I found my flow on Saturday and I don't want to forget it or how I got there so this is that story

As I talk this into my phone, Lula's dancing. Rhi’s painting. I feel safe and held in their company. Free to be whatever I am in this moment. Free to express any thought that comes to mind.

I found my flow on Saturday and I don't want to forget how I got there. To get myself into the zone I allowed myself to nest around the paper and surround myself by all the options I wanted to experiment playing with. Nesting helps me address the scarcity mindset that plagues my mind through generational trauma. It creates the visual representation of abundance around me which helps me use materials without worrying that I should be using them sparingly.

I started playing, I wanted to use spirographs because I never got to use the spirographs at make your mark and so I got to use all the different shapes and sizes and did a little snake. I didn't realise I was making a snake but was intentionally making a caterpillar/ worm vibe probably because of Rhi being in the same space as me (they love worms) and then that grew and evolved. I then did some tension band exercises and then the tension elastics got covered in ink which stressed me out and made me not want to use them anymore.

Not entirely sure how interesting it is just to see me pulling my hands apart and then back together but I feel like it might be more interesting as an actual performance live so that you can see each mark be made rather than the resulting image. Although the final marks were a nice dark bold mark, the actual force that is put into each mark is what I am exploring.

From that point I focused on fun. I focused on play. I just thought about what was fun to do and I did that. I did spins and lots of pirouettes because I like the marks they make and I like how they feel. And, I just played around with different brushes to see what different marks they made using the paste I created out of activated charcoal powder and baby oil.

Unfortunately, I don't think it was a successful material experiment, I mean, it was in a sense that I got to play, but there's no capacity of building with this charcoal concoction, which severely hindered the depth of this piece. And probably influenced me into using my paint pens more to create more darkness and contrasting lines because everything was starting to be a bit muddy.

I challenged myself to use at least one colour and I ended up using three. First, I was drawn to this teal green that was giving spring blossoms, the start of new life, the bulbs that I’m growing currently. And I'd created a vulva shape by repetitively moving my hands in an oval shape in front of me with the charcoal paste concoction that I then added some green to, highlighting the marks I created with my left hand because that was a focus of this practice piece. After realising how much weaker my left side is I am intentionally using art as a form of rehab to build some strength back into my left arm and back. I kept forcing myself to start making marks with my left hand because I defaulted to my right if I stopped paying attention, which I think is why the whole overall piece looks different to what I usually make. There's some recognizable bits, but my left hand definitely marks differently to my right hand - less control and more chaos and less strength and confidence in the marks.

Lula brought Greccia into the studio which was disrupting but I allowed myself to ignore the presence of the new energy and focus on pushing through the inner critic thoughts that were telling me that what I was doing was pointless and boring and barely inspiring. I battled with my brain through the entire process of creating this piece. The intentions I set were so vague and broad to allow the play to develop new ideas but this was deeply challenging for my brain that likes structure. My mind was racing and I was unsettled for most of it. With it being international women’s day, Spotify had curated a selection of playlists composed entirely of women artists. I didn’t know most of the songs so I picked a playlist at random and let the songs play to see how my body would connect with them. Some made my body groove immediately and others allowed for my brain to dissociate and disconnect from reality as I was taken on a trance.

I was drawn to the orange pastel and as I was rubbing it in a circle into the paper I suddenly felt myself entering the flow state, connected to the music and my body as I felt myself switch into seeing through my hands. Flames started erupting out of the colour I was using and I was transported into embodying a bonfire. I picked up the red pastel and the flames melted out of me as I moved in a repetitive prayer and child’s pose stretching position. I use this position to stretch and release my back which has been suffering a lot recently due to poor posture, a muscular imbalance, and hypermobility leading to me overcompensating for my weak core by anchoring into the hyper extension in my spine for most of my life.

As I was mark making I allowed myself to layer and trace over my marks, letting them evolve and develop in a way I had previously steered away from in other performances in favour of newness. These marks were repetitive, layered, the same energy stemming from the same source but growing in slightly different directions. The depth this technique created gave more importance to some of the marks, pushing them out of the paper and into your face - which I like.

I wonder whether the presence of someone that didn't feel completely safe allowed me to disconnect from reality through dissociation causing me to start performing groundedness for the new energy present in the room, or whether it gave me a contrasting energy that made my internal energy easier to recognise and connect to.

