Speaks to Me

Recently I posted a photo from my Pinterest board titled 'Speaks to Me', which are images that resonate with me a little bit deeper than usual.  I'm endeavouring to blog about a few of them to think about what it is that I identify with in the images.

Today I am really feeling this image, which is a photograph of a pair of antique-looking ceramic hands holding Scrabble tiles spelling 'grateful', on a bed of fallen leaves.  Today I am feeling grateful, and also noticing how often we lack perspective in the things that we feel disappointed or annoyed with in our lives.  It never fails to amaze me how much easier it is to adjust our attitude than it is to get the world to change to suit our preference, it's like the worst kept secret ever and yet so many people never catch on, don't even try.

This photo appeals to me aesthetically as well as for what it has to say.  I don't have any information about it, the link just goes to a tumblr blog.  It is lovely, though, and I'm glad someone went to the trouble to take their pocket of Scrabble tiles out into the world with them.

Speaks To Me

In the course of my serious Pinterest addiction, I run across images that don't fit into any particular board.  They are not flower shoppy wedding images, or old torn up rusty objet, or some sort of fabric sewn onto some other pretty thing.  Sometimes it's just something I love and want to look at all the time and I can't pin down just what usefulness it has to me so I pin it to a board I call 'speaks to me'.  I thought I'd blog about them and explore what exactly they're saying.

This image turns out to not be a paper collage at all but a digital image.  I kind of love this sort of digital collage, I love all the papers and elements in the same way I love and hoard real ephemera.  There is no name of the artist but the image links back to where it was originally posted.  I love the colours and vintage paper effects. The image is about inner dialogue, exploring the word 'soliliquy' and how it is a form of intrapersonal communication.  The two silhouettes reflect the positive and negative, pessimist and optimist, self-loathing and confidence.

My whole life I've always lived with a really terrible inner voice that can be sadistic and cruel and never lets me forget any stupid thing I'd ever done.  The internet and it's anonymous intimacy has taught me that rather than some horrible flaw it just happens to be really common, and nearly everyone goes through it, often so badly that they too think they have a horrible flaw.  We don't, we just have a part of our brain that doesn't want us to repeat our mistakes and isn't kind about it.

I love this image, it illustrates my own inner dialogue and reminds me that my occasional self loathing is nothing special, I'm no more loathable than anyone else, including a lot of people I really like.