Finding our way - to art
Art is life—the underbelly of it, the glory. The beauty, the mess, the truth. It says what we cannot say.
Art’s subject is emotion.
Its purpose is expression. Art communicates — making art involves creative expression of what we feel — consciously and unconsciously…
We know the pathway to healing our mental health means getting in touch with our feelings. But we aren’t always interested in knowing what feelings are just below the surface of our awareness. Some of us work hard to keep those feelings at bay. Others construct lives and personas that have little resemblance to the person they are emotionally.
I have experienced this first hand. I thought as long as I kept doing everything and showing up for work every day, putting on a cheerful face, I was good. That was wrong, there were things happening in my life that were destroying me emotionally. What I needed to do was stop everything and give my body and mind time to process and recover. If you ignore your emotional needs for too long,it only gets worse. My body eventually made it so that I had to stop, stop everything.
Art has been my lifeline and my pathway to healing.
I was in a position for many months, where I couldn’t easily, or often, leave the house and so art was what I did. I did it many, many hours every day, and when I wasn’t creating art, I was thinking about art.
I painted with the trees all around me, with the sun shining down, and the sound of nature filling me up. It was the hardest time in my life and also (somehow) the most magical. I worried that my complete focus on art was not healthy (borderline obsessive?!), but my therapist assured me that it was okay. It turns out that art is a combination of many of the key things that we need when we’re recovering or suffering from mental health issues.
“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.”
The reason that art is healing is simple: It helps us get in touch with and express feelings that might otherwise remain buried or ignored. Our art can be a true expression of our emotion. Art comes out of the life we are living. We dig deep and find the experiences and feelings inside us and express them. This act of creation triggers those emotion in us and also allows us to release them.
The effectiveness of art in reducing the stress, anxiety, depression, even pain, is well documented.
Art allows us to enter a ‘flow state’, that feeling when you're in the zone and lose sense of yourself and time. Art can also help us be more present, and activate networks in our brains, like relaxed reflective state, focused attention, and pleasure. (https://acrm.org/rehabilitation-medicine/how-the-brain-is-affected-by-art/)
Spending all this time focussed on my craft has really taken my art to a new place that I am feel really good about. (Except for when imposter syndrome knocks me on my butt!) I wasn’t painting women before this in my life and I often wonder if it was because I was alone so much. Was I creating company for myself! These women started show up in the markings on my canvas. Each one is so unique, with their own energy and story to tell.
There was so much heartbreak in my life, but creating these paintings gave me joy.
I spend a lot of time with each of portrait, figuring them out and pouring some of myself into them.
I’m especially drawn to creating on large canvases because they take a lot longer to complete and I get to be in that painting, with the women and whatever energy is being brought forth, for a long time and I need that.
Through this process I am reclaiming little parts of myself, little parts of who I am. It was during this time that my creativity become a force that I can use.
Life and art are connected and creativity is a change agent. Art making is the process of becoming ourselves. The key is to find a process that feels good and just stay with it for a while and see where it takes you. Art allows us to see life from a different perspectives, it is like a special adventure or a spiritually fulfilling break from the rest of your life, from reality.
Before you know it, even if it’s just for an hour, you need it, and you want it, and you love it every day.
I pour my heartaches and heartbreaks into my art. Sharing my personal story on each canvas helps me to heal. My mixed media invented portraits are time capsules of my life at the time of creating. The portraits, the colours, the added papers, fabric and found items, they are all part of the story.
When I show my art, I am always amazed by how others react to it.
There are instant connections made, different people connection with different pieces. I have had people moved to tears when they see one of my paintings.
Having this happen is next level in bringing me joy and boosting my sense of self. My thoughts, emotions, inner spirit are poured out onto the canvas and then others see it and feel it. I cannot think of anything better than this feeling.
“When we own our stories, we avoid being trapped as characters in stories someone else is telling.”
As I heal, I am starting to share more of my story. Once a story is shared: the good ones fill me up with confidence and power; the hard and sad stories lose so much of their power over my life once they are told. It turns out that we all have these stories and once you are brave enough to share yours, you are honoured with the staring of others’ stories.
My stories are who I am and I love who I am.