Throughout the creation of this piece I kept fighting the urge to judge sections of it and hypothesize on which part I could cut out and display in my living room. I kept repeating to myself that this entire piece could go in the bin and it wouldn’t matter. What matters is whether I am having fun while creating.

I asked myself: how relaxed could I be in my body right now while I create?

That’s another exercise I’ve been practicing in my day to day - the more aware I’ve become of this exercise the more I’ve realised how tense I am most of the time. Chronically overstimulated and overextending myself in order to do everything my heart desires. The inner battle of my ADHD and Autism with their conflicting needs and a society not built for those with extra neural pathways which makes them process way more sensory input than necessary.

It turns out practising relaxing while I'm doing something is a really really fucking challenging.

An Unalome was born from the heart of the fire which journeyed towards the Phoenix symbol. I still feel like I'm in that first spiral of not really knowing where I'm going but slowly figuring out the right path for me. I have experienced so many rebirths in the last 5 years and I am finally growing strong secure roots as my foundations for existence but it’s required a lot of grieving and letting go which came up while I was drawing. Having Unalomes tattooed on my skin after my trip to Cambodia has kept the concept of the Buddhist path to enlightenment present in my mind.

Multiple different emotions came up while I was drawing - fluid curves that followed my body rolls evolved into a snake symbol that I had hallucinated when I took LSD for the first time. The fear I felt of the snake evaporated when I realised the only way I would conquer that fear was by becoming the powerful snake and embodying the strength I knew I had inside me. As this snake grew it was nice to just allow myself to draw. I don't ever allow myself to draw recognisable things because my inner critic has lots of opinions about how “good” the symbols are but in this moment everything in me was screaming for me to let this snake out so I obliged and poured that energy onto the paper.

It’s interesting to think about how my environment impacts the marks that come out of me. My housemate is an avid birdwatcher and I felt him with me when birds erupted from my hands onto the paper. I saw a performance by Keziah Thomas where she did repetitive circles in the Manchester Art Gallery so I did my own circles on the paper. I remembered how my practice was all about making space to extend to my full wingspan so I stretched along the paper to create some long lines. I traced the outlines of all the objects that were weighing down the paper around the edge as a form of visual grounding.

Throughout my integration time it became very clear to me why I make art. Art allows me to eventually connect to my feelings if I power through the initial fuck about and find out stage.

In order for Chloé to feel her feelings, she needs to fuck around for a bit and just take a piss of out her inner critic and do whatever the fuck she wants. Because at one point, random scribbles and mess and doodles will let her fall into the momentum of flow.

And it sounds like I need to do more drawing and drawing and drawing until I've fallen to the flow moment.

I think it might be interesting for me to do this in an exhibition where I bring myself in whatever state I'm in. I'll feel my emotions and fight myself until I actually enter a state of flow. And then let my emotions guide me until at one point I decide that I'm done, which is what I did today.

It feels like I've actually processed emotion. And I was wearing my “be something unique” jumper that I made for a party where we had to embody our 15 year old selves (I thought I was dead edgy wearing the jumper back in the day) and my old trackies that I've been wearing to deterioration that now have lots of holes in them. I feel very comfortable in my body when I wear these clothes and I wasn't focused at all on what I looked like. But it also felt like I was performing for an empty stadium or that and I'm always performing but on my own. I kind of like that, but also, maybe it takes me out of the moment or maybe it takes me into my body and into the moment, what is being present? I don't really understand it. I try to. Focusing my attention on every mark that I make allows me to practise being present more. I hope that by allowing myself to play more I will become more acquainted with the concept of presence as I find what that feels like for me.

One thing that definitely helped with staying present was being able to snap photos on my digital camera. The ability to take photos without having to use my phone which is full of distractions was a blessing and it reinvigorated my love for the act of photography. I enjoyed being able to create this piece without feeling watched by a camera or an audience. It felt personal and intimate and safe. The final cut out is full of layered energy which I will be mounting onto a wooden frame to turn the flat drawing into a 3D object soon. Below are some photos of the finished drawing in the environment within which it was created as well as the cut out version that I will be keeping.

Stay tuned to find out what happens when I experiment with sealing the piece with PVA glue and mount it onto the frame. I have no idea whether it will work but I'm excited to find out.