2. Turning my pain into art and learning to love, express, and accept myself in the process : stressLess-life

Turning my pain into art and learning to love, express, and accept myself in the process

First, thank you for reading my words.

Growing up I would spend weeks at a time sketching dozens and dozens of architectural floorplans of imaginary homes (that I secretly wanted to live in lol). Fantasy worlds were my escape and self-soothing technique from the pressures, demands, and chaos of my immediate family and larger external world.

Everything outside was intense and no one was helping me navigate it, but the worlds on paper were a relief, an unburdening where I could be free and feel at home. By the time I was a teenager, I had moved on to painting on canvas (still alone in my room). I took an art class senior year and the teacher asked if she could show my work to the class. What an honor! That Friday she was holding up students' work and rating them. She got to me and gave it a 1, the lowest score, and said, "This is an example of someone who would never be accepted to an art school." That crushed me so I gave up art for years. To make matters worse, my dad was prone to fits of rage and would throw out my paintings or supplies as punishment.

My adult life has been a series of survival jobs until the pandemic which snatched the only stable role I had, along with my housing and what little savings was available. I started painting again to both process the emotional turmoil and feel a sense of calm and control as the external world collapsed. The paintings you see are some of what have come to my consciousness since then.

"Being an artist" wasn't the plan for my adult life, especially when I finally got a real corporate job that wasn't a lot in the bank, but offered structure and community. That ended last year when 700 of us were laid off, but at least this time I had the art; so, I got to work painting and turned the paintings into prints once I gathered the self-love to believe I could figure it all out. I'm still coming to terms with how my adult life is going...with the gap between how I thought life would be by now and how it actually is, but I'm loving myself through the process. Maybe you can relate?

In terms of process, I paint from the unconscious, spontaneously, without foresight into the final result or ultimate subject matter so almost all these pieces have different paintings underneath. I'lI put on music and enter flow consciousness and allow experiences and other (psychological) material to express itself from my brain, down my arms, through my fingers, and onto the canvas. A lot of water goes onto each canvas and half the time my mind thinks, "This is a mistake. This isn't going anywhere. What the heck is this even supposed to be?!" I'lI stop and let it dry and return hours or days or sometimes even weeks later to restart the process. I get frustrated easily and want to quit.

A lot of emotion/energy finds its way to the surface of my mind during the process and often a feeling of loss and nostalgic sadness comes up. This is probably because these are worlds that will never truly exist; worlds that I wish existed (maybe that I could even live in or experience at least once); worlds that offer a lot more peace and safety and meaning than the real one often does, and that discrepency, that gap between what is and what could be provokes intense feelings.

These worlds are a kind of refuge, a mental sanctuary from the confusion and exhaustion of evervday adulting. I hope you enjoy these pieces and that they bring you a moment's peace in the chaos and stress of living in "the real world." And I hope as you navigate the complexity of adulthood you continue to find joy in whatever your interests are, in whatever may not make sense to outsiders but regulates your nervous system and makes sense for you. Art does that for me. It's been my saving grace.

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