Values

With an election looming it's hard not to think about values.  We are bombarded by ads which presume an emotional connection to our values that will override our commonsense and analytical processes.  Reading the news, scrolling through the Facebook feed, listening to the radio,  I hear many kneejerk reactions that reveal an underlying assumption: that we should expect to see our Values reflected in the world around us.  And when we don't we should be outraged, and look for someone to blame.

This leads me to wonder... how many of us actually live a life according to those values?  And how many sculpt our values to fit nicely into our life?  And what do we do when they (our values and our lives)  change?
When I was young I valued idealism.  Often my idealism prevented my from listening.  Life lessons have revealed a destructive side to that value. While Martin Luther King was idealistic, so was Adolf Hitler. (I can only hope it is obvious to the reader that one accomplished constructive change and the other didn't)  It is our human qualities, lessons and actions that take idealism on a path to constructive or destructive ends.

When I was young, the dramatic contrasts defined my values.  As I age, varying shades of gray color not only my hair but also my perceptions of the world.

The Grays:
Acceptance
Bill Withers, in the documentary "Still Bill" said this (more or less, I am quoting from memory) "What I hope for before I die is to accept everything"  His wisdom, and his beautiful music, takes my breath away

Love
Yes, love.  Not the Romantic kind we fall for in the movies, but the simple, uneventful love that grows with daily care.

Responsibility
What I have struggled with so much on my forties... taking responsibility for your own life and resisting the urge to judge or blame.  It's work, but I think it is the only way to grow.  Every action we take not only defines us, it sculpts us into who we will be tomorrow.

 

Patience
Real change happens, but it's so slow we often don't notice it.  So we complain, give up and excuse ourselves.  Along with responsibility, this one has been the biggest lesson of my forties. Patience truly is a virtue, and by taking a breath and letting things unfold we can learn to treat our lives, and the world, with a more careful touch.

Boundaries
This one was a challenge for me.  I try to be nice to everyone and I aim to please.  In learning to assert my own personal boundaries I have also learned to respect others.  A greater sense of self is not equivalent to selfishness, but rather strength and real confidence.

Which leads me to the Center of the gray scale....
Trust (also known as faith)
Learning to accept and take responsibility for my life has given me a greater love, for myself and the people in my life, and patience, when we all don't live up to my ideals.

What's in a Hand?

Lately I've been pushing myself to focus.  I love to paint, of that I am sure.  But in the process of establishing a career for myself as an artist I have to also think practically,  and focusing both the style and the content of my work is necessary.

What I love most about the creative process is starting with the unknown.

As I work through the process of finding a focus to my work in this moment I have several things to think about: materials, markmaking and style, palette and content.  The problem with my love for image making is that I love creating in many styles, many palettes and a full range of materials.  Content, for me, is an easier place to start.

Certain symbols show up over and over again.  I have spent years depicting hands.

I know I can count on nature,  animals, plants, and human figures (in particular eyes, hearts and HANDS) to provide me with plenty of symbolic meaning.  So much so that each one deserves its own thesis.  Let's take Hands....

If a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush... what about a soul?

I can't take any credit here.  The hand is one of the most commonly symbolized parts of the human body.  According to Aristotle, the hand is the "tool of tools.  It can communicate more concisely and definitely more universally than our voice ever could.   Throughout the world hands hold meanings, both specific and general:  Hamsa hand, Milagro hand, Helping hand, Hand of power, Eye in Hand... a more universal and powerful symbol is hard to find.

Hands heal, they also carry, point, grip, release, shelter, wave, gesture and punch.  They can offer assistance and they can do great damage.  In my own musings over humanity and the natural world I often see the hand as a symbol of technology, the human impact on the natural world.  It is a part of nature that has severed itself from its source.  What good is a hand is severed from its body?  What good are we when severed from nature?  These questions present themselves as I work, and I work to understand the answers.

By working with a symbol over and over again I develop my own personal encyclopedia of meanings.

