Loaded Words
Mental Health. Sometimes those are loaded words, and they evoke different things for different people. For myself, I have struggled with it since I was a child, which I won’t delve into, other than I was, and continue to be, a very harsh critic of myself, but it has made me sensitive to our daily struggles and how we deal with them, how we process them, as well as the various dynamics we have with the people around us, and how those dynamics and energies mingle.
What I can say is that I could not have begun my art journey in a macro sense (more on that another time…) without addressing my inner struggles and how those struggles manifested physically in my world in various forms, especially in my relationships. And the final push to step into the art world, I had a spiritual journey, a long dark tea time of the soul, as some might say, truly kicking off a few years ago, and kicking me in the butt, which synthesized many of the things I had learned about myself, and which I do not yet know how to express because it is a personal one. What’s truly most important about it is that I want to share and to give and to be a space where people can feel they are seen, let go, or just get relief, and it would seem that art in its many forms would be that channel.
So, on that journey, slowly, I created a stepping stone, a little made of my healing in process, that never-ending journey, and a little made of vibrant colors provided to me via paint, pencils, and markers, and the artistic creations of others, to lift the soul and mind. And then therefore another stone, and then another. I do not yet know where the path will lead me, but if you are reading this, it happened to lead me to you. And if you stay a little while, I can show you how to make something. Or I can show you where to find art that makes your soul sing or your heart smile or speaks to you something that’s important. Or… so many ors. So the path goes on, a little more of our making, perhaps.