Psychology – The human mind – Marks -Repetition – Spontaneous – Deep – Powerful – Emotive
How a mark can generate such a response. Here I don’t think the marks are leading up to a finished piece, so much as that they are the finished piece. However I don’t feel like any of her pieces are finished at all. They continue, your mind continues the story.
I am most interested in her work titled “Knowledge and Understanding of the World.”
Its inspiration drawn from Wells’ time working in a nursery and an interest in child psychology and both speech and language and art therapy. She captures a point in a child’s development “where meaning is beginning to be put to seemingly random scribbles.” (Roanna Wells)
My son is awaiting a diagnosis, as we suspect he has Autism. We have had first hand experience of the use of speech and language therapy to help him communicate with us. Although it doesn’t appear yet that his mark making has a meaning to it, I’m sure it does to him. However we do use mark making as a form of communication. A technique called Peic-D where imitation is used to communicate, to interact.
Wells’ is an ongoing project. She takes the scribbles and translates them into hand embroidered pieces, intending to return some of the importance and intent of the child as an artist.
In the same way ours is an ongoing project. By imitating our son’s mark making, we are communicating with him and understanding him.
http://www.roannawells.co.uk/knowledge-and-understanding-of-the-world