"I believe in the Creative Process", Alice said. "The Creative Process is: a force under which I have to subsume myself, a maelstrom that I have to give in to. An ocean wave to drown me if I do not obey its rule.

If I do not give in, I will be scattered, lost, non-existent. I become nothingness. If I do not subsume myself under the process, it will swallow me. Push me to the ground, deep, deep into the blackness of heavy sands billowing at the bottom of the sea until I become one with blackness, a black hole without ending. The Creative Process is a heavy ruler. As much as I would love to tell you that I create from pure joy – I create from pure necessity.

But does a mother give birth from pure joy?

If, however, I do succumb to the Creative Process, if I give in, if I let it wash into me, in me, with me, carry me away, suck me in, be, exist in me – I become its host; you, the process, are a parasite, a symbiotic parasite: You make me feel, breathe, be, live. If I succumb to you, I become myself, I am everything, I am alive, I am here, I am now, I am defined, I have contours, I flow; I am – the matter-realisation of possibilities, solving the paradox of flowing and having form at the same time, of presence and time passing, of eternity and death. I am alive, a life which will always be and has always been; and [alles] is, in this moment, it is; it is life itself that I feel, I am – alive.

If, however, IF I DO NOT SUCCUMB TO THE PROCESS, I am –

no me

nothingness

Dear Creative Process. I honour you. You show me the way. You guide me. I have no power over you and you have all power over me. I fear you. I am impotent without you, impotent towards you, and impotent against you. If I do not obey: You punish me with the most cruel sentence of all of the sentences: You put me in the grey zone of nothingness. The zone without colours. Emptiness. End. An end that is not even an ending, no process at all, anymore, ever, again, never. It is the end through nothingness.

Dear Creative Process. You have all the power over me and I love you and I hate your power over me because you want my everything. You want my all. You want my Alles. But my name is Alice, and which part of me might even hate you, if you bring me into existence, after all?

In return, you gift me with the same and more. With life itself. It is this the reason why I honour and love you so much, and it is this the golden thread that I hold on to guide me, the golden frame you provide, that I will always and have to return to, be in, live in, create in. You remind me daily, by the hour, by the minute, by the second, wrenching, hauling, tearing me, with force, with intransigence. And if I do not flow with you, you swallow me up and crush me. This is why I must respect you. And I do. I love you."

I created Alice's smallest following the Creative Process and trusting him. I poured a favourite amalgamation of colours onto mirror and glass splinters and let it flow.