eliyanne

[eliyanne]

Stepping into Your Power

Stepping into Your Power

*** Garfield is in the building people! *** My partner Cory believes that Garfield is one of the many members of my Spirit Animal Sanctuary and especially drags himself out on a Monday. However, today he decided to swap out his schedule and arrive after 9am on this very Tuesday. Hopefully, we will get Marty the Zebra tomorrow, but we shall see. So, what does all this animal talk have to do with…

[eliyanne]

BENDING OVER BACKWARDS

Honeys, get your cups ready, because it’s time for some tea to be spilt today! Wow has 2020 and 2020.2 got us in the grips? Well, I’m writing this for me just as much as I’m writing this for you and one crooked finger at a time, I’m hoping to loosen the grips on some of the things that keep myself and you from greatness. I try and be as honest and authentic as possible when sharing my…

[eliyanne]

You are MORE than enough.

You are MORE than enough - always remember that.

always remember that.

It’s been quite a while since I have used this space to publish my thoughts. I had written a few blogs here and there, relocated them to a compute folder and left them in the matrix until further notice. So much has changed since I’d last been here and I thought that this would be the best place to share this with you.

A spontaneous date night ago, I got caught up in a…

[eliyanne]

The past year has been nothing short of challenging with no median in sight between extremely fortunate and extremely unlucky.

  I had set my mind on writing about the idea of navigation. Yet, up until a particular evening, where I was somewhat unraveled by a disturbing dream, I made the switch to venture a little deeper into ideas of the feminine. I had planned this post some time ago with my dear Clare, but I feel that now, considering the current feminine political plight, there is no time like the present. I have chosen to write about something a little bit more intimate, possibly the core to many of my and perhaps other women’s grappling in terms of their intuitive journey.

  So take my hand as I lead you to very sacred places, sensitive spaces where every sensation is at the highest of frequencies and vibrations. These are spaces that are dauntingly beautiful, captivating, yet merciless…

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  The female body is one of sensational design. We curve, roll, slide as we effortlessly rise and dip in our contours of various areas of our landscape. We are the sublime wilderness in flesh and our terrain is both inviting and unforgiving. We are extremely complex both in psychology and physical environment, often taking eons to fully understand and navigate. Our temples are either worshipped or reviled against, vandalized or kept pristine. Yet, one thing about our nature is that we are constantly restored – the flesh life cycle of Mother Nature’s handcrafted design.

  A woman’s body is much more than a vessel for the mind and soul, however, sometimes we forget that. Our bodies are extremely sensitive and receptive to interior and exterior forces, as we are designed to produce life, nurture it and sustain it. The reality is that this is taken for granted – even by ourselves. As a woman, and one who is extremely critical and sensitive, my body and I experienced a time in our journey where we had rejected each other and have only recently started to learn to accept one another. A woman’s journey with her body is one of the most difficult to navigate, as we are taught to aspire to certain molds of the “ideal” woman. The trickery of it all is that this mold is forever changing its shape, forcing us to build and rebuild ourselves to unrealistic standards at unbearable paces. We are criticized for fluctuating in size and mocked for our supposed “inconsistency”, therefore making it extremely difficult to accept ourselves let alone one another.

  As temporal as our outer form can be, our interior is far more complex.  We are masters of disguise, concealing most of our reactions underneath the surface. Our cognitive response is to physically and emotionally feel inwardly before we translate outwardly, thus making us very perceptive individuals. We judge ourselves and others by the way we walk and the level of poise we hold. We check whether that eyebrow is slightly raised in our direction or for safety’s sake, the person behind us. We survey the slight kink in the body of hair on our heads, or how high or low our gaze falls as we stride or waddle from one place to the next. All of which, may reveal one or two things about either our own characters or someone else’s.

  Yet, our bodies are more than malleable, aesthetically pleasing (or displeasing) objects. They are gateways to the most intimate and sensitive parts of women’s psyche and facets of their core. Passing through the gateway be it physically, emotionally or psychologically is an extremely fragile experience as we act from the inside out. We bear our most hypersensitive scars, our most sentimental or uncomfortable experiences on the inside as they drape the walls of our interior. When we open up, we bear our souls in ways that are both authentically human and almost godly. We are multifaceted in so many ways that are bewildering, yet the beauty that lies within that aspect alone is damaged by the system of conformity.

