A Metaphor for Life

By Dr Clare Rayner

In this piece, Clare talks about the painstaking process of creating a batik picture. She reflects on the process as a metaphor for people living with ME who navigate uncertainty and unpredictability as they search for beauty, hope and meaning.

In my first picture for the Red Leaf Creative Collaborative (‘Reflections’), I created a red leaf ‘batiked’ on white silk. For this, I followed the traditional method of starting with a light-coloured background and then adding wax to resist colour, before gradually adding darker colours.

For my next piece, I chose to start with dark and move to light.

First, I scrumple black tissue paper to introduce texture and then glue it onto paper or card:

Then I put molten wax on those parts I want to keep black or red. For this piece, I place dark red tissue paper in the middle, to create a definite red leaf outline.

After the first waxing, I paint bleach (‘Milton’ sterilising fluid) diluted to a quarter strength onto the whole page. This magically makes the picture start to appear: the first ‘reveal’.

Here is a different picture (‘Christine and Winnie’) in its early stages:

In this picture, the bleach gives a soft sepia colour from the black. I can wax that colour if I choose to keep it.

You can probably see blobs and tears and lines in the ‘wrong’ places. But, in batik, there is no wrong. In these early stages, I never know how a picture is going to turn out, and I have learned to trust and see what happens. Unless we want to create a precise replica we have to let go of the need for a specific outcome in a picture. After all, who says it needs to be a certain way?

So, I step back and take a look. What do I see there? Is it really a mistake? Can I make something of it? In creativity there is no right or wrong. You may like it or you may not. It may please you or it may not.

I apply coloured inks. The colours mix unpredictably. The best bit of this technique is you can keep adding with colours and ‘take it down’ with bleach.

Once I have waxed or coloured everything I want to, I iron off the wax. This is the big reveal. When I remove the wax from this leaf picture, I don’t quite like what I see:

I try something else and see what happens. All is not lost. I look again to see which parts I like. I notice that the main shape and structure of the leaf is good and I wax it again. Then I take down the colour with more bleach and add a blue-green colour for contrast. I keep the black twigs at the sides to give an impression of branches.

With this one I am pleased. It looks delicate due to the tissue paper. Like a real leaf, it will fade quickly as the inks are not light-fast. But if I take a photo of the picture, the memory lasts. Delicate effect. Majestic red leaf.

Not all pictures work out; sometimes I throw them away and I have to be prepared to start again. The batik process, with its intricate layering and careful precision, offers a striking metaphor for life with ME. In batik, wax is painstakingly applied to fabric to resist dye, creating patterns that require patience, perseverance, and acceptance of imperfection. Similarly, life with ME involves navigating the unpredictable patterns of the illness. Both the batik process and life with ME demand adaptability, embracing small victories, and understanding that beauty, meaning and hope can emerge from even the most challenging, imperfect and constrained conditions.

“You are not the darkness you endured. You are the light that refused to surrender.”

John Mark Green