Staying Calm During Times of Crisis

Joyful side of alter ego flip doll, with image of myself at age seven-ish. Doll at left has a girl riding a sea turtle on the skirt. Doll at right has altered image of me with sisters and a family friend.

Greetings all! What surreal times we are living in, at least in the US right now. I wonder how you are all doing? Every day seems to bring new challenges, new opportunites to either collapse into fear or frustration or to rise to the challenge. I have found myself in both places off and on over the last days. 

The last post here was about a flip doll workshop that I was excited to share with local followers. Last Thursday afternoon, I was sitting in my studio ready to sort through the wonderful fabrics, embroidery threads, and some enticing new fabrics I had ordered from India to get ready for my alter ego flip doll workshop. Then I got a call from Erin at Halcyon, saying, "hey, Erika, I just came out of a planning meeting and we have decided to put off all events for at least the next month. Do you want to reschedule your workshop to May?" Well, I had just come from a meeting at the Jackson Art Center, where I have my studio and we had decided to put everything off until the fall. No Spring Open Studios, no talks, of which I was going to give one on Flip Dolls, none of that until the fall.

So I said, let's switch it to September. The new date for the Alter Ego Flip Doll workshop is the weekend of September 12 and 13, a Saturday and Sunday. We didn't decide anything about the April self compassion wrap doll workshop but I have a strong feeling that one will be put off as well. Halcyon, as many institutions including schools and art centers are doing, is addressing this one month at a time. 

What are you doing with this unexpected time?

Instead of putting the final touches to my handouts for the Saturday workshop and getting supplies together, here I was on Friday, making a video of myself painting in an altered book.  This has become a daily practice as of late. Below are a couple videos, showing some of the pages I have done so far and also the beginnings of one of the altered pages in process. The videos are a bit rough as of yet. This is one of my missions lately-to learn videotaping and start to offer more videos here, mostly about doll-making but just as a way of trying something different, I am sharing this painting process here. Stay tuned for more videos, hopefully of doll making as well. 

​After I finished this painting, I finished the flip dolls, shown above.

There is something very therapeutic about this way of painting intuitively. It seems to tap into whatever is hovering or maybe lurking under the surface emotionally, waiting to be expressed. 

What got me started on this process is an online class I took in January with Fonda Clark Haight called The Down Deep.  I strongly recommend this class as a way to get your creative juices flowing. She only offers it in the beginning of the year but you can get on the mailing list for next year. 

Here's the second video. It's already about 14 minutes long. Sorry so long. And it stops abruptly. Below is the finished image. This just gives you an idea of my process. 

The finished and as yet, untitled image. I am amazed at how this process is like the Rohrschach, which is a psychological testing technique in which someone is asked to view a series of ink blot images and name this images that they see within the ink blots. Supposedly the answers reveal all sorts of truths about what is going on with that person psychologically. 

So, what's this about? This image probably has a lot to do with the fears that are coming up for me around the corona virus, the uncertainty and all the media coverage of the dangers that we are facing. Perhaps this is an image of the lurking virus? Curious to hear what you see here? 

The video cuts off just when I am starting to talk about these flip dolls. What I was about to say was that the "petulant" side of the flip doll shows two different aspects of one of my inner demons.. Dark times can trigger inner demons, for instance, that greedy, grasping place of not enough.  On the left, a hungry, angry mouth swallows up the joyful image of me, my sisters and a family friend. Someone on my Instagram where I shared this image said, "it looks like she is so jealous of that happy group that she decides to eat them up." Sometimes that demon of not enough can be so strong that even joy is swallowed up. On the right is that same greedy, grasping mood, this time shown in the figure at the top grabbing at the bottom figure's heart, while also grasping at some gifts with her other hand.  

This side of the doll is counteracted by the joyful side, seen in the above images of the other side of the doll. There, in one of the dolls, the little girl on the skirt rides joyfully on her sea turtle companion. On the skirt of the other doll, she participates fully in the companionship and joy of her sisters and friend.

In this crazy corona virus time, as I was saying above, we have the choice of collapsing into ourselves with worry and fear or of rising above it and seeing whatever joy there is available. Joy in having extra time with family members, being home together. Time to rest. Time to experience nature. But not at all to judge the scary feelings and the fears, just to let them coexist with the good. 

Sorry, this was kind of rambly today. Next time I will go back hopefully to my normal kinds of newsletters. I think today I just wanted to say, I am here. I am thinking of all of you. To those of you who were going to come to the workshop today, I am thinking of you too. I hope you consider rejoining in September but I understand if that doesn't fit into your schedule. Hopefully these videos are of interest and maybe they inspire you to do some explorations of your own, 

I'd like to hear what you are up to during these challenging times. What is helping you to stay calm? What are you finding to be therapeutic? 

Love to all!