Ok...art therapy. I didn't attend a professional class although I'd love to. The lack of community resources in this area astounds me, especially for people like myself who can't afford to attend those art therapy classes that are run privately. Nevertheless, I decided to embark upon my own art-therapy journey...in my garage...complete with a 22 dollar easel and acrylic paints from 'Go-Lo'. I suppose it's important to note that I've never been trained on how to conduct such a class (is it still considered a 'class' when the teacher and the pupil are one and the same and there is no-one else to constitute a group?) but I'm a big believer in intuition and so I followed mine.
For me the most important aspect of the project was the absence of 'a plan'. I didn't want to deliberate over what I was going to paint prior to picking up the brush. To me that seemed to be beside the point. How would my soul send me a legitimate message, free of my conscious influence, if I was busy trying to interpret the message before it was sent? And so I sat down in front of the blank canvas and began to paint...I sat there for 7 hours...minus the two toilet breaks I took. The process was interesting, difficult, upsetting, frightening, and ultimately liberating. There were many times that I wanted to walk away before it was completed. I cried, I laughed (albeit with mirth full of bitterness), I sighed and I studied. I had the uncanny feeling that I was a medium, not a creator, though in hindsight I suppose I was both. I felt that the image was a component of that negative part of me, that dark place that helps to feed my panic disorder. I thought if I could trap the image in the canvas, it would equate to me being purged of some small piece of the demon. Once trapped, I would be free of it...and free to trap another. My anxiety soared to great heights, told me I couldn't accomplish the aim. I pushed through it, refusing to listen, which is no easy feat when up against such a formidable foe. I succeeded and was able to take a deep breath...an impossibility in the throes of panic. I knew then that I had finished and a small amount of pain had been siphoned from the mother-load. I believe, indeed I 'know', that if I continue to paint, things can only get better. The plan is to keep the paintings until it is time for them to be destroyed...I don't feel I will be entirely free of each memory until I am rejoicing in their death by dancing around the ash of their demise.
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