Pressure and perfectionism
My entire life I have always struggled with showing up perfectly, in every way, everywhere I went. Well guess what?! It was exhausting! One of the ways I felt the pressure to be perfect was with my relationship to art. I always felt that to be a good artist, you had to be good at drawing. I was okay at drawing, but it wasn’t something that I spent a lot of time doing, and my motivation to draw wasn’t that high. It wasn’t until 2017 when I was the Academic Director of a national camp in BC, in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment, that inspiration came to me…
Why whirling?
While I was in this intense environment at camp, I had started doodling by drawing circles, over and over and over again. I then challenged myself to see if these circles, a seemingly easy and relaxing shape to draw, could take some kind of shape and form. Having been inspired by Rumi and the whirling dervishes my entire life, the image of it formed in my mind as I continued to draw these circles, over and over again. What resulted was my unique portrayal of whirling dervishes, created entirely by hand, using only circular movements. The gallery below depicts chronologically how this has taken shape and been refined over time. I love drawing whirling dervishes using different materials, like paint pens, charcoal, pencils and metallic markers.
Of attempts drawing whirling dervishes
