Thread: cutting
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Old Sep 22, 2005, 12:15 PM
oofti's Avatar
oofti oofti is offline
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Member Since: Sep 2005
Location: Texas, USA
Posts: 22
Have you thought about cutting up something other than yourself as a means of sublimating? I personally love making collages and find making art in general to be very therapeutic. Something truly fascinating about collaging is this: if you make a drawing, for instance, that you don't really like, one you might be 'ashamed to own up to', you can cut it into a bunch of pieces and reassemble it into something amazing.If you print out a bunch of things that interest you from the internet, cut them up and reassemble them, you escape the anxiety of 'getting started'.

For me, it is even more extreme, I actually have taken a knife and cut into what were my favorite paintings at a particular time in my life, which was horrible. However, once I had put them back together and fixed all the awful tears, I found that my paintings were stronger and more 'me' than before. Unfortunately, I broke my hand not long ago punching a painting and so I had to go through the much less satisfying process of healing my flesh instead of paper or canvas.

You may 'feel torn up' and so you literally want to do that in order to make the outside and inside 'match up'. What you really need to do, though, is work in other direction, the direction of creating a whole from the pieces.