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  Despite this, our bodies are designed to endure in more ways than one, a gift us women are blessed with as without our endurance, the essence of life will not be able to physically manifest. However, as my mother would say: “A weakness is a strength pushed too far”. We, both men and women have been taught that our endurance is also measured by how much we take, how much suffering we are engulfed by without making one peep of a sound. Once we verbalize our struggles, we are labelled weak and petty, while receiving several lashes on our supple flesh by the system’s scorn for our inability to remain silent. We judge other’s for fighting repression crying, “no more, I cannot!”, because it highlights our injustices be it what we have experienced or what we have exercised.

  I would like to think that a woman’s struggle is more than just about being “equal”, but about being RELEVANT, because we ARE. Far too many voices have been silenced, while too many wounds and bruises have been covered. We dress ourselves either according to sex appeal or modesty and undress at night back down to the familiar stranger we had encountered before our day had risen. Women’s solidarity is an extremely powerful thing, which is why we are taught to see one another as counterparts, the “other” women we need to be better than. Yet, within these uncomfortable times of global change, I am filled with pride to see strong, affluent individuals leading the fight for a recognition we have been deprived of. They stand together despite the details of their womanly story differing from the next, as they realize that the narrative is all the same.

  As a young woman, I am slowly beginning to unpack my own downfalls and not just simply acknowledge them. I have seen how the image of myself had been diminished by constantly looking outwardly, wishing that I could have the beauty, style, confidence and influence the next woman might have. That’s the mistake I have made for so many years and I’m sure at some point some of you have done so too. So, I encourage myself as often as possible to still celebrate with as little jealousy as possible the beauty of other women be it physical or not, especially those who have trouble recognizing it themselves. I celebrate rather than curse the natural redesigning of my armor, filling my womanly form and my being a little more each day as time goes by.

  Woman, you are beautiful and if we cannot remind ourselves of this each day, maybe this post will do its bit in the times we don’t see ourselves. From the hair on your head to the tip of your toes, you are marvelous. Yet, don’t forget that your beauty is not just the outer landscape but the tenderness and sincerity you shelter inside you, the empathy and love you are able to give. Share that with one another.

-by Kirsten Arendse

PHOTOGRAPHY: Clare Patrick

    For me, you and us The past year has been nothing short of challenging with no median in sight between extremely fortunate and extremely unlucky.

[eliyanne]

Life can be understood as an endless journey requiring constant navigation. Yet, we seek a place that is familiar with comfort, a place for us to undress the expectations of our lives and disrobe the constraints. A place called HOME.

I was struck by a pestering need to “return home”, back to the core of my being and to a space where my creative river flows uncharted. It was with this pressing need echoing in the back of my mind, that I began to unpack and deconstruct the homestead and its personal meaning down to its elemental value.

So while I’m listening to Daniel Caesar, let’s start unpacking.

HOME is what you make it to be by your own design, be it ephemeral or concrete. I like to think of it according to its ephemeral nature, the intangible. It is something that is transient and is not merely constituted by its concrete form. We can find home and even build it in those close to us, in the uninhibited beauty of nature or our manmade studios and creative spaces. For me, it’s an open space of any design where I can plant myself on the ground and lay down my thoughts as I do my tools. Yet, most importantly, I find “HOME” is truest in us. It can be found in the basic elements of our being, the raw stuff that makes us who we are and that which informs our character. It is a place that can accommodate an uninterrupted sense of peace or a vibrant celebration of who we are. It is the space that only we know how to travel to or return to and that no one else can navigate.

Yet, it can also be a space marred by trauma, a place where unsettlement settles. It may have been a theatre where scenes of violence and strong language were enacted. Instead of being a space of freedom, it may have held those of us captive. Therefore more often than not, a monument of love and unity hinges on its last bit of solidarity or has been stripped bare, down to the soil it was founded on. In the same vain, the same can be said about the deepest parts of our character, the shadow elements that are buried beneath the likable parts we have so carefully molded over time. Often, these are constituted by constant suppression of traumatic events or internal and external scorn. Therefore, the need to go back and unpack becomes an unbearable task and the journey to return is too strenuous or painful.

