27/05/2026
The initial piece titled “Self-regulation” from the series of mixed media with the same title.
84 x 59 cm
2024
One evening, I returned home absolutely frustrated.
You, know, one of those days when planets do not align well, things fall out of hands, anger is bursting out of the eardrums and there are tons of thoughts what could help in this hopeless moment, yet I am not able to mobilize the energy to get that help.
Though somehow a purple pencil found my hand and I started rapidly colouring a large sheet of paper that was laying on my floor for several days now.
With every square centimeter covered, my mind was getting clearer, anger was leaving me, pencil tops were breaking, the wooden body of the pencil was shrinking. A couple hours later I was using pliers to hold the tiny thumb of a pencil in order to shapen it, my own thumb and pointing finger were red and blistering from the action of intensively pressing the metal sharpener.
I did not eat, I didn’t move, I did not rest. As a matter of fact this labour was my rest. It was the ultimate self-regulation I could come up with. Therapeutic yet tiresome. Or maybe it was always meant to be that way.
After I stepped back from this purple thing, I recognized all that was chasing me, just now locked in the sheet of paper.
Then I slowly started listing actions, things, people that help me to return to my center, those things that are my self-regulation practices and continued intuitively locking them in. Solely for the purpose of reminding myself that there are tons of ways to regain balance.
