yir 2022

(My Art) Year in Review 2022

Here it is again (third year now!) a review of my favorite drawings from 2022.

My practice is self-taught and I do it for myself, for self-expression, for fun. Some drawings I really like, that’s why they are here.

All drawings are on paper with watercolor and ink and some have bits of collage paper on paper.

From 25 January, the note on the back of the drawing says “Échale miedo al fuego” (Throw your fears into the fire). I suspect after discovering the song, I made the drawing. Here’s the song, it’s beautiful and up-lifting “Échale miedo al fuego”.

Continuing the introspective theme, “Free, safe and powerful” is a personal mantra to help me through difficult moments that I have used for more than 10 years. Finally, I also have a visual cue.

Surfing the ocean of emotions and relationships

Why do all this inner work? To improve my ability to surf the ocean of human emotions and relationships.

Pausing to look at the past year, I notice a pattern of some deep and profound soul work, or soul deep see diving!

My art serves me as reminders or sign posts for my objectives, or my tools, like these previous drawings. It also helps me to process and understand things I am going through.

This drawing (Blablabla) helped me understand an unstable and difficult relationship I have.

I never know how the other person is going to be: in a good or bad mood, patient and understanding or tired and frustrated. I have never had a work relationship like this before.

My clown energy responds: “Yippeee, it’s about time, wouldn’t you say?” Yes, I suppose, plus I have learned over the years, that not always, but sometimes, a messy painful tangle like this can be a great gift.

Working on the drawing, I realized that this person and my mother have similar tendencies in how they relate to me. That discovery gave me a smidgen more peace about my relationship with my mother and a boost of empathy for the other person.

This year, I started a meditation practice where I accompanied my younger self through painful memories but buffered first by meditations on gratitude, and followed by soothing work. It has been a powerful and delightful practice.

And another discovery: my inner child is OK, sure she needs special attention, but it’s my inner teen/young person who is stuck in a trap of false beliefs and twisted realities. Here she is reading. Books and studying were her escape device from the (what seemed like boring) day-to-day reality and a way of planning: day-dreaming.

In getting to know my inner young person, I also am growing acquainted with my fierce, yet tender, inner Mama Bear.

What have I found in my inner world in 2022? What messages are trying to surface through my art?

Let time be time, don’t push, try to flow. Be in compassionate contact with my clown energy, and all the other various characters of my inner landscape.

My favorite drawing of all this year, but it’s not because I like others a lot too.

I asked myself, what is core to the person I am, have been and will become? And I came up with, not surprisingly, my biological family and chosen family, commitment to nonviolent social struggle, connection to my clown, nature connection, meditation and shadow work/personal acceptance. I left one circle empty as a way to creating space to continue to grow.