“We find love, we get up. We fall down, we give up.” – Daniel Caesar

Why do we need to go back? Well, after a long, strenuous day, where does one go back to? Going back home defines a sense of completion and value, in turn, helping us to understand the “life-death-life” cycle. It’s very seldom that when we embark on a journey that demands every bit of strength and integrity that we are able to give up and go back home without becoming restless or troubled. Therefore, in many cases, in order to achieve the utmost peace or to even physically return back to a space of comfort and acceptance, we have to complete the journey to and from. Also, what does not serve us anymore or no longer instills life, needs to be laid to rest. Old projects with no function, relationships drained of life all desire a place of rest. So, we take them home like the bodies of the bereaved and return them to the soil or bid our farewells to them in the very spaces they embodied, eternally remembered but not resurrected. “Home” is that space even in us where we have already reserved a piece of land to bury or release. Yet, “home” as mentioned, instills the founding values in us as worldly human beings. It is a reminder of “where we come from”. Therefore, affirmed by a friend of mine, we need to know intrinsically who we are in order to completely understand and actively fulfill our place. This requires us to reach deep into the pockets of our material design or even disrobe to remember beyond the façade what had made us in the beginning. You alone know who you are beneath your skills, achievements and outward persona. Once we have done the work of travelling down to the core, we can then extend beyond the self, allowing us to either physically go back home or revisit the people we once built a home in or with. Here we are able to restore what may have been broken, or complete relationships, self-discovery and creative practices. We become sensitive to our own cycles, other’s cycles and the world cycle.

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So we all know how to find our way back most times, right?

It would be slightly presumptuous to assume that it is as easy as following the yellow brick road, which too ironically had its many challenges and distractions. For me, it all starts with a trigger in the material world. Either it is a song, maybe a sprinkle of Solange or dash of Daniel Caesar on route home with lyrics that resonate to a feeling at the time. Or it can be the sight of dried-up paint brushes or a prior conversation that was had. Simple things can spark introspection. Yet, the best time to return home is when you are completely quiet without any distraction, just you and your voice in a space to unforgivingly articulate yourselves. It is within these moments that we begin to unpack our actions and responses to certain situations. We interrogate what prompted us to do or say and the emotion behind either-or. We are able to discern constructive from destructive and determine the manifestations of our future actions, or limit the voltage of energy we give off to certain things. Then we can put in the work through doing and making, building our way back home or creating a new one through writing, conversation, equation, painting and so forth. Even when one is at the forefront of a difficult struggle be it recurring or not, it is helpful to go back and trace the walls with our fingertips, no matter how many splinters they may catch. And as cliché as it sounds, positivity holds the most power as it has the potential to continuously stimulate growth and change. Negativity only leads to the end or death of something despite the fact that they exist as a binary relationship. This is the time when remembering is at its best and remembering happiness, be it in the resounding laughter of friends, the embrace of a loved one, the feeling of pen to paper. All of which provide us with fleeting moments to either entice us to preserver or see even the slightest speck of possibility and opportunity.

So, as I find home in my creativity, I encourage you to do so too in whatever form it may embody. Whether you find yourself in unfamiliar territory, a space of discomfort or even a place that somehow seems to not have retained its warmth as much as it did before, return to where you are safest, pave your way home or construct a new one. Allow yourself to truly be in the comfort of your own structure and all its interior spaces.

-Kirsten Eliyanne Arendse

Photographer: Clare Patrick – @clare.b.p (instagram)

There’s no place like HOME Life can be understood as an endless journey requiring constant navigation. Yet, we seek a place that is familiar with comfort, a place for us to undress the expectations of our lives and disrobe the constraints.

[eliyanne]

Impatient sketches

[eliyanne]

When you upload this drawing to the wrong Tumblr account...

[eliyanne]

Issa blog post: Risk it -to skit the biscuit. As I do procrastination so well, I have again finally mustered up the commitment to this post featuring my fab friend @hyram_harker 💪🏾 #blogpost #psyche #themind #riskit #forthebiscuit #writer #artist #photography #art #curls #curlygirl

[eliyanne]

I have taken quite a bit of time (as I usually do, because you know… LIFE) to contextualize and process all the happenings that have happened, so that I am able to share this post with you. And yes, this process did not gracefully glide along unaccompanied by some self-doubt, some reservation and procrastination.

