creativeTherapy: February / A Year in the Life of An Art Journal: Fight

Along with the photography challenges I'm following along with (Scavenger Hunt & Now to Wow), and the Thing A Day challenge for February (and something else coming up for March...), I've been also working in an altered book and following along with two art journal challenges.  Yikes, this seems like a lot, but its all good stuff. 

Two prompts came up at the same time, and I've been trying to get them done.  They were both really difficult and meaningful, hitting me in a vulnerable spot.  I felt like they go together, and so I worked on them simultaneously.  One was past, one was a wish for the future.

From A Year in the Life of an Art Journal:
THE PROMPT: Fight
THE SONG: Breakin' Dishes by Rihanna
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE: Bleach

I used a bleach pen that we normally use to spruce up our grout, and experimented on paint, magazine images, and types of paper.  I wasn't really pleased.  The bleach didn't have much of an impact.  Then I used some black card stock and started writing some heavy words using the bleach that I didn't realize were in me.  Those became the basis of my interpretation of the prompt.  To make a long story short, I used to equate fighting with love.  I've since been taught otherwise, and that has been extremely healing.  But I have a lot of residual feelings that are just as conflictual as equating fighting with love. 

From creativeTherapy: 
What are you (or would you be) giving your children that you wish you’d had?

This was a hard one to start.  Seems like some people have babies easy peasy, and others, its an anguishing process.  I guess I fall in the later category.  I've been thinking a lot about "fairness" and the type of mother I would be, and fertility and being "ready."  Frankly, we are so beyond ready, it hurts.  All I can think to do to be more ready is to be as healthy as possible, to keep dealing with my "stuff", and to spend as much time together and with myself as possible.  But that's only so satisfying. 

A lot of my ideas for this one built on the previous prompt.   I couldn't help but feel like I was sending out a plea to our one-day baby, trying to prove that our home would be warm, and full of love, and that they would be given both lots of support and lots of freedom to grow and learn. 

And a shout out to the elephants:  In my magazine cuttings, I ran across this article about elephants in families, and how they fight, protect, and wander alone, all part of the growing process.  I had to include all these amazing images.