Today I'm thinking of new beginnings.. how the big things started for me. How I started them. The first one I want to describe, and from which the others originate - is how I left school, and dared to pursue my life "out of the box". I was 17, when I made a promise to my Grandpa one November while visiting his grave. I said that I would leave school, and one year later - I did it. Today I see it as my first independent step as adult. It was as though Grandpa asked me for it, or perhaps he suggested... He used to be a writer in his life, a journalist, a storyteller. I knew so little of him. Each year we came to clean his modest-made grave: no stones or granit plates to it, just a mound of soil covered with grass. We've put flowers and candles and spent some time there in silence. I believe my Father was saying poems in his heart. It was such a tender time.. And then one year I heard his voice.. offering, a little nudging, sending a concept right to my soul: "what if..?" Quitting wasn't easy. I had to deal with disapproval of my Father, who at that time was also my biology and geography teacher at school. Ex head-master teacher of my class and ex school's main director; it must have been hard for him too, to watch his daughter drifting into a whole other direction. Non conforming. Too free to be accepted... I quit simply because I wanted to have more time for doing the things I loved doing. And it really turned out so. It was early April, days were growing longer, and I was riding thought them on my new bicycle. There was suddenly NOTHING I needed to do.. But I did a lot of things I enjoyed: I drew, sew, danced, rode my bike, sung, explored Photoshop and my digital drawing pad, joined online Artists Community, listened to the music ALL the time and played my own music too, wrote poetry, wrote my memories,hopes and dreams... Finally I had the time for it all. Unlimited. Unbound. That spring I had given myself the key to the new world, which was entirely mine, and I was its creator. It felt enormously good. And it was simple.. Because of Being in conflict with my father, I have moved out from the city and into my mother's newly built house in the outskirts. The forest and meadows were right beside. My room was then still under construction, but as Grandma lived in her Forest House for the warm season, I was able to live in her apartament (half of the first floor of that house my mother had built). I had a small bedroom of my own, a spacious living room with a large desk, bathroom and kitchen, where I experimented with making my own foods for the first time. It was only a month or two before that I've recorded my first song. I had a simple acoustic guitar and was extremely inspired by seeing the film "Libertine", (which also became the title of my song). Some 2 years later I got my first digital mirror camera (Canon 450D) and started experimenting with photography. It was my 20th birthday and I wore a long black dress. I felt so happy and overwhelmed by a sense of opportunity, having no idea how to navigate that camera, I run upstairs with it straight away to do my first photo session! I used a thick, black tulle to match my dress and just had a lot of fun with it... A month or two later I started to fill my first Writing Practise notebook, with an intention to produce as much uninterrupted, free-flow writing as possible. I remember the first prompt I used. It was a line from a book Polish poet, Agnieszka Osiecka, and it said "Choć jeszcze jeden raz umrzeć z miłości..." (To die of love at least one more time..."). I moved from there. Sitting in my boyfriend's small apartament, I took some half an hour and filled 2 pages without pausing. It felt naked, daring and somewhat dangerous. I felt myself on a new mission, a gigantic wave from which one couldn't slide, but just drift on and on and on... In Autumn 2011 I took my first steps on Weebly platform and started to weave the virtual nest for my creations. The website was going to be just for myself and serve as archive for the things I was making, simply to keep an account of them and take pleasure in reviewing. I passed the link to my family and closer friends. I realised very soon that it was going to be my tool of empowerment as well... A reminder, that I was capable of making beautiful things, holding me through darker times and occasional stages of doubt. * * * I feel such gratitude.. to my family, myself and the world.. for this life and opportunities, for the threads of inspiration and the readiness to seize them.
The light and hope are much greater than I could ever comprehend, and I know there's so much NEW yet to come...
