Week 10: Experimenting Imperfection
“wonky energy can heal”
Collage, torn New Yorker Magazine paper, 9" x 12"
I might have a new addiction.
I might be powerless over time-lapsed videos of artists making art. Watching a watercolor painting manifest before my eyes in a matter of seconds? I can’t get enough. And I don’t even do watercolors. Yet. (I’m coming for you, Watercolor! Just you wait 42 weeks!)
Alright, “addiction” might be slightly hyperbolic in this instance. But I do have an addictive personality, so it’s probably just a matter of time.
I’m lucky. One day I found myself face down in the toilet forcing myself to throw up all the food I just binged on. It’s hard to be in that position and NOT feel the giant whack from the metaphorical 2x4 saying WAKE UP YOU HAVE SOME SERIOUS WORK TO DO IGNORE IT AT YOUR PERIL. So. Lucky!
“A Family Blooms” by Diana Ejaita @dianaejaita
The New Yorker, June 29, 2020
Some poor saps walk around in the world functioning just fine, eating one slice of cake, drinking one glass of wine. (Who are you people???) But their relationships are out of whack and they have no idea why.
So, YAY, bulimia! Don’t get me wrong. I would never wish it on anyone. That or any other substance addiction. But I’ve done a lot of work and I am light years away from the girl with her face in the toilet. That binging-and-purging girl may have been asleep for decades now, but there’s a reason I still don’t eat cake. Or drink alcohol. I want her to stay asleep.
Perhaps I should give her a name. I’ve considered “Bulimic Betty,” but that sounds at once hilarious and horrific. Binging Betty? Body-dysmorphia Betty? Perhaps I should just go with Addie Addict. That might be more appropriate anyway because the addictions don’t stop with Betty.
You might look at this week’s collage and think she’s addicted to coffee. And you would be right. I’ve had an on-again-off-again love affair with coffee for decades. I was a barista before Atlanta ever heard of Starbucks. I won’t go into the gory details of my relationship with coffee, but let’s just say that I love coffee much more than coffee loves me.
So while I’m still drinking my beloved yerba maté, this week I have gone without my afternoon oat milk latte. And as I’ve been examining myself to see if I still have any other addictions I need to deal with, the oldest and most insidious one rises to the top: addiction to perfection.
I won’t get all psychoanalyze-y about it. Lots of people have written on this subject. Lots of people relate. Yes, it can be a symptom of being an adult child of an alcoholic. Yes, it’s a way to control. Yes, it cripples creativity. Yes, it can be paralyzing.
This week, after scrolling scrolling scrolling—did I mention I’m addicted to my device?—through other artists’ feeds, I decided I would experiment with imperfection.
I’ve seen more than one collage artist do pieces that have just an everyday object floating in a background of torn paper. I’ve been wanting to experiment more with torn paper, and I had a new adhesive I wanted to try. So it felt like a good time to be intentionally imperfect.
Y’all. This straight-A student has four planets in Virgo. Please feel my struggle.
Detail — “wonky energy can heal”
But I think I succeeded. At imperfection. I will confess—this is the first collage I don’t love. (Shhh! Don’t tell it I said that!) It might be a good study for future pieces, but it just didn’t turn out like I wanted.
I kept rolling with it though. The acrylic medium that I tried out as adhesive (Liquitex Basics Acrylic Matt Fluid Medium) was fun to slather. It dries clear, so I could paint the board first, place the paper down, then slather more acrylic medium on top of the paper. It’s faster than the adhesive I’ve been using (Yes! Paste).
But it was also harder to get the paper to lay flat, so the piece is filled with wrinkles. I didn’t really mind that because it adds more texture to the ripped paper pieces. So both the adhesive and the ripped paper allowed me to be less precise. To add to the imperfection, I gave the coffee cup a chip and a crack.
All in all, I liked this experiment, even though sharing this collage with you feels a little like I’m showing my underbelly—which in its current menopausal state makes Betty VERY uncomfortable.
The thing is, I just don’t want these addictions running me. Coffee may not kill me, and I no longer make myself late for meetings by grabbing another espresso on the way, but when my body gives me signals that I need to stop, I need to listen. And I could only start recognizing those signals from my body when I started recovering from my food addiction.
Perfection is a tricky one. It sneaks up on me. I have the feeling it is a by-product of The Patriarchy—a coping mechanism and survival technique that women and others not in power learn to perfect. (Ha ha.) So continuing to peel away the layers of my own addiction to perfection feels crucial.
This collage, however, feels like a failure. Which means I totally aced my experiment in imperfection!
Detail — “wonky energy can heal”
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED CARTOON
made me and Betty laugh out loud.