Despite its frequent use in art and culture, I choose the human hand as an important symbol in my work.  I know I will return to it again and again and it will continue to evolve in my visual vocabulary, because I now have a very personal relationship with the symbol and its meaning.  

What's in a hand?  A Universe of meaning.

All paintings and painted stones are available at Dawn Patel Art on etsy.  Prints and printed merchandise available at Dawn Patel Art on Society6.

A year of (not) doing yoga

The longer version of this title is "What I have learned from my year of not doing yoga."  I'm not encouraging anyone to give up their yoga practice.  Read on...

Stretch your body and you stretch your mind.  As Without, so Within.

Two winters ago I had a daily yoga practice.  The stars had aligned, and I found a studio I felt so at home in I HAD to drag myself, through snow, ice and bleary eyed mornings, to an hour and a half of daily practice.  It started out a little forced; it ended up being my daily bliss.

During that winter of practice I experienced profound changes, as many do.  In a nutshell,  I moved beyond the physical benefits of a daily yoga practice into the place where I began to change within.   The most radical change was the experience of witnessing my thoughts without judging them.  I witnessed my body struggle awkwardly into poses, (and sometimes stumble)  without being hard on myself for falling short. I learned I could do the same with my thoughts.  When we judge ourselves we naturally turn around and judge others.  In other words if you are harshly judging others (a stranger on the street, a politician, a movie star.. judgement is judgement)  you'd better be sure you are doing it to yourself.  And neither is necessary.  Let it go, and just be.  You'll have so much more energy to apply to your poses, balance to keep you centered, and calm to stay with it.  This is what yoga teaches you about life.

When I was practicing yoga daily I had the opportunity to witness my thoughts passing, and slowly, through trial and error, learn to see them without judgement.  Learning to hold a thought before me and see it objectively, not excusing, explaining,  nor condemning, was an incredible revelation.  I had never considered the possibility of such calm in the face of the storm of my irrational, judgmental, and very busy mind.

Once you see your thought and DON'T judge it, you CAN let it go.

Then life got in the way.  I moved, I started working ALL the time and slowly my yoga practice went from daily to weekly to sporadic... and lately, rare.  I've been kicking myself about it a bit.  I miss the physical benefits.  I plot and plan to start again.

Recently, while struggling with my issues of the day, I witnessed my mind move through judgement of others to reflection of self to release in a relatively short time.
I was having a bad day in the city.  I'm not really a city person, I love my life in the woods where I can turn to the beauty of nature for solace at the drop of a hat.  But recently I have been called to the city and have been living in Chicago.  A few weeks ago I woke up in a sour mood and headed out to do some errands.  Everyone I looked at I judged.  I was irritated with people the minute I set eyes upon them.  It wasn't my shining moment of lovingkindness.  But something happened that turned eveything around.  I listened to my thoughts and I neither believed them, nor judged them.   Suddenly I realized I've been doing this all along.  I'm the same person I was before a year of practicing yoga, I can have the negative thoughts, I judge people, and I can be very hard on myself.  But I let it go.  It's an ongoing practice, and I learned it during yoga.

Looking at thoughts as something outside of yourself can lead to startling change.

One important lesson on the mat is to be where you are.  Yoga isn't about striving to reach a pose that someone else can do, it's doing a pose the way you are able to.  You take it to the edge of your capabilities, and maybe tomorrow you'll go further.  Or maybe you'll have a set back.  And then you'll be there.  Applying these lessons to my life has carried the practice further, even though the number of times I've unrolled my yoga mat this year is, well... let's just say I wouldn't lose count.  Maybe the time is coming when I start it up again.  Maybe...

And now... applying these lessons to the struggles this new chapter in my life, as a working artist.

***All of the artwork in this post is for sale as miniature originals, beginning at $18, in my etsy shop

Mid life crisis?

It's been so long since I've last written a blog post, I was beginning to doubt the future of this venture.  I've been busy living life, and with all the activity and changes that this summer brought to my life, blogging was not on my mind.  But the days are getting shorter and the chilly winds of fall are beginning to remind me of those long nights of reflection....

