A Case of Mistaken Identity
that led to a creative boon
If you liked reading this, feel free to click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏
Creative inspiration comes from many places, not the least of which is paper. I love paper. I love how it looks and feels and how it tears, folds, and bends to create interesting constructions and shapes. I love that it's made from trees, plants, or recycled fibers. I also find inspiration in color. Color is a great conveyor of mood and atmosphere. Gazing upon a particular color affects how you feel, think, and remember. In that way, color is much like your sense of smell. Certain aromas or fragrances can wash over you with profound effect.
Of course, images are also important. Images are simply pictures; they can hold their own stories or spark stories that unfold in your imagination when you see them. Then there are symbols. They are images that have a powerful and ancient backstory within them. They trigger something profound within you that is part of the collective unconscious. We understand and react to symbols from a place deep within our psyche. Symbols are a universal language with many dialects. The more you work with them, the more fluent you become in their use and application, and the more acutely you will understand their messages and wisdom.
These are some of the elements, along with many others, that I work with when creating an art journal. Certainly, texture is another element, as are balance and rhythm of design. All these things offer a way to create that allows you to construct your unique visual, tactile, and spatial world. The experience is quite empowering and vastly pleasurable. It’s why I keep coming back to creating art decade after decade.
Creating and creative supplies (like paper) can be intoxicating in their own way. Creating also helps us to reflect, consider, and engage with our inner world. It can also teach us many valuable lessons.
Today, I will tell you a funny story about how I’ve been confronted with a powerful truth as I began my latest art journal project.
Trips to the local papercraft store are an occasion for joy but also somewhat overwhelming. Walking in, I am greeted by temptations: paper galore, colorful inks, the imagery on stamps, stencils, ephemera, gold leaf, glitter, and so much more. Given this rich visual banquet, I should forgive myself for the misidentification that arose.
Walking through the aisles of paper, I drifted over to a favorite brand, and immediately, I was captivated by a set of papers that ticked all my boxes—first, the earthy, rich, and understated colors. Second, the designs are a bit shabby chic with a touch of grunge; third, there are nature themes, botanicals, birds, butterflies, etc. Lastly, the floral pattern was hellebores, also known as Lenten Roses, a lovely five-petalled flower (like a single wild rose) that blooms in late winter, typically during the season of Lent, before easter, in late February or March. Along with the hellebores were amber pears and russet apples, both fruits that keep well through the winter. I glanced at the packaging, Winter Orchard; how intriguing, I thought.
Orchards are beautiful in the spring. The trees are adorned with pink and white flowers that attract many bees with their fragrance. The trees look as if billowy pink and white clouds have alighted on them as they sway in the gentle breezes of the season. There is a sense of freshness and hope, and everything is delightful to see. The leaves and grass are that lively spring green filled with vitality and surging with life.
In autumn, the orchard bursts with abundance. Sweet, delicious, ripe fruit hangs on every branch. Green, golden, and amber pears, red apples, and, if it’s early enough in the season, juicy peaches and dark purple plumbs.
The orchard inspires in spring and autumn, but the orchard in winter is something else altogether. I found it intriguing and inspiring, and it provoked my curiosity. What would drive the choice to offer a line of paper focused on the winter orchard (other than a way to market something after Christmas but before anyone thinks about bunnies and daffodils)?
My mind ran wild with questions. What is left in the orchard in winter? Perhaps some late-ripening fruit that deer would feed on. Dark branches and richly colored earth soggy from winter rains and snow. Peeling paint on barns and sheds. Hellebors that had escaped the garden and taken up residence on the margins of the orchard rows. Does the orchard in winter feel lonely? Is it quiet, a haunt for foxes and crows? When the winter begins to grow old, and the first subtly warm days creep in, is the orchard the first place you might see a bee or butterfly cautiously emerge? I was deeply engaged with all of these questions.
It felt like such an unusual choice to feature the winter orchard, an overlooked time and place. I bought the paper and immediately knew that the winter orchard would be the underlying theme of my new art journal project.
I brought everything I purchased home and, for several days, worked with great joy in my art journal, exploring a place and a season that are rarely thought of together. I used my new paper, along with many things from my stash. This could technically be called a junk journal (that’s a style of art journaling, in case you‘re unfamiliar) because I like to repurpose things like packaging, tags, catalogs, and, in short, junk. I even cut out some of the words from my new paper's package to include on one of my pages.
