artworks based on horror. Fear, rage and helplessness are such a big part of my work. Now it feels even more important for me to deal with it through my creativity – and to share it with other people through my art. I’m trying to make something beautiful out of the dark matter of humanity – I refuse to let it stay black on black without finding some nuances of light inside it – without seeing some texture of hope and comfort. That’s what I’m looking for when I’m studying painting techniques today. Or perhaps that’s what I’m looking for in the broken world outside the walls of my studio.
Day 1
Work in progress
It’s the first day of my new journey where my creativity is the main focus. I’ve been painting again for the first time in a very long time. All the hard work I’ve put into my self-empowerment has paid off. The anxiety is gone. It was there whenever I stood in front of the easel for over 6 years. Today it felt smooth and easy to paint. I wasn’t scared, I didn’t feel any pressure and my mojo created that sweet flow I’ve been longing for. I started with the face, like I always do. For the first time I gave my Lolita demon green eyes, the same shade as mine. Perhaps my art will be more personal from now on. I feel so much closer to myself now. More connected. I’m sure it will be visible in my future creative projects as well.
I tried to create time blocks so I could practice self-discipline and focus without distractions. One hour at a time, where I’m totally focused on what I’m doing – no multi tasking, no looking at my phone or talking to other people. After an intense hour I take a little break and then go back for another hour of intense painting. I think it will work.
I’m so drained. My eyes hurt. I will rest now and continue painting tomorrow.
I feel really happy.
Work in progress
This is the best way to spend my birthday!
Yann Tiersen – La Fenêtre
The soundtrack of my heart today
My rebirthday
A birthday gift from another digital artist, Ilaria Novelli, – it’s me as the love Goddess Aphrodite
It’s my birthday and my bedroom is like a box filled with the silvery light of this spring morning. The world outside is just as ready as I am to burst with color and light. I feel in sync with life. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way. My private nature aligned with nature itself.
Today is my day, but it’s more than that. Today I start a new journey as an artist. What a great day – my rebirthday.
Focus
I am finally out of the fog. From now on, my focus will be on my art and I will go back to painting again. I feel ready, I really do. I’ve spent the last 6 months preparing for this moment and I’ve been working hard to erase distractions, fear, self-doubt, shame, self-deception and warped self-images. I have a clear idea of who I am as an artist and what I want to achieve. And I’m gonna have fun while doing it! I feel excited and all tingly inside. Now I have to protect my creativity with a new unwavering commitment to self-discipline and focus. I’ve worked so hard to be able to reach this point and have all I need for my comeback as a painter.
The grey fog of PMDD
It is the second day of slipping in and out of various dark holes. The monthly attack of the obscure hormones of PMDD happened again last night. It’s a terrifying reality inside reality for some women, like myself. But few women talk about it and practically nobody knows it even exists. It’s like PMS but with the emotional rollercoaster ride of the bipolar disorder and the sadness of pure grief. Even if it only lasts a few days every month, when it goes away you are left with the consequences of alienation and days of unproductiveness. And the feelings of shame and confusion.
It hits you during the time of ovulation. One minute you are fine – and the next you are falling down a deep and dark rabbit hole to a wonderland of hopelessness, covered in a thick, suffocating fog. Suddenly you are not able to relate to your world of familiar things, the people you love and your own positive feelings. The things you hold dear loses its colors and suddenly you can’t remember why you ever liked them. You can’t distinguish love from fear. Love is a faraway land and you’ve lost the map to get there. The food taste like dirt. You crave silence but if it’s broken, you feel hostile and confused. Every sound is threatening. A stab wound in your mind. Of course it’s a perfect disposition for arguments and conflicts. It’s like that horror movie cliché where a woman is caught in a cobweb and she’s trying to get out but only making herself more entangled in the sticky net. And the fog is closing in, surrounding you, locking you inside it while you’re fighting to get disentangled from the spider’s web.
Finally, you are so deep into the fog, so caught in the web that the only thing you you are able hear is your own breaths. You are there, in the world, and the hormones are spreading like a poison in your veins but nobody can see this isolation, the entrapment or the fog. Only you. Panic. And desperation. A conflict of consciousness. Two realities meshing, colliding, feeding off each other, destroying one another – melting and tearing at each other. Like two overlapping films, burning and melting into one distorted collection of sequences.