Last winter... Community, Courage and Nature were on my mind.

Changes.  This whole mid life thing isn't bad at all, so if you're a younger woman (or man) reading this let me tell you;  there are many advantages to this stage of life when the pressures and expectations of the world seem to drop.  You can feel invisible and unwanted, if you choose to look at it through Society's blinders.  Or... you can finally step out of that cage that has been built through the Cultural  gaze and define and OWN your life.  Is this possible when you're younger?  I think it can be done to a point, but none of us are completely free from the world we live in, for better or worse.  Each stage of life has its own strengths and obstacles to be overcome.  Enjoy where you're at now... and know that it can just keep getting better.

The story can be told from the point of view of Ulysses, or the point of view of the Sirens

So yes, this means even now, in this period of freedom, none of us are completely free.  Our baggage, our personal history and the structures of culture we live within always, to some degree, will mold us and influence our thoughts, behavior and very being.  

We are the hands, we are the masks and we are the tangled webs

More to come...

Aftermath of Speaking Out: What Breaks Us, What Puts Us Back Together.

With every new painting I essentially say the same thing, "I Am Here."

This blog has become a public platform for some very personal topics.  I am driven by the belief that our most personal stories are in fact the most universal.  Everyone has their own way of making peace with life.  And that peace brings us closer to our truth. In truth we have no grand illusion to blind us from the incomprehensible mysteries of life. In peace we have no outside pressure to cause us to fool ourselves.  In my life I have found that true peace can only come from my own individual search and the lessons I learn, which come from a life of searching.

In the process of I confronting my past and facing the fears that had held me prisoner,
I revisited old letters, journals, and now I am revisiting another older painting.

Those of you who have been following my blog already know that a little over a month ago I wrote about my experience of domestic abuse, and the years of harassment that followed.  I was driven by a need for freedom, and I knew by speaking out about my personal experience I would be opening Pandora's box, in a sense.  I had no idea how it would all unfold.  What I was doing was opening a dam that had been holding back my own flow for far too long.  I felt strong enough to ride the tide and let it take me where it would.  A deep and hard earned appreciation for the logic of intuition in this life, a trust in life itself, was the only faith I had to go on.  I can tie these things in to my paintings, because it is often and sometimes only through painting that I understand my deepest feelings and thoughts.

The month that followed that post was tough.  I ended up filing a harassment/stalking restraining order and a few days ago, I won that in a hearing in a local courtroom.  The order is for four years and it doesn't guarantee my complete safety, but it secures my freedom to express myself in my own blog and other public forums without being harassed, frightened or bullied.  The fight for those rights meant going to court where I could legally and safely stand up for myself.  It was an essential step in the process of putting my pieces back together after being broken apart so many years ago.

Sometimes the events of our lives fracture us.  In my case, I had split into two, and each half co-existed.
A sense of detachment, a shadow self, prevented my connected self from fully participating.  

Healing, as I now understand it to be, is not a return to what we were before.  We cannot stay in one place and we cannot go back.  What we move into is our choice, but so often we go through life unaware and half asleep.  We make excuses, we blame, we escape into distractions.  Being fully awake means to acknowledge all the sides of ourselves, even those that have been neglected, disavowed and overlooked in the struggle to keep up, move on and live life in the world as we know it.

When the reality of my own life became too painful to face, I escaped.  This does not mean I became bipolar.  I chose, not knowing it was a choice, to sometimes not "be here" while going through life.  It can best be seen as stepping back, letting life unfold but being somewhere else in your mind.  So many of us, the childhood dreamers, know what I mean by this.  My mental escape became more extreme, and a convenient hiding place when unwelcome emotions surfaced.  Fear, anger, anxiety, sadness... they were unwelcome.  What happens when you push these away is that their counterparts, joy, love, peace and bliss also move into a murky space where thay are inaccesessable.  Because the pain of the loss of my son drove part of my self into a private and safe place, the other parts of my life missed knowing all of me.  I can feel regret, for how long it took to see what had happened, but regret is a backwards road full of pitfalls.  This is life, it is messy.  It is a series of questions that just lead to more questions.  But it can be entered into everyday with open eyes and a recepetive heart.  That is the truth of life I had missed by escaping.  

