I thought of a really good answer to this earlier as I was explaining it in my head, but not sure I can remember exactly how it went. This often happens.
Something like …
The toy flamingo is imbued with personality as a bit of fun at home, and from that I had an idea to create a comic strip about her.
I mentioned this plan to C (my counsellor) and explored the energy and excitement I was getting from it. It got into this weird discussion of how Brenda Flamingo might be representing aspects of myself that I’m not quite comfortable owning yet.
I am not sure about this (Brenda talks A LOT). But it’s fun to explore all sorts in psychodynamic counselling.
Following that session I began to think about Winnicott’s theory of transitional objects, of which I had (have) many.
Is Brenda another transitional object?
Dunno. I’m such a child.
Anyway, I embraced that idea for this painting.
I was very excited when I painted this. It is exactly what I was aiming for, and painting fluffy Brenda was a lot of fun.
So it kind of carried on for a while for that reason – she is fun to paint, and the more I paint her the easier it is, so I paint her more. Now I have a few flamingo paintings and people keep saying they think of me whenever they see anything flamingo. You wouldn’t think that would be many occasions, but it has felt like many, in a nice way.
Brenda does represent transition for me in a few ways. For example, her green scarf and boots. Brenda did not arrive in green scarf and boots, but I imagined they would suit her. I asked my mother-in-law (an excellent knitter) if she would knit Brenda this attire and, bless her she obliged. That I could even ask someone to knit an outfit for my cuddly toy flamingo is HUGE.
And the fact Brenda is on display … yeah, a bit uncomfortable. But what transition isn’t?
She’s going to be on display a bit more this summer as one of my paintings has been selected for the MK Open Art Exhibition in July. I feel giddy.