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The winter on 2012 was going to be spent in Spain. It was my first time taking a leave from snow with a wish for sun, waterfalls and bare feet. The ultimate flight's destiny was Barcelona, but I took a leap through.. Sweden. I wanted to visit my friend who at that time lived in a countryside near Gotenburg. I remember taking a train from Stockholm, knowing it was going to be such a long trip. The train took me into the evening and then into the night.. People were curiously staring.. I had a big bagpack with many things dangling at its sides and the layers of my colourful clothes must have looked unusual. I was still not sure if I had enough of warm clothes for November in Sweden! But there was not much snow there yet right untill 24th of December. Norsesund - a beautiful, forest-bound locality, about 50 km from Gotenburd, driving North-east. With it's own train station and less than 280 inhabitants in 2010, it was said to be a place of artists and my friend showed me to the garden and gallery of his neighbour who used to paint and make sculptures there. Unfortunately, that man had died only around 2 weeks before my arrival. How disappointing! So I found myself walking down that road everyday, my feet taking me to the old man's garden and his gigantic painting displayed between the trees.. of people picking mangoes and smiling.. I would stare at the closed door of his gallery/studio, imagining our meeting and how he would let me to use the space to create with him, and how I would bake cookies and bring them to him in the morning, our walks in the first snow, and many other things. I have gotten myself an invisible friend and he was my local source of inspiration. I have then still not experienced death in my close range of family and friends, and that man was not even someone I knew, but through my gentle mourning and dreaming about the Grandpa Rosen, the "Lost" Old Man, I saw how death can have a significant and wonderful impact on our creative lives! Of course I would much rather know him in person and be able to have an exchange with him, but in a way.. - I had : ) During my stay in Norsesund, I was having a lot of time walking, dreaming and photographing. I took up the knitting again after several years of break, I baked heart-shaped Pepparkakor in enormous amounts and did some little paper handcrafts to decorate the house for Christmas. I also borrowed a set of markers for drawing and started a blog to write about my days of travel.. (you can find and read the Norsesund-related post right here wloczkastory.blogspot.com/2012 )
Although I've never gone to the gallery to actually see Rosen's works, it was important for me to feel it was so near.. really, a few hundred metres away! There were other households in the area with an evident artistic vein in them, I could see it through the windows and in their yards.. together, with the Mask Rosen Gellery, they formed a supportive ring around me.. adding courage, zest and a nudge to explore in that new place I've come to live in. I've been making a lot of self-portraits some years ago. It was my way to learn about photography and a part of self-discovery in my late teen years. I got my first digital Canon for 20th birthday and celebrated wildly through a couple of following weeks by making different sorts of photo-sessions, experimenting with monochrome and then learning some Photoshop. I really got into it! I was photographing myself - it was the easiest, most accessible way to continue doing portraits and develop my artistic language. Landscapes and abstract were good. But it was the eyes and human body that I wished to explore way deeper. I was with myself 24h/7 so there was a good deal of collaboration. It never felt like posing. It is so intimate.. The soft anticipation before you go to the other side of the camera to view what have become out of your attempt.. And it was before I've ever heard the word "selfie". Or perhaps before selfies even existed. No. They existed. I remember this sort of pictures on some of MySpace profiles back in 2004. MySpace was what facebook is today. In a way.. So yes, for me the self-portraits were different than that. Different than just posing to capture the look of my face. It was one of the glowing channels for my magic.. And it continued to spring for several years onward. Then at some point I stopped. I guess it was about the same time I started travelling. 2011. I was 22 and have been playing with the camera for over 4 years then (at first I was using my Grandparents' Lumix - they are both photographers). I started to gain a different focus. I wanted to travel light, I stopped taking camera with me. It was still there when I first ventured to Ireland, but then I quit.. And the self-portraits never really returned. After my journeys, self-photography was not something I was interested in anymore. When I gave it a thought - it felt like it would have distracted my focus too much onto material things.. the external looks.. the images.. the computer work.. I was on a whole another wave then and wanted to remain afloat. But what I see now (and couldn't then), is that I developed a sense of "not wanting to make an impression of a self-centred person". Yes.. the slight fear of judgement was underlying my choices.. and not that I was a self-centred person - though I think we all are, to some extend - but I just didn't want to be perceived as such. And today I recognise that I was not altogether free in my choice. I was actually getting attached to that "new version" of me - One Who Didn't Photograph. One who did not try to capture the moment in the lens. And for sure one who did not try to capture herself in the moment- what's the use of that. So now, as I begin to hear a silent call from the familiar direction - I'm getting interested!..
I'm thinking to myself: "Oh, so you want to try that again?" How would it be to photograph myself again after almost 8 years have passed? I am a different person now. A different woman. I carried my first child, I gave birth, breastfed, carried in a wrap, was entwined with another being... and that everyday! I swam among the sea of new responsibilities and callings and impressions... Next to that I've been living in a relationship with a man- the longest I've had so far. There was indescribable beauty, and there were some dark days and nights too, some of them probably the darkest in my life... I've changed. How would it feel now - to photograph myself ? What would my Self feel? |
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