Chapter 2
Discovering Art is Healing
Grandma Ella
My grandma Ella was one of my first art mentors. She moved to Florida when I was a teenager. There she eventually experienced dementia, as her own mother Margaret had as well. I spent time with her one summer and experienced the devastating affects of her illness which was very hard to process. While I was in college, she died at a great distance from me during my junior year. It was a dark sad time for me. I discovered this woodcut print I created earlier during that year and had entitled it Woman in the Dark. Perhaps it was a premonition.
Woman in the Dark woodcut print
During this time of grieving my grandmother’s death, I had a terrifying dream in the middle of the night while sleeping in my college dorm room. In the dream I was sitting in the undercroft of a church around a table with other people. We had our eyes closed as the minister was praying. Suddenly there was a celestial sound as though the heavens were opening up for us to enter. There was a feeling of great joy in the air. As I opened my eyes to join everyone I found myself alone in a deep pitch black void with no sound, sight or movement. I did not know what to do with the darkness and feeling of aloneness and abandonment.
The experience was so real that I felt sure I was left on the earth alone. I finally realized that I was sitting up in my dorm room bed in complete stillness. The next day I felt like I was in a daze and had lost touch with reality. I do not remember ever telling anyone about what happened, but the memory of complete aloneness stayed in my mind. I finally accepted that it was a dream. Perhaps what I needed to learn was that I could transform darkness into light and create beauty. Maybe I was being challenged to be the creator of my life.
My watercolor professor Robert Hild introduced the assignment of choosing to watch something that would change over time. We were asked to observe and paint it as it transformed. I chose to do a study of coconuts. After cutting up the coconut, I watched and painted while observing the process of decay. There was a beauty in the process that I was able to capture with watercolor painting. This exercise helped to prepare me for observing and painting the details of gradual transformation through decay.
Coconut Nest watercolor
During my senior year of college I was given an assignment to take a meaningful object and transform it into something new through a series of paintings. This was a different type of transformation. It opened my mind to a new level that was a creative ‘outside the box’ kind of thinking and visioning. I chose the comb my grandma Ella used to wear in her hair. I was eventually able to express my grief and love for her through this series of 8 watercolor paintings I entitled Ella’s Freedom. (see below) It was my way of healing from seeing a disease that seemed to take her personality, joy and creativity. This was my first time using art as a part of a healing process in order to bring beauty and harmony to a challenging experience. It was a process that would resurface later in my life when I was faced with other needs for healing.
As I finished up my last undergraduate semester, I created this clay and porcelain piece entitled: My Rose from the Sea. It was another transformational work of art that I have kept with me ever since and placed in a special spot in the place I call home. The shell shape has beautiful hand built porcelain roses attached to the outside like barnicles. It reminds me of the times that grandma Ella and I would collect the precious gift of shells from the ocean’s edge. I am grateful that she taught me to observe and appreciate the beauty around me.
My Rose from the Sea Clay and Porcelain
Continue to Chapter 3: The Courage to Follow My Heart