A blob of paint is never just a blob of paint

When artist and designer, Fiona Mansfield, thinks about the awakening of her creative self, she’s taken back to a time in her childhood when she was stuck at home with the measles.

‘I was in quarantine with a big A3 pad of paper and coloured pencils,’ she remembers fondly. ‘I filled pages and pages with goofy characters with googly eyes and the time flew by.’

Anyone familiar with the soulful and quirky characters at the heart of Innovative Resources’ card set Eating Disorders & Other Shadowy Companions won’t be surprised by this genesis, but the artist herself never dreamed of a life for her characters beyond that A3 drawing pad.

‘I never saw myself as having the skills to be an illustrator, or that my drawings would have any practical application or outside appeal,’ Fiona says. ‘It’s just something that’s always been part of my life to varying degrees.

‘When art gets squeezed out by the daily busyness of life, I feel myself shrivelling up like a neglected pot plant. It’s then I know I have to revisit my creative self and have a conversation with her.’

It was that understanding of art—as a form of connection and communication—that led Fiona to explore how art could help others deal with the challenges of life.

‘I always carried around a sketchbook and doodled what I was feeling, and usually I felt lighter and less anxious afterwards,’ she says. ‘I was fascinated by how that worked in the mind and body and decided to do post graduate studies in Art Therapy.’

After graduating, Fiona joined Arts Billabong, an organisation that worked with teenagers therapeutically in an art studio. She has since worked with young people in a range of settings, including schools and mental health organisations.

It was as an Art Therapy student that Fiona first crossed paths with Innovative Resources’ cards.

‘I first used The Bears and Strength Cards in Art Therapy classes, and then later in my sessions with young people and groups,’ she recalls. ‘Over the years I’ve used them as a student, a therapist, a client and a creative. It’s incredible how the cards grow and adapt depending on what you need from them at the time.’

Fiona’s first publishing venture with Innovative Resources was in 2010 when she wrote and illustrated Violet’s Voice, a picture book that grew from an experience happening close to home.

When her cousin’s daughter was having challenges adapting to a new educational environment, she found the resources provided by the school to be pretty ‘dry’ and unrelatable. Fiona saw the opportunity to create something more personal.

‘I made up a story about her and illustrated each sentence to make it more like a picture book that “she” was the star of,’ Fiona says. ‘She found it really helpful, so I sent a copy to Innovative Resources. It was a great surprise when they offered me a publishing contract.’

Violet’s Voice is a simple, yet powerful narrative about the many voices each of us has, how we use them in different situations, and how our different voices can affect the way we feel about ourselves and the way we communicate with others.

Jump ahead 10 years and Innovative Resources was once again knocking on Fiona’s door, this time seeking her unique illustrative style for a new card set called Eating Disorders & Other Shadowy Companions, created by social worker and art therapist, Danni McDougall.

Danni had lived experience of an eating disorder and also a strong vision for the cards. The combination of Danni’s desire to help others and Fiona’s quirky soulful illustrations (along with their shared experience of art therapy) created the characters at the heart of Eating Disorders: Bird, Ed (the eating disorder monster) and Reggie (the recovery rhino).

‘Bird surfaced one day during my Art Therapy course,’ Fiona recalls. ‘I’d cut random words from magazines, then made some marks on the page in response. I just keep adding marks until some kind of drawing happened.

‘In one of these drawings a scruffy bird appeared, and then he kept appearing and interacting in different ways with the words I’d pick. The results were often nonsense, but sometimes meaningful.’

Reggie the rhino appeared in a similar way in Fiona’s early drawings … a calming and stable presence. Ed arrived much later as a response to Danni’s initial sketches for the project.

‘She drew a monster with spiky hair and I thought it was an effective way to illustrate this uneasy companion,’ Fiona says. ‘He isn’t outwardly scary, but his blankness can often feel malevolent.’

One of the biggest challenges for Fiona at the time was, as she puts it, the limitations of her illustrative style and her experience with the subject matter.

‘There were many concepts and ideas I tried that were difficult to make work in a one-dimensional line drawing,’ she explains. ‘I worried that they wouldn’t be relatable or useful for someone experiencing an eating disorder. There was a lot of trial and error involved on my part and I was glad to have Danni and Karen [Karen Bedford was Managing Editor at the time of publications] for feedback and guidance.’

With many of the illustrations based on the spontaneous drawings from her Art Therapy course, Fiona found bringing them back to life both ‘a bit weird’ but quite wonderful.

Asking Fiona about her favourite cards from the set, it’s easy to see why Eating Disorders has the capacity to transform lives.

‘At the moment I really relate to the “what helps ease the pain” card,’ she reflects. ‘It reminds me of the watchful love my dog offers me constantly and unconditionally.

‘I also love the “what can you do to take care of yourself today” card. For me it reinforces the idea that creating something from the heart is an act of love to yourself or someone else.’

Fiona still draws and paints regularly and sees art as a therapeutic tool for herself as much as her clients. She’s currently building a body of work she affectionately calls her ‘Blah paintings’.

‘It’s just me putting paint on a surface in whatever way it happens to get there, bringing with it whatever thoughts and emotions surface,’ she says. ‘They may not pretty or even understandable, but I’ve gained a renewed appreciation for the magic of making art and how healing and cathartic it can be.

‘A blob of paint is never just a blob of paint … it sometimes knows more about us than we could ever imagine.’

by John Holton