Studio Update: Flowers, sunshine, water and a sprinkle of salt!

For most of the year, I have been working on university assessments for my honours course. Now, it is finally art-making time! I wake up each day to a strong blazing heat and think, “Yes! I can cyanotype today!” It’s been a long time between active cyanotype sessions because of all this rain! La Nina has meant that the rain just keeps coming! The sunshine when it arrives feels like replenishing happiness and joy. A significant part of the process of healing trauma is to feel the tender, warm sunshine touch the body. Then, add in flowers, learning about flowers’ names, symbols and meanings and it’s a recipe for the joy of contemplating the uplifting beauty in this complex, stressful and anxious world. If you add a pinch of salt, and I mean this literally, then you add a galaxy of expanding space and unfathomable brilliance. Splash it with some water and wash it clean by soaking it in crystal-clear wonder and you get magic! This is what the cyanotype process means to me.