In the past four years I have become increasingly withdrawn from the relationships in my life as I entered
into a "cocoon" phase.  This was a necessary step towards understanding my own boundaries
and gaining the self reliance and acceptance to assert these boundaries.

What I now understand as the "cocoon" phase, a time of intense introspection and hermetic isolation, has been a wonderful experience for me.  It required many hours at the easel.  Although I had to pull away from the world in order to access my subconscious and begin the healing process, my family and most friends have understood and given me the space and freedom required to turn inward.  There I found the strength I needed to see my own life with open eyes.  The confidence I gained from these recent years has been exactly what I needed to recognize what a violation the harassment and stalking have been.  The courage I had gained made it possible to assert my rights without further fear of retaliation.  I know I have to live my entire life knowing safety is not a guarantee, this person who violated me may at anytime act out of anger.  I have prepared myself for this possibility, and a big lesson for me was that 90% of that preparation is mental.  Our minds can be our strength or our weakness.  It takes a strong heart and a disciplined mind to face a dangerous world.

As I paint this autobiographical painting that I started three years ago, I give form to all of these abstract ideas.  The gestation of my heart in it's cocoon phase, the splitting apart with two significant events, the birth of a child and the death of another.  The incubation of a self-realized identity that arises from the wounds and divisions caused by violence.  The images all arise, situate themselves in the context of a human figure, and I organize them.  I highlight some while glazing over others.  I reflect on their existence.  I acknowledge their purpose in my life.  A swan symbolizes the unseen world, the parts of life where intuition and trust are needed most.  A pair of eyes peering out from my brain, the self reflection and honesty needed to repair.  A grieving mother, a watchful mother, and a hand with a weapon.  A victim, a protector, a survivor.  A heart, a mind, a past and a future.  All the pieces that are put back together, a familiar but transformed and unified version of self.  

Being awake inside of oneself is the now the only option.  It is a the key that unlocks the cage,
the prison so many of us live in.  A cage with a key that has always been there.

 With every new painting I essentially say the same thing, "I Am Here."  It seems an odd thing to do.  I wonder if it's really what we are all doing, all of the time, and I have just found the way that works for me.  I don't feel a great sense of belonging to any particular group, religion, race, social caste or political organization.  As I grow older the purpose for my own existence becomes something that only I can unlock and live.  More social people might think it seems lonely.  But I'm not lonely or unfulfilled.  Those who seek validation in fame or riches would be disappointed.  I have a roof over my head and I eat three healthy meals a day.  I paint, I live my life and I face each problem that presents itself when I'm ready.  It feels like an integration of the broken parts, and it brings me great peace.

At this point in my life the studio is my workplace, my place of therapy, my place of peace.
I am happy here and that is never something to take for granted.

Healing and Art: The Truth Will Set You Free

"The Way Home"          Finished Painting

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.  Life certainly gets interesting when you are truthful with yourself.   Somewhere, deep inside our subconscious, where no one else can give you directions, where no teacher dictates right from wrong, where no dogma, definitions and simple answers can exist, there we can find the truth.

I began a strange and very interesting journey this month when I decided to write about my painting, "The Escape" in a post titled "Victim no More, Silent no More." (03/10)  Circumstances beyond my control compelled me to write about my own experience of domestic abuse and the therapeutic way it appeared in my art, revealing to me my suppressed emotions and memories.  Writing about the painting, I exposed myself to public scrutiny with my own issues, many of which have been subjects of pain, shame and fear.  I could not have foreseen the encouragement and insight that would bless my life as a result of the simple act of telling my story.

A close up from "The Escape"    There is a struggle and conflict in my heart and my mind, as I give away my power.

