March 2024: Rorscarch

“Rorscarch”, Silver and Sangria Pinata Ink on 8’ Yupo Round Paper

This month was particularly difficult for my creative process. I’m not sure why, but I had a big artists block. I had thought about doing many things: clay fortune cookies, pressed flowers, or watercolour pointillism. It was probably because I was thinking about other logistical items, like my craft fairs this month and launching my full sized collection.

I also had an intriguing conversation with my friends Riley and Christin, particularly about what it felt like selling our art. Riley and Christin are of the opinion that art and creativity cannot be forced, and that art as the extension of the person cannot be super monetized. I do agree that my art is an extension of me, but I see my artistic process as constantly evolving. By making and selling art, I feel as though people are paying me to evolve.

There are also constraints with selling art with my candles. One of them being the physical size of the box. In the past, I have used card-sized paper for the January edition “Oysters” and December edition “Dancers”. For February “Kisses”, I sent cloth napkins, which were pliable (can’t think of a better word). The next constraint is the scalability of how many pieces I can do at once. I had already done drawings and linoleum stamps. Drawings took a long time but were worth it. Linoleum stamps were quick. The final constraint is that I just don’t want to do the same shit over and over again. I once had a conversation with a friend John from the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto, and he talked about how talented artists can move between mediums. To sum up the constraints pushing me to evolve:

1. The art has to fit inside the shipping box with the candles.
2. I have to be able to do multiple pieces of art in one sitting.
3. I should try to push myself to not use the same medium, method, or style and experiment with something new every month.

For this month, I had reflected on all the other pieces I made in the past. They’re usually a set subject, shape, or object, so I decided to focus on the abstract. I wanted to make art that had no meaning this month (but enabled viewers to attribute their own meaning). I also thought about the abstract piece I had made for my partner, where I tried to make the “intangible, tangible”.

The Rorscarch test is a psychological test I learned about during my psychology degree, “a projective psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both” [(Wikipedia, 2024)]. Basically a psychologist would have a series of 10 inkblots to show a patient, and the patient would provide an interpretation.

The first step as always is to pick up materials from Deserres, my local art store. A few different colours I was thinking about were black, grey, blues, and purples (I had been inspired by the colours in Priyanka’s and 0xen’s art this month), but I ended up going for a blood red and a silver. My partner joked that I was making a Rorscarch of a Macbook pro. Like if a disgruntled tech worker was an inkblot on a piece of paper. Anyways, here’s the ink I picked up and the circular paper, which I had to fold in half.

I used a luggage lock to smooth out the creases in the paper. The next step was splattering the ink across one side of the paper, and the folding it in half.

Eventually it gave me some very beautiful designs.