I liked the paper so much that I decided to see if they made larger sheets. I did a quick Google search for Winter Orchard decorative paper. The results came back with a few papers that were all shades of blue, not what I was expecting. I continued to scroll down the results and finally saw my paper. However, it was labeled Vintage Orchard. That’s not right, I thought, it must be a mistake. But as I continued to find this particular paper every site that sold it was calling it Vintage Orchard. What?
I looked at the page I had completed in my art journal, where I had cut the word from the paper packaging. Remember? It was the word Vintage (as seen in the photo above). I turned the package of paper over to look at the labeling on the back, and there it was large as life, Vintage Orchard Collection.
It was like a Mandela Effect moment in real time. What happened to my Winter Orchard that had so intrigued and inspired me? How is it possible that I misidentified the paper's name, even when working with the actual wording of the package? Even with all that, I continued to read the word vintage as winter.
When I saw the hellebores, a winter flower, the muted colors, the pears and apples, and winter fruits, it triggered the idea of winter, and the concept of an orchard in winter was so appealing; that’s what I saw.
I often learn lessons from creating art. They usually touch on emotions, memories, beliefs, meaning, personal insights, the potent wisdom of symbols found in myth and story, and other mythopoetic themes that bring a deeper understanding of spiritual, religious, and esoteric concepts, especially if that is my intention. In other art journals, I’m exploring what I love visually and how my personal aesthetics are evolving. This, however, was a lesson of another kind.
I discovered that we often see what we want to see. What we assume takes over. What we think is there because it affirms what we desire to the true overshadows the reality of what is really there. I can look at something right before me and see something entirely different. I learned that I can completely ignore what is factually accurate and continue on in a comfortable delusion.
This makes me wonder how often we are convinced that something, someone, or some idea is bad, good, or true. If it jives with what we want to be true, correct, good, or bad, we delude ourselves that it is, even when evidence to the contrary is right before our eyes. What would it take to shake us out of our entrenched thinking and allow us to see things as they really are?
My own human flaw in this regard was on clear display. In this instance, misidentifying the name of a paper collection turned out to be a boon that fueled a very creative endeavor. But in what other circumstances might this confirmation bias hinder me from understanding the true nature of someone or something?
What an important reminder to be willing to research, to check again, and to have the willingness and the courage to see people, ideas, and things as they are instead of how we subjectively (and often emotionally) want them to be.
It’s surprising how life lessons find their way to us and challenge us to be more real, clearer thinkers, and more in touch with things as they are.
The paper collection is, in fact, the Vintage Orchard Collection, not the Winter Orchard Collection, however much that idea intrigues and appeals to me. I am thankful that I misidentified it because it inspired me. However, if I want to purchase more of this paper, I’m going to have to call it by its actual name. Coming to grips with reality is necessary. But here’s the most satisfying part: the art journal I am making is my own creation, and therefore, I’m going to continue to call it the Winter Orchard Journal! I consider this a have your cake and eat it too situation, with the bonus of an important reminder thrown in for good measure.
May we always be courageous enough to remember that sometimes what we want to be accurate, what we have been told is true, and even what we believe is true doesn’t align with reality. Facing those moments is hard but very necessary for our personal growth and our ability to live in a complex and imperfect world.
The comments section is a safe and welcoming space to share your insights and experiences.
Comments and conversation are always appreciated and enjoyed, so feel free to let your voice be heard. I read them all and try to respond to each one.
Thank you for reading Hedge Mystic and participating in this vibrant and growing community of creative, spiritual humans. You are always welcome here, appreciated, and loved.
Hedge Mystic is a reader-supported publication based on a value-for-value premise. If you find value in Hedge Mystic, support my work and consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Your involvement and financial support are deeply appreciated. Thank you.
Wonderful story, Jan. I've had similar experiences in the past both with myself and friends--one of whom was so certain that a Vanilla Oatmilk Latte at our favorite coffee shop was called an "Oatley," (even though it was not), I began to doubt my perception.
Apply that to perceptions of people and it can be very dangerous. In fact, I have watched shunning take place as a result of a single person's influential perception as the agreed-upon "truth."
Great damage was done by these adults--who were not teenagers, looking for acceptance, identity and belonging.
It is an immature human-social disconnect that we project into familial-ism, racism, nationalism, corporatism, among so many other identity boxes.
I'd like get to the root of this!