In the original painting, I appear in several forms.  One of these is a dog.  I allowed myself to be treated like one.  This is how it feels when you have lived through an abusive relationship.  And so many of us stay, like a dog that returns to an owner who beats it.  It is a dehumanizing experience, and looking at it as a part of my own personal history filled me with shame.  I think of myself as a strong woman.  Because I had memories of allowing myself to be treated in this way, there has been a fundamental disconnect in my own definition of self.  It lead to a certain lack of honesty in everything I did.  It split my self image into two parts, the one I cognized and the one I suppressed.  In the original painting I am the dog, but I am also a bird fighting the dog.  The figure who represents my abuser has his fingers in my head.  The suppressed self image remains in this passive dog-state without power and without a real form.  It is skeletal.

In reworking the painting the fingers get pushed out of the dog's brain and the dog and bird metamorphose into a new creature.  This new image of self is not perfect, but whole and united, with yet to be realized powers.

When I approached this part of the painting and saw what I was denying to myself, I started to remember parts of my life I had pushed aside and buried for so long.  Some were horrific acts of physical and sexual violence.  Others were moments of shame, when I supported my abuser and his actions with my silence.  When I met him I was 20 years old, and I was a naive and idealistic young woman who was in a state of constant rebellion from the world I was raised in.  I grew up with privilege, but I knew the world was unjust and was unable to accept it.  I spend so much of my teenage years battling my father and anyone who considered themselves a realist.  In my mind accepting the world as it is, unequal and unfair, was nothing short of treason to a higher sense of justice.  My youthful idealism met many obstacles head on, and an undeniable one was the injustice of my own middle class childhood in a world where many have so little.  My childhood starkly contrasted the world of poverty and violence my abuser came from.  His pain pulled at my guilt as much as his violence transformed my innocence.  That was the initial dynamic.  He showered me with praise and adoration, while reminding me of my shame: my birthplace in an unjust world.  When his behavior shifted from "sweeping me off my feet" into violence, rage and blame, I was left mute and paralyzed, like the dog on its back in my painting.  I was dependent on his affection as the only redemption for my guilt.  If I left him I only proved him right, life was easy for me and hard for him.  I did just that and I never found a way to address that fundamental conflict in my mind and heart.  How quickly and easily I went from rebellious teen to submissive victim, never leaving either completely healed.  It has been a truth of myself I refused to admit.  It has been the suppressed spilt.  I couldn't bear to see myself with that kind of unflinching honesty.

Facing my fears means facing shame, regret, and things I haven't wanted to believe about yourself.
It has made it possible to transform.  The transformation helps me feel courageous, powerful and honest.
I am becoming a person my idealistic teen self would have looked up to.

Since I started writing about this experience I have received vicious backlash from my abuser, I have been able to finally get a temporary restraining order signed and served, I have found inner strengths I didn't know I was missing, and I have been reminded, over and over, that I am not alone.  I have been added to a directory of healing artists, been highlighted in the local paper's e-newsletter and been asked for permission to share my stories with social workers and their clients.  I have sometimes stayed home, too tired and confused to face the world.  I have established healthy boundaries in all areas of my life.  My paintings have reached a deeper and more dynamic level, acknowledging the dualities of dark and light without judgement.  I have found a voice within me I didn't know could be so raw and honest.   I am moving beyond the classifications of abuser and abused.  We are all victims until we heal our own internal divides.  Only then can we understand healing in the world outside of us. 

I have never mentioned the name of my abuser and I never plan to on this blog or any public forum.  And yet he has revealed himself.  I was unable to get papers served by the police, but he showed up to confront me and was surprised by a Sheriff with papers.  The ironic and fateful way my story keeps unfolding as I do nothing but tell it with candor has given me a new faith in justice and fairness.  I do not accept injustice, but I am waking up to the realization of the divide, that creates it.  I can live without hidden shame and suppressed pain.  I can be my best, and that is what we owe to life, and to the world.