Yet, within the past few months lay a perplexing and daunting decision that jumped out from under the covers every morning with me: “TO TAKE A RISK OR TO CONFORM”.  Does this sound familiar? I’m sure it does.

We live in both a tenuous and compelling time of change, which is beautiful. Most things that are spectacular to us do not come without some reservation or concern, especially if it requires us to plant ourselves in the centre of the hurricane eye. And just the mere sight of that abundant chaos above our heads is enough to sweep the colour of your skin clear off your body. It is within that split second of a moment that fight or flight kicks in and how often do we choose flight? I, for one, can say many times. This decision is met with quite a bit of contestation and frustration or rage, so many ghostly shadows of ideas of what could’ve been and that, “Man, why didn’t I just go for it?!”

Author and Jungian psychoanalyst, Clerissa Pinkola Estés, unpacks the story of the Crescent Moon Bear, an allegory of a woman’s rage and the ways in which it may manifest, good and bad. It is within this story that the dubious nature of the protagonist bear embodies a sense of enlightenment. The woman who journeys to meet it is painstakingly ushered along, while still remaining gracious when confronted with every trial and obstacle faced.  I wouldn’t confine this solely to the feminine experience, as rage does not discriminate according to gender.

When we choose the latter, the flight option, our decisions are too often informed by perceptions exterior to our own. “What will people say? What will people think?” is the be-all and end-all of the death and growth of a budding opportunity or journey. Then comes the self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy, “Nah, but he has the money. No, but she has more time and skill”. The ego of the psyche is at it’s most cunning within these instances and is quick to ridicule or kill off the sprouts of a strong sense of the id (since I am referencing a psychoanalyst, why not throw in some theory).

Part of this process is dispelling if not all, then most of the misconceptions you may have when making decisions. For me, this is one of the hardest battles of the mind. Judgment is a real thing and being at the peril of the jury in one’s mind or of our physical environment is enough to profusely disengage or “tap out”. So perhaps take yourself to a space of quietness, with few voices and crowds. If you choose to take some of them with you, take the voices that are resonant with honesty. Listen to the ways in which their sounds reverberate against your bones and discern whether it is a feeling of calm or anxiety. Take it from there to make your decision and keep the vibrations going until that chapter of your journey has been completed. This can also be understood as channeling the “negative” energy, the rage both internal and external to avenues that are darkened or plagued by eroded grounds. Fires are not always meant to be put out, but are meant to run wild in order to restore new life.

Another option is to bite the bullet, “risk it to skit the biscuit”. Time is not always our best friend, with it’s patience often limited to no more than a few hours or minutes and forces us to make rushed decisions. The greatest risk of this moment is evident in it’s planning structure. There is no time to contemplate every single detail of the myriad of outcomes good and bad. There is no time to even pause and pick out the voices that matter from the raging crowd. So, all we have in that fraction of time and space is the first intuitive spark that caught our attention and marked a streak of colour on those dark walls. And yes, you run with it. You follow the angled gesture with every force. Consequences are as alive as they come, yet the body without commanding it to, is able to respond to circumstances and stimuli that signal initial positive or negative impulses. Therefore, you will instinctively know before you embark on that mental process whether or not it’s good for you. And if it’s good for you, go with it! Like the woman in the Crescent Moon Bear story who courageously trudges on to meet the wild creature and win it’s trust, resilience is key, as it keeps reminding you of the goals you had initially set out. So keep dancing your dance, while allowing your natural rhythm to carry you, because there is not time to stop and mimic the moves and footsteps of someone else.

One thing my dear mother will always remind me of is that the universe and the heavens are never to be understood as straight-forward realms. It answers us and responds to us in ways, impulses, images and sound that are at most times inconceivable and incomprehensible. But it responds nonetheless and it might just ask you to leap over the edge, free-fall until you land feet first in what could be paradise. So be afraid, tremble if you must but tremble and wobble towards your glistening horizon. Soon you will run and before you know it, you will be where you belong.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Estés, C.P. 1992, Women Who Run With The Wolves, Chapter 12, p.346, London, United Kingdom

IMAGES:

Painting by Phil Hale: @philhalestudio

Painting by Denis Sarazhin: @denis_zarazhin

Photographs by Hyram Harker: @hyram_harker

Portrait study by Kirsten Arendse

She’s Ready (portrait study) by Kirsten Arendse

  Risk it I have taken quite a bit of time (as I usually do, because you know... LIFE) to contextualize and process all the happenings that have happened, so that I am able to share this post with you.

