Looking Back
and moving on
Throughout 2024 I was frustrated by false starts and fractured attention when it came to creative projects. There were a variety of reasons, but it doesn’t matter now. I accomplished one major drawing, a commission, the Abraxian Cosmogram for Gryphon, or Galahad Eridanus. Something that I thought might take a few months, ended up taking about a year, and the prospect of personal projects wasn’t even on the table. It felt like being purposefully derailed, falling off the path and being in the swamp. But things are changing.
With spring around the corner, we’re finally able to take the leap and move into our house in rural Bulgaria. All winter we’ve been bunked down in an apartment in the city. I’ve found that it’s difficult to relay to American friends and family how unreliable things can be here, which is a big part of why we had to wait so long to move in, despite buying it months ago.
Moving with a toddler, in winter, into a house with no heat, no internet, where mail is not delivered, the roads are unplowed, and there needs to be some major renovations done, away from a real town, didn’t seem wise. Much of the regularity and convenience that I used to take for granted does not exist here. Particularly outside of the big cities. So, we’re subject to the seasons and the weather, and looking forward to the quiet. Within a few weeks we’ll be fully moved in.
Since Christmas I’ve begun digging out those personal projects that were on the back burner for the last year or more. Revisiting sketchbooks, toying with small drawings, trying out a bit of this and a bit of that. Creative play, which is both freeing in that I have no expectations, and frustrating in that I want to rush into a huge project that I can sink my teeth into. I haven’t been able to do that in a few years, with moving between continents, international marriage and having a baby. I’m itching to dive completely into something, and it seems almost possible again.
We’ll be busy getting settled at the house and fixing things up for months, I’m sure. Those ideas will have to incubate a bit longer, which is probably good, with my tendency to get over excited and start something that isn’t quite there. So it’s just practice for now, getting reacquainted.
The last (and only) time I really dug into a big project it spanned several years, and from the time I began to the time it ended my whole life had transformed. Everything was different, and I credit the creative process that bled over from the paper into every aspect of life.
With the Genesis Series that I started in 2018 the question I was confronting was: Can I step back into the Christian dream? Is it living and breathing on a deeper level, and how can I attempt to connect to that and see what’s there?
The result was a stumbling, experimental approach that was reaching beyond my pay grade. Nonetheless, it was fundamentally transformational, and much more about the process than the end result. I’m going to attempt to flesh that out in future posts, because I think there’s meaning in it that escaped me at the time, something vital that was acted out first without being understood on a more conscious level.
While I get my feet on the ground and make space for both work and quiet it seems important somehow to reflect on how I got here in the first place. That I did find what I was looking for, or rather, that it found me, and things are never what you expect or imagine.
For now, I’ll just share that series of drawings here, as most of my subscribers on Substack probably haven’t seen it before. It’s almost hard to share these, because what I’m doing has changed so much in the meantime, but it’s where everything really started. Thanks for looking.
Prints can be found at my website, mudhutillustration.com
You know...I don't even have the words to adequately describe the power of impact Your artwork conveys. WOW!!! Dare I even call Myself an artist? And how You describe the relationship between Your creativity and the unfolding of Your life. You have taken My breath away.
ꅐꂦꅐ ꍏꅐꏂꌚꂦꎭꏂ