Victim no More, Silent no More. The Healing Power of Art.

The Escape

This is the story of the birth of a painting, but it is much more.  It is the story of life events that nearly destroyed me.  I was not destroyed, but these events followed me.  I moved from place to place, but they were never far behind.  I tried therapy, but they returned in the night.  I grew strong and confident, but they lingered in the corners of my world waiting for a weak moment to pounce.  I built a life for myself, but they built a wall around that life, keeping my fears in and real intimacy out.  This is the story of domestic abuse, abuse from an intimate partner. One of the most insidious and terrifying forms of violence, it is one of the most common.  And it is a story of a painting that has been my way of breaking down my walls, the real and the imagined.  
Two years ago, almost to the day, I awoke with my pillow soaked with tears.  I was still weeping as I awoke and recalled the dream.  I was at a party, a farewell party for a young man at work.  He was loved by everyone there, so when he announced he was leaving we begged him to stay.  He insisted on leaving, so we decided to throw a farewell party as big as our love for him.
At the party we drank and sang, and danced to live music under the stars.  Each person had a dance with the young man, and I was the last.  When I danced with him I held him so tightly, and I wept a river of tears.  I felt like I would not be able to let go.  Finally he held me back at arms length, so he could look into my face and tell me that it was all OK; he loved me and I had to let him go.
When I woke up I knew the young man was my son, who had died in my womb 22 years earlier, after I was beaten with the handle of a hobby horse.  I was beaten with repeated blows to the back, until the heavy wooden pole actually shattered into several pieces.  During the beating I twisted and turned, exposing my back in an attempt to protect my 6 month pregnant abdomen and the baby inside.  A month later I delivered a fetus that had been dead for over three weeks due to causes not completely known, but assumed to be strangulation by the umbilical cord.  This has always been my dark night of the soul.  And I am bringing it into the light.

I would like to say this was an isolated event, but it wasn't.  I was 22 years old, in the final month of a relationship that had lasted 2 years.  I was soon to run away and find safety in a women's shelter. Slowly I began to put myself back together in a life of my own, but at that time I was the shell of a person.  A person who had become a captive in a prison with no concrete walls, but rather walls of fear and manipulation. To this day, I cannot understand or even fathom the undeniable strength of those walls, made of blocks that were harder to shatter than concrete itself.  
Some people may believe that when an abused women leaves the abusive relationship the torment is over.  Yes, the worst of it is.  My own experience of leaving this relationship was in many ways a second chance at life.  I had escaped the brutal world I was trapped in.  I had a one year old baby girl who kept me going.  I had camaraderie in the women's shelter, where I was given the love and attention I had so missed in the years of isolation and abuse.  I eventually reconnected with my parents and my two brothers, and, with the support of my family, I began the long road of recovery at the age of 22.  But one reason so many women stay in abusive circumstances is because they believe the threats.  Most threats end with a promise: if they leave the brutality will be even worse.  It is not words that make the threats real, it is bloody noses, black eyes, and worse.  It is the monstrous way a sadistic person can weave lies through the brain of his victim.  I believed I would be hunted down, and possibly killed.  I believed this for so long, that even when my rational mind had worked through the unlikelihood of such an outcome, every cell in my body seemed to still believe it.  It didn't help that in the many years since I left, my abuser has continued to try to connect with me, sometimes with a twisted gesture of friendship and sometimes with condemnation and demands, but always uninvited, unanswered and unwanted. 

I awoke from the dream two years ago, almost 24 years after the day I entered the women's shelter.  I awoke weeping.  I had said goodbye to my son. Still in my pajamas, I walked downstairs and picked up a painting I had begun a few days before; it was one that had baffled me.  I put the painting down on the kitchen table and picked up a paintbrush.  I knew exactly what I needed to do. 