[eliyanne]

I was fortunate enough to receive an opportunity to do a commissioned painting for the Robert Gumede

[eliyanne]

“I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.” – Kendrick Lamar

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.” – Khalil Gibran

We spend so much of our time in front of this piece of reflective material, we document so many moments of our bodies in motion and interaction. We present so many different angles of the way the light catches that highlight on your cheek bone or of that smize we have been dying to perfect for a night or day out,  hoping that “bae” will know what’s up.

Yet, despite these conditions of the self being incredibly diverse, our sense of looking and critical thinking does not always live up to this standard.

The mirror, an aesthetic object associated with a sense of divinity for centuries can be seen as an important analogy pertaining to metaphysics, a branch of philosophy or abstract theory associated with notions of identity, time and space. Mirrors represent an aspect of duality through instances of mimicry, simultaneous shifts in perspectives and reflection. Yet, in respect of this heralded object, it would be trivial to undermine its relevance in a conceptual sense.

Joy Schaverein writes, ‘” “The life in the picture” relates to the imagery that is revealed in the art work, whilst “the life of the picture” refers to the effects of its continued existence as an object in time and space.” (Schaverein, J. 2:1992)

THE LIFE IN THE PICTURE:

Revelations are never always grand gestures, but only always happen when we reflect. We come before ourselves literally and figuratively to take a glimpse or a long gaze at the distorted or crystal clear representation of everything we embody, beautiful and hideous.  We reveal and conceal, cast shadows and highlight fragments of our being on a daily basis.  And like pictures, we are multifaceted and multilayered, identifiable from different angles. The life of the picture is not just the subject but the conditions and processes that inform it. But lets take it a step further…

A picture is very seldom without a frame. Society is conditioned by an extensive and intricate framework of constructions and we, the clay of the earth, are moulded and fashioned accordingly. And as intricate as frames can be, they are the support structures that keep our perceptions, our idealistic views and focal points intact. Yet, sometimes we are urged to deconstruct the frame, question its craftsmanship to see if it is really as stable as it seems.

THE LIFE OF THE PICTURE:

… lies in it’s ability to inspire relevant conversation throughout times and spaces.

Back story: I recently had the pleasure of visiting two exhibitions, one of them being a solo by Jessica Webster at the Goodman Gallery.

Wisteria critically reflects on the category “white woman” in a South African context, while grappling with borrowed western notions of beauty through the motif of non-indigenous garden plants (Goodman Gallery, 2017). Her multimedia, multilayered paintings function in the space of the present and past interchanging between physical and conceptual, while simultaneously challenging her position in a contemporary context by drawing influence from an apartheid South Africa.

Reflection allows us to be present in a number of moments as vague as they may be. Even the shadow of a memory can evoke a real feeling. And by paying attention to that twisting in the gut or rising of the hairs, do we begin to channel the origins of emotions while critically noting each default on the surface of our interior design. And as we run our fingertips over them, we are subconsciously and simultaneously creating a new picture of who we are, be it almost identical or completely different to the one before. That is the beauty: for our lives to never be confined to one moment. Reflection is our unique means of transportation, a simulation for time-traveling.

So in closing:

Before you trace your lips with that new lip kit or style your english cut to perfection, I urge you and myself for that matter to spend some time in front of the mirror, see each and every part of your makeup inside and out. Remember who you were to see the value in who you are. Realise that your beauty is never short-lived or restricted, nor is it destined to remain the same. Your framework is allowed to be dismantled and the life of your picture is able to transcend.

  References:

Schaverien, J. 2008, THE MIRROR OF ART: REFLECTIONS ON TRANSFERENCE AND THE GAZE OF THE PICTURE, United States.

Goodman Gallery, 2017. Jessica Webster/Wisteria/2017 exhibition, Cape Town, SA.

Images:

Photoshoot with Hyram Harker

Architectural photographs by Kasey-Leigh Davies

Artwork photographs by Kirsten Arendse’s iphone.

Mirror, Mirror "I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing." - Kendrick Lamar…

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Quality!

by Sheena Liam

[eliyanne]

Passive aggressive

[eliyanne]

She's Ready, 2017 Acrylic on canvas