(Above: Water-colour heart sketch "emotions of the heart")
Starting work on any project, questions quickly arrive in abundance but as there’s only me in the studio working, there’s only me to answer PLUS there’s no-one to disagree! So in thinking of the 2013 heart a week ago, another Anger-related QUESTION ... what is at the ‘heart of the matter’ … is it LOVE? ... because like many emotions, apart from originating in the mind, they are equally linked to the heart. With these thoughts, some quick sketches (one above) along with more QUESTIONS … what usually makes someone angry? - their love of something or someone & how it is being altered? … maybe in a manner they are unable to change or stop &/or a frustration they are unable to control?
This question &/or answer scenario often helps provide direction to my work & as I’m usually thinking whilst drawing or working, will often find answers come about from whatever I’m actively doing - a type of ‘instinct’ I suppose. (From a young age, I have possessed a very photographic memory & find that as I work, thoughts run through something resembling a slide-show of imagery as I make visual connections to patterns or colours as a thought is considered. The correct vision is felt as a ‘gut-feel’ & it’s usually this that takes me a step forward.) When this doesn’t happen as a result of ‘lack of specific information’, this usually then gets researched for more detailed knowledge.
This is especially true when using the Internet - it’s so much faster to obtain specific &/or detailed information. The computer research displaying on-line, concluded that was basically anger always has a reason & in its extreme, the cause is often a feeling of frustration that is unable of being adequately expressed. Everyone can get angry but when it overtakes other emotions & spirals out-of-control, it becomes dangerous & usually results in physical &/or emotional damage to other people as well as objects in the path! And it’s a ‘sequence of thoughts’ that invariably has the most dramatic & devastating effect on all the people involved - their relationships, their work as well as their day-to-day existence. And it was this emotive effect I wanted to capture … that progression of emotions displayed by the person who is primarily “angry” & the effect it has on themselves as well as any “intended victim(s)”.
Over the years, I’ve also had first-hand experiences of being with people recognised as “extremely angry” for one reason or another so felt this information could be used too. Comparing their actions together with the researched information & how it made me feel, it became easier to understand & actually “feel” the particular emotions being discovered or felt & thought this should be included too. By now it felt more important to depict specific emotions & somehow display them in an almost tactile way - not just as a thought but how it physically appeared within a situation. QUESTION … could I perhaps show that as emotions increase & spiral, they can progress with such devastating effect but also could it also portray what is happening & how quickly it can change?