This is what the painting looked like it when I started painting that morning in my pajamas

When I paint a large painting I usually go through a stage of confusion, when I'm baffled or bewildered by the marks I have put down. This is not unusual.  What, if anything, was unusual about this painting was how angry I had felt while working on it.  At best I am usually challenged and inspired by this stage, at worst I am irritated.  I recognize the feeling and I know it's temporary.  This painting actually made me mad.  But that morning all the anger was washed away and I was mourning.  Suddenly I felt like I understood something very profound about the events of my life, and it was all symbolically taking form in this painting.  

I started "The Escape" as I do many of my paintings on boards, with collaged images.  I glued a print of mine with a dog and bird in ambiguous conflict, pages from the New York Times and pages from Tolstoy.  I thought I was painting about ideas, as I often do.  But the images that kept appearing were too personal for me to connect to the social and political content of the collaged scraps.  A figure appeared, looking suspiciously like my abusive partner from 24 years earlier.  He reached out long fingers that shot right through the head of the upside-down  dog.  A mask that looked like a demon from a dream looked over it all and a Thunderbird appeared that seemed to be flying off the page.  I say "appear" because at this stage in the painting I am not painting with any premeditated brushstrokes, I paint without forethought.  I am as surprised by what comes off the brush as any bystander would be, often more so. 

A close up of what happened that morning

I painted all morning and well into the day, without eating or getting dressed or even cleaning up.  There was a force driving me that surpassed any other needs, and it was the force of healing.  When I painted this piece I truly understood the transcendental healing power of art.  Pi is a transcendental number.  It is real, but not algebraic.  It does not have rational roots. If you try too hard to make rational sense of it all, it disappears, like the memory of a dream.  When I painted the section that most pained me, the one where my abuser stuck his fingers into my head, comforting images appeared to soothe me.  My daughter and my son were soon part of a vortex of circular movement that emanated from the source of my pain.  I saw the good with the bad, healing as an outgrowth of suffering.  One cannot exist without the other.  If you let go, it will be OK, as my son told me in my dream.

On one side, the dead infant leaves the thoughts of the abuser as a mere outline, almost a caricature.  He is in the bottom left corner of the painting, where the pain and deception of the past events weave imprisoning webs that eventually grow into a brick wall.   But the spirit of the baby boy emerges on the other side of my abuser like a rock formation, his leg turning into a wing that becomes one of the wings of my living child. My daughter is the one who was my only reason for living when, lost in the darkness of abuse, I considered suicide.  The left side and especially the bottom left corner of the painting are the beginning of the story, they are real events, but they are the past.  I will never forget the past, but I have to fly away.  

At this point I find myself in the painting.  I am flying away.  I am as far away as possible from the painful events, but my flight has also taken me away from those I love, it has taken me away from the center of the painting where my story is told.  In my desire for freedom from the fear and the pain, in my usual enthusiasm, I have gone too far.

When I realized where I was in the painting, I also realized I was connected to a pair of legs on the other side of the Thunderbird.  And holding onto the foot was a figure seated on a horse.  He has white hair.  I realized who he was and I was a little annoyed.  I can laugh now, but I was really irritated by this.  It was very difficult to let a man into my inner world, although I had attempted to have relationships in the last two decades.  I had either chosen unrealistic, unattainable partners, or I had pushed or pulled at the the men in my life, until the relationship fell apart.  No one had made it into a painting like this.  But the work I was doing at this point was exhilarating, and the white haired man on the horse was a person who gave me a lot of space, and was someone I considered trusting, something I had previously found impossible.  So eventually I was able to accept the goofy turn of events in this image.  After all, there was someone holding me back from completely flying away.  A good thing.

One thing I love about this process is that it can be so serious, intense, even frightening; yet it can be lighthearted, playful and irreverent all at the same time.  I have learned to accept all aspects.  I have learned to let go.  There was a moment, somewhere around two in the morning, more that 18 hours after I got up and started painting in my pajamas that I found myself leaning over the painting and screaming through tears, "You had no right.  You had no right to do the things you did!"  I was lucid enough to realize if anyone walked through the door at that moment they might be concerned for my sanity, but believe me, it was one of the sanest moments of my life.  It was the moment I released the rage inside of me for over two decades and with the rage went the fear, went the walls, went the prison I had been living in.  My catharsis was the result of 24 years of hard work, practice, patience, and all the stuff of life, but it came down like a crashing wall, and it took form in a work of art.

