Day in the life of Artist Michelle Rodrigues

TRUSTING THE PROCESS (Self Portrait)

Graphite and acrylic paint on cardboard, May 2020

What I am noticing...

I am noticing a still pond of calm within me to draw from; without the incessant voice of society up in my face; the continual questioning and demanding that I should demonstrate my participation in a very prescriptive (and ultimately life-limiting) way.

IMMISCIBLE, Digital photo, April 2020

A film of oil sits along the surface edge of a still pond in Richmond Park, while soft rain causes small ripples to dance.

I have been aware that my experience of social isolation during the Covid-19 lockdown has been quite different from the majority of people I have encountered.  As highly sensitive and introverted person, I am experiencing this time alone with myself and my teenaged children as a moment of retreat, respite; a rare, liberating opportunity.  It feels like a precious moment to take stock of life, to allow complex feelings to surface and to reconfigure relationships – with time, with others, with purpose and with myself.

CHASING THE SUNLIGHT

Vegetable seedlings for my balcony garden, April 2020

I am noticing the impact that this new relationship with time is having on my wellbeing.  I feel like I’ve become unshackled from the clock; allowing my body to take the rest it needs, when it needs it – without the usual anxiety of feeling scrutinised and branded irresponsible or feckless for living at the pace needed. 

Even though I live with the pain and fatigue that accompanies Fibromyalgia, up until now, I have had an uneasy relationship with yielding to my body and giving myself permission to rest. 

Partly, it’s the noise of blame culture we live in; the culture that individualises my health issues, suggesting that I am the one at fault.  I’ve lost count of all of the unsolicited “helpful” suggestions that I could fix myself if I just did more.  I should be doing more with weight loss, exercise, diet, CBT, breathing, Pilates, pacing, physio, stretching, the list goes on… additions to an already overburdened way of living. But not once has anyone helpfully suggested that cutting ties with the incessant demands of our toxic societal infrastructure might be the most crucial part of the solution towards wellness.

This new relationship with rest has meant that I have been able to enter into a deeper communion and cohesion with divergent aspects of myself.  Aspects that I often feel pressurised to sever from or hide behind a mask. 

I am dreaming more, I am feeling more, I am processing more; writing, seeing, creating, cultivating more. 

I am grieving more, and finding more joy in the simplest of places.  And, unexpectedly, I feel more connected.  There have been more opportunities to engage in meaningful wider connection – as online offerings have made taking part more accessible, without the energy drain of travel and social anxiety.   In so many respects, these past few weeks I have been feeling like I am living more fully; inhabiting myself more completely. 

While I am not suggesting that the extreme separation of lockdown conditions is in itself desirable or tenable as a sustained state of being; the paradox of the situation is that I am at last feeling more in my own command of my time, my energy and my life force.  It’s really changed the way I feel about myself and how I show up in the world.

Here, in the pause of a globe on lockdown, I am not anxiously biding time.  I am not waiting for the resuming of external demands and busyness to define me.  Nor am I waiting impatiently to re-enter back into “normality”.

What has been long held as the pinnacle of normality and functionality is so utterly skewed and dysfunctional – primarily because it operates on the exclusion of what is diverse, divergent, mysterious, inherently rich, magical, wild and uncontrollable. 

REMEMBERING THE FALLEN

Digital photograph, April 2020

 Here in the pause, I am making a home in knowing that normalcy is what’s right here, inside of me.  Normality isn’t a state out there to be returned to.  Normality is me; as I am in this present moment.   

When I am exploring…

When I am exploring I need to feel free to make a mess and go as slow as I need to.  I think slowness helps me to sense connections that I would otherwise miss. 

Any pressure to go fast and cope with a lot of stimulus really stresses me out and makes me anxious, which in turn shuts me down.   

I find that haste often requires us to already know where we are going in advance.  So much gets missed when hurtling towards a preconceived outcome, because we move too fast and forget to look around us. 

Within a culture of haste there is a need to suppress our feelings, as if they’re unwelcome passengers – when really they are signals from within trying to get our attention to help us course-correct.  Being aware of my feelings and having room to feel them is important when I am exploring.  Slowing down helps me to see, feel and process.

These past few weeks I have incorporated at least one hour of play into my week.  It’s a time for me to get messy and try out materials in ways that I might not usually use them.  My objective is to discover and explore process, rather than to create “artwork”.  But quite often the outcomes end up being very beautiful anyway.

INK EXPERIMENT No. 5, April 2020

Writing ink, tea and bleach on paper

I have been tentatively playing about with incorporating threads and stitch into my work over the past year or so.  During these past few weeks I’ve been getting more into it, as I find the slow, intentional process of stitch to be very meditative and soothing. 

Underlying themes that tend to recur in my work are loss and identity.  It’s only recently dawned upon me that stitch is part of my ancestral lineage – with Goan tailors on my paternal side and a rich history of needlework on my Caribbean maternal side.  I feel as if there is something symbolically significant about adding stitch to my work.  Reconciling the losses around my fragmented sense of identity and my colonial heritage is something very important to me.

WORK IN PROGRESS, APRIL 2020

Acrylic, ink and embroidery thread on canvas

Follow Magical Women’s Michelle on her Instagram