After a few days, the fog lightens and then it’s suddenly gone. You are disentangled from the web. The air is clear and you can breathe without inhaling fear. You can speak without chocking on the words as if they are swollen and doesn’t fit your throat. Your mind is open. Until next month of course, when the whole nightmare will repeat itself again.
The dark corner of womanhood is natural but feels so otherworldly. We shouldn’t have to feel shame on top of the struggle some of us are facing every month. It’s hard to reach us when we are lost in the fog, but it’s even harder for us to reach out and feel the lightness of reality.
Getting naked
I’m currently studying professor and researcher Brené Brown’s books about vulnerability and it’s the perfect inspiration for me right now – you know when you hear the right things at the right time, said in the right way so you absorb it all and something suddenly shifts inside you? That’s how it feels. For someone who is all about authenticity and the rawness of the real and true nature of the inside, vulnerability is both one of my biggest assets and at the same time something that turns me into an easy prey for emotional vampires or abusive people. Vulnerability is a beautiful resource that I use in my art and writing, but it’s also my Achilles heel. People love to witness authentic art, acting, writing – when it comes from an honest place, a place we all can relate to, far away from pretentiousness and perfection. A place where human nature is exposed and celebrated – where nothing follows an expectation or an ideal. The most popular TED talks are the ones where the speakers aren’t following a particular structure in their talks, but where they are being real and speak from their hearts.
Brené Brown talks about being brave enough to just show up at the “arena”. To put yourself out there – letting yourself be seen for who you are and to speak from that place of imperfection and truth. One of the biggest myths about vulnerability is that it is a weakness. To be out there, feeling vulnerable and “naked” when you are being real and honest is to be brave and courageous. There is nothing weak with being brave enough to expose yourself to potential criticism or getting your ass kicked just because you had the audacity to show up at the arena in the first place. When you are brave enough to put yourself out there, it will always be provocative to some people. You WILL get your ass kicked. You will feel naked and exposed, but at least you have the guts to do it. The critics are comfortable in their cheap seats while you are in the uncomfortable position in the spotlight. Their judgments and opinions shouldn’t matter because they are not being brave and vulnerable like you.
A selfie from 2014, being vulnerable at the “arena” and letting myself be seen
I have made a lot of mistakes when it comes to my vulnerability. I’ve wasted it on the wrong people who didn’t see the value of it and who didn’t appreciate it but rather neglected it. I’ve made myself vulnerable in the wrong situations where the people didn’t deserve to be a witness to it. I’ve been emotionally naked in places where it was inappropriate. I’ve not understood the true nature of vulnerability and how it’s connected to other difficult emotions like shame and guilt. I’ve exposed my vulnerability to emotional vampires who just feeds of it like it’s fresh blood while they’re leaving me feeling drained and weak.
I can see that my “creativity blockage” happened in a time where I felt vulnerable I every area of my life and it triggered so much shame in me that it was impossible for me to distinguish the strength of being vulnerable and the excruciating pain of being vulnerable in the wrong place. So I just started to avoid the vulnerabilities that I actually could avoid and unfortunately it was my art and creativity that suffered from this confusion and survival strategy.
But now I am here, in a completely new place. After so many years of loss and being lost, I feel found and at peace. I still have some obstacles to overcome until I have reclaimed all the things I once lost, but at least I am working hard to get there and I am constantly moving forward.
I am slowly getting naked in front of myself. I was so used to being exposed and vulnerable to the world that I forgot about myself as the main audience. To let myself be seen by myself means to let go of the constant need to feel seen by others – and ironically it makes it easier for other people to see me as well. There’s a clarity to vulnerability. This has changed my art a lot. It’s more personal now with a deeper sense of a private mythology. I think it will change the expression of my future paintings too. Now I dare to be even more raw and visually clear in my expressions. Simplicity in the complexities of human emotions. That’s it. That’s what I’m all about.
This spiritual striptease is a little scary but so wonderful at the same time. Brené Brown will guide me on this journey to understanding the nature of vulnerability and how I am to use it in the correct way, where it is only a resource and not an invitation to other people’s abuse or the rabbit hole to self-abandonment.
“The Perfect Rock” interpreted by the Google Deep Dream Generator
This is trippy! Here is my latest work “The Perfect Rock” interpreted by the Google Deep Dream Generator!
MIA MAKILA 