Post Haste Dipping Part Two

So glad to be back in class. Sad that life and work have kept me from posting until just under the gun for the next class.

We again started with the awesome dive into a relaxed state. Each time I experience this part of the process it reinforces the necessity of this step as a launching board for all other steps. Jumped in right from work, so getting the brain to shut down some and get to the relaxed state took a bit of time and intentional focus....or lack of focus. When we were prompted to go back to a room, I believe Jon said it didn't have to be the original room we explored....but it was for me. The interesting thing was that new details appeared from the last room imaging. Two small pictures on the wall (unclear though they were with content), a teddy bear on the floor underneath them and a coin box that served as an anchor on the dresser in the corner.

From there I experienced my first lead dipping and it was so much more fruitful than my attempt on my own based off of the notes from last Thursday's class. It was a lot faster than I had run on my own and my initial shape sketches had no form, nor did I realize what the items were that I was sketching. They only came into fuzzy focus later in the process. From there I sat, in a fairly relaxed state until my turn to explore. As shared in class, since I was last to explore, I found it challenging to not follow Jon's exploration directions to the other before me in my own drawer. Due to that, I missed the experience for a couple of people.

When my turn at last came, it was interesting to observe not only the clarity with which the items came into focus, but also the emotional attachment to many of the items. Starting on the left, the t-shirt stack came into focus. The hunter green, faded and worn top t-shirt had no special connection, but when Jon asked me to go to the next one in the stack, the bright sunshine yellow t-shirt made me smile. Next was a plastic, again worn black ruler that elicited little emotional connection, but was interesting to experience. Then was the heavy paper weight that I had inherited from my Grandfather. It evoked mostly a positive emotion of the great person GP was, with little bittersweet at his no longer being with us on this planet. Finally was a stack of books. Jon had me pick one up and it was interesting to see it come into focus with it's nice leather binding and heavy, cream color pages. There were no images on the page, only fairly small font type. It brought me back to the joys I had reading in Junior High and made me miss it, since I have not often recaptured that joy reading as an adult. There was one final item in the drawer that did not come into focus, and two items that I did not deal with in the harvest/exploration ( a red pencil with a white eraser top and a standard paper clip).

In the chance of sounding like a broken record, the way these images stay present and easily accessible in the mind just continues to reinforce the value of this work in building a character's world. I can see how instrumental it can be in creating a full, 3-D world for them to live in while shooting and to give them a truly "natural" or "organic" thought life that won't come across as projected or forced through the lens of the camera. Onward and upward and looking forward to the continued journey.