By the time I fell asleep, 20 hours after I started working that day, the painting was nearly complete.

I went to sleep that night as the sun was rising.  I had ended the day laughing through the tears, a day that began crying into my pillow.  There were finishing touches to be done.  There were parts of the painting I still did not understand.  There are still many walls around my heart to be torn down.  I could not know, that night two years ago, the profound effect that day's work would have on my life.  The therapeutic value in art for me is the potential for understanding, control, and release, all through the language of painting.  

Two years later I am revisiting this work.   I am actually making a printed canvas to save it in this stage, and I am taking it back to the easel, realizing now that I am armed with the truth and the absence of fear and shame.  With these tools I can see areas of the painting that are clearly unfinished, and I now feel ready to complete.

Releasing the past through creative work has proven to have a key role in my ongoing growth, most importantly releasing my fears.  What I dealt with in these past 26 years has been the stalking and attempts at communication from my abuser.  I had a very difficult time shaking the fear and damage that resulted from extreme abuse, and the inconsistent, incomprehensible nature of his attempts to insinuate himself into my life have never ended.  But years went by, and I am stronger.  I have armed myself with protection, material and emotional. My paintings, which over the years have become a diary of healing, help me feel less controlled by the past, and therefore, less threatened.  I can honestly say I am no longer afraid, but I am still not free from the unwanted attention from a past I have let go of - a man who has relinquished all rights to be in my world through his own actions 26 years ago.  I have realized that nothing I do or say would define this boundary more than the truth.  The most empowering aspect of my artistic process in this piece has been the courage to tell my story.  The truth, it is said, will set you free.  And now that I no longer feel the need to run away, I am claiming the right to be free.

Believe in your dreams

 Today is the day I have decided to believe in my own dreams the way I have encouraged others to believe in their own dreams.  As long as I can remember I have had one consistent dream, one consistent love and one consistent passion.  Art.  And yet...at the age of 48 I have done EVERYTHING ELSE but pursue my life as an artist with all of my energy, confidence and hard work.  Don't get me wrong, I have never stopped MAKING ART.  I have been drawing, painting, collaging and constructing images almost every day of my life, while waitressing, teaching, owning my own retail store, parenting, traveling, drifting, dreaming and sleeping through life. 

For the past week I have been visiting with my amazing daughter. Yesterday we got to talking about my business plans for the upcoming year.  I starting throwing out all my ideas, various plans of consignment galleries, workshops, even part time jobs.  In short my fear based plans stemming from the deeply embedded data in my brain spelling out: YOU CAN'T MAKE A LIVING FROM YOUR ART.  I have opened and closed two successful retail stores, worked as a barista, waitress, bartender, teacher, social worker.  I have two etsy shops, one for vintage and one for up-cycled clothing.  I have trademarked brand names and been the subject of newspaper and magazine articles.  And meanwhile I run home at the end of the day and sketch in my sketchbook or paint at my easel... usually giving away the products of the late night endeavors to friends and family.

In the middle of this conversation that began like so many other my dear daughter Candance says, "When are you going to start putting all your effort into yourself?"  The question stopped me short.  Being an independent woman making my own living (often through self employment) I thought I was, but after being asked the pointed question I thought about it... I worked hard for everyone, my landlord, my employees, my vendors, my consignment artists.  Not that these people aren't very important, but I was at the end of the list, and often, because of lack of time and energy, I fell off the list altogether!

So that's it.  No more excuses.  I am starting today.  This blog is dedicated to a new beginning, a new life.  The one where I believe in myself wholeheartedly.  Where I live my dreams without fear and follow the words of advice I preach to so many others, "To thine own self be true."  I will be sharing everything here, my thoughts, progress, past work, future dreams and even my mistakes.