This one was quite the journey. It took several forms, starting out as a simple tattoo design doodled in the corner of a sketchpad. Well, it started out as twin fish..in chaos. The concept of the fish isn't mine - it's based off the astrological symbolism in the sign pisces. I saw in Allure that pisces duality is rooted in "the constant division of pisces's attention between fantasy and reality" which is.. chaotic to say the least.
"The symbol for pisces is two fish swimming in opposite directions connected with a cord. When drawn as a glyph, it’s two crescent moons attached with a straight line...The crescent moons symbolize the lunar cycles as well as pisces’s receptivity to new ideas and experiences. The connection point is what keeps their emotions, their realities, and other polarities in balance."
- · (I recommend this article because it's absolutely fascinating)
This encompasses the entirety of this pot, because yes.
Although this specific research was done in curiosity after the pot was completed, I knew about pisces prior. The feeling of being both chaotic and balanced, wild yet calm, present yet somehow always off in space, was a feeling I could place from my head to the page.
first doodle
So, I, in a random thought while doodling was like "ya know..the moon's awfully chaotic, and so is the ocean, and so is pisces. I really think these pisces fishies are dope so what about a tattoo?" I did this once before in a tattoo I drew, where I had things that fit together and sat around trying to figure out how to combine them. This one I loved the double fish. Reading the imaginative description of a personality and being able to express that on the page as an illustration is a beautiful form of expression. It being a crescent moon, but also two fish, and a sense of balance in the center of chaos. That's very close to the way the ocean feels, and also looks. I've always been drawn to water, often watching it and how it flows. I hated not knowing how to paint water, and it was a lot of fun figuring it out, while also being frustrating.
The tattoo sketch ended up archived deep in my sketchbook until I saw it again and decided to see if I could do a more colorful colored pencil drawing. I'd just gotten a hugeee 144 colored pencil set on sale (60% off too) and was set out to do it. All was fine.. until I got to the water.
That's the thing about art and water. Water is not a controlled substance. You can contain it within a form, you can make it take shape, you can change its structure, but on its own it's merely chaos. Personally, I'm not good at letting go and embracing chaos, which is a beautiful key into artistic natures. Knowing what the basis for its setup is (it has waves, layers, dark spots for distance), but also knowing it'll have to come as it is outside of your own control (whip that brush don't think about it too much).
A big part of my artistic journey has been learning that. I sat down trying to overthink the waves, structure them, make them happen, and I couldn't. I ended up throwing the first away and abandoning the second.
Then..I brought it back when I started painting terracotta. Goodness was that satisfying even in its most frustrating moments. I did the WHOLE pot but when I got to the water, once again, I stopped. Because ripples are a little easier but waves?? How do you even start? I thought and thought about it for months and months until I said f it and whipped my brush. Not even an understatement. It took me a solid 5 months to finish. The more and more fearless I became, the more I realized that was it.
In a weird way, this is very personal for me to create. The name is representative of both the pot..but also about how I feel. Twin fish in chaos (two twin fish in a chaotic tangle together, graciously mirroring each other as opposites to come together in balance over the chaotic beauty of the ocean - which pisces is in fact a water sign haha) and the moon (which I absolutely love staring at also so I've been painting it all over randomly for years). I chose the colors I did because that's the same colors of my inner life, and honestly one of the most important parts of me. For so many years my sensitive nature was not tended to well, and it created this unruly chaos within me - a chaos that doesn't have to be out of control, because it can be, and honestly truly is, beautiful and balanced.
(Just out here defining chaotic good)
Thank you for